TAROK MUSICAL CULTURES: IMPLICATIONS OF CHANGE IN ITS SOCIAL STRUCTURES

Peter Dassah, Selbut Longtau

Abstract


The Tarok people constitute a very significant homeland population of Plateau State. They have a remarkable array of musical cultures and instruments, most of which are yet to be researched upon. The social structures as a fulcrum of informal learning are collapsing to the extent that it has great impact on her culture of producing musical instruments from generation to generation. The Tarok people live mainly in Langtang-North, Langtang-South, Wase, Mikang, Kanam and Kanke Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Plateau State in central Nigeria. Their main town, Langtang, is about 180 kilometres Southeast of Jos, the State Capital. Their estimated population in their core area of LangtangNorth, Langtang-South and Wase LGAs is slightly over 300,000.1The Tarok call themselves „oTárók’, their language iTárók and their land ìTàrok. Other names have been used in the literature, such as Appa, Yergam and the variants Yergum and Yergəm. Yergam is believed to be a corruption of the Tarok phrase yar i ga, „take/carry and let‟s go‟ as heard by early Hausa and Fulɓe traders. Jemkur et al. 2005 suggested that a likely etymology of the name „Tarok‟, is derivation from the nickname ‘Tallok’ „spread from Tal/immigrants from Tal‟. A further proposal is a derivation from‘Tal roktok’ „dotted about with Tal‟ (Longtau 2008).

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