ROCZNIKI HUMANISTYCZNE Tom LXX, zeszyt 12 – 2022 DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh227012.8 CHRISTOPHER L. BALLENGEE * FROM DHOL-TASHA TO TASSA: TRADITION AND TRANSFORMATION IN INDIAN TRINIDADIAN TASSA DRUMMING In the 1830s, as emancipation in the British Empire drew inevitably closer, planters in Britain’s plantation colonies sought an alternative to chattel slavery. After experimenting with contracted workers from various parts of the world, planters eventually settled on India as a source of cheap, available labor. Thus, from 1834 until 1917, millions of Indians, mostly from present-day Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, were carried to far-flung British territories from Oceania to Belize. Some were also transported to French, Spanish, and Dutch colonies, mostly in the Circum-Caribbean. Indians brought with them language, religious practices, family structures, foodways and creative expression, including music. This essay centers on one such musical practice, dhol-tasha, a style of North Indian folk drumming spread globally by the indenture system. I focus specifically on tassa, the dhol-tasha variant popular in Trinidad and Tobago. While maintaining obvious and measurable links with its Indian forebears, tassa has undergone significant transformations in instrument construction, repertoire and performance practice. I conclude by arguing that such innovations suggest tassa is not a mere artifact of cultural survival, but a dynamic art form grounded in a distinct Indian aesthetic yet also thoroughly Caribbean in its diasporic creativity. CHRISTOPHER L. BALLENGEE, PhD in Music History and Literature (Ethnomusicology), John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Humanities, Department of American Literature and Culture; e-mail: christopherballengee@gmail.com; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9036- 7425. Dr CHRISTOPHER L. BALLENGEE – Doktor w zakresie historii muzyki i literatury muzycznej, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, Wydział Nauk Humanistycznych, Katedra Literatury i Kultury Amerykańskiej; e-mail: christopherballengee@gmail.com; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000- 0002-9036-7425.