This photo of a Solomon Islander blowing a conch was taken at the recent Australia Day Parade in Adelaide.The conch shell was used as a means of communication in the past. It was blown to gather the people, announce a message or to declare a festival or event open.
It was used along with drums which have different types of beating rhythms to relate messages; death, warning, harvest, tribal war, etc.
Both can be sounded together during festivals or celebrations.
You can see more of my Australia Day parade photos here on a recent post. (I thank Karley, a member of the Solomon Island Community, who supplied me the information about the conch and drum.)
The ABC Wednesday meme was initiated by Denise Nesbitt. To find out more about ABC Wednesdays and see other participants' contributions click here.
10 comments:
What marvelous captures, Gordon! Almost felt like I was there! Wonderfully colorful and what a great celebration! Thanks for sharing!
Sylvia
very interesting :)
Thank you for this beautiful photo of the Solomon Islander. He looks like a Maori. I never attended Australian Day, but I attended the N.A.I.D.O.C days together with a lot of people, the majority of them were Aborigines.Two of my grandchildren have an Aboriginal father. My daughter and he are divorced, but she is still seeing his relatives and so do I.
Thanks for your visit. Yes Cairns is far from Adelaide. I've never been in Adelaide. I was three times in Sydney for a couple of days, where friends of mine lived.
From Sydney I flew to Cairns.
This year my daughter will come to Holland for a couple of weeks. I am looking forward to seeing her and the family.
Those photos seem to be very colourful and I love the detail on both the conch and the drum. Great C!
I remember hearing about the conch once but had forgetten until now.
Very colorful photos.
Also, On behalf of the ABC team, thanks for participating.
Terrific photos and interesting info on the conch shell. I love how there is always something new to be learned on ABC Wednesday.
I heard some one blow through a conch shell once at a similar event. I was amazed at how powerful a sound it can make.
That is something I've seen in photos but never, alas, in real life.
Conch shells are so fascinating - great pictures and surely a good C choice.
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