Tabanka

Tabanka is the community organisation as well as the festivities people see in the street. Mutual help, religious observance, shared meals, music, and procession belong together. Members support one another in circumstances such as illness, bereavement, and house-building.

This page focuses on Santiago. Tabanka also has a history on Maio; describing its importance to Badiu life does not make it exclusive to Badiu communities.

IPC’s accounts describe meetings, contributions, food preparation, decoration, and the care of instruments before a group’s feast. Drums, conch shells, singing, and ceremonial roles shape the procession. Local groups have their own calendar and ways of organising it.

Paying attention to that preparation changes what a visitor sees. A meal has cooks and contributors; an instrument has a keeper; a procession brings together responsibilities that continue beyond the day of celebration.

The Tabanka Museum moved from Assomada to Chã de Tanque in 2010. Its objects offer a way into the history of the practice, but an object’s use and meaning remain connected to the people and groups who know it.

The 2008 photograph above records the former Assomada premises. It is kept with its date so that an older photograph does not become an incorrect guide to the museum’s present location.