1995 - Myers released the first in a series of Christmas carol compilations with the sales proceeds benefiting the Salvation Army. This is the opening track on that first album and it gets me every time. Christine Anus vocals almost give me goosebumps, they are so reverently sung and achingly beautiful. I dont understand every word in the refrain aitee warupah but I think it is from Torres Strait Islander language group. I saw a show at The Dreaming Festival back in 2009 with the title Waparau Uu which was from TSI and was translated as the beating of drums. So something drum-related. In the first couple of years of this decade, Anu was featured on the genealogy show who do you think you are? where she traced back the TSI ancestry where the records existed on he mums side of the family. It emerged that her granddad (or great-grandad, Im not 100% sure) was among the first Torres Strait Islanders to take on the gospel from visiting missionaries and worked hard with them to spread the message of Jesus Christ among villages, tribes and island groups of the TSI. He saw Christianity as the answer to generational conflict - an end to the cycles of violence, revenge, rape and retribution which divided tribes living on the straits. So I dont know if she knew this back in 1995 but Me and my drum / The carol of the drum could well describe Christine Anus great-granddad. Why does this song resonate so much for me? Well, the history of the Scandinavian people who settled in Iceland was just as bloody and petty as what the tribes living in the Torres Strait inflicted on each other. Prior to 1,000 AD when they converted, my pagan Viking ancestors thought nothing of razing a neighbours farm when they themselves had a crap harvest, killing all the workers they could just to annex the land and live without hunger through the coming winter. All the awfulness of those brutal times is recorded in The Sagas, evolved from campfire stories and later written down from the 1,200s onward. Njalsaga (the Saga of Njal / Neil) also records the remarkable decision by Icelands provincial chieftains at the annual Althing assembly to peacefully convert the nation as a whole to Christianity. Anyone who wanted to practice the old ways (ásatrú) was allowed to do so without interference or penalty - behind closed doors. Pagans were tolerated so long as they did not proselytise or carry out any ceremony or ritual in the public arena. But otherwise, most of the idols which had been previously worshipped near the hearth of the living rooms in farmhouses were incinerated or hurled into the bottom of waterfalls. Im not arguing that Christianity (or any other organised denomination or faith) is perfect, however, compared to the ways society was organised before the arrival of Christs message of love and compassion, things were a lot more brutal. Ill keep bangin my drum. https://youtube/watch?v=VNqigsVzPgU
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 01:11:33 +0000