A Resource for the Study of Early Ethnographic Film
27 mins., b&w.
Source: ?
This film was made in the course of an expedition to India by George Amos Dorsey, then Curator of Anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago.
It has been described by Marcus Banks (2007:64) as probably the only substantial non-fiction film shot in India prior to 1920.
Text: Banks 2007
24 mins., b&w, some post-synchronised sounds and English voice-over.
Source: this film may be viewed here.
This is a television film based on footage that Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf shot during an expedition that he made in 1962 with this wife Elisabeth (‘Betty’) to a then-remote high altitude district of central Nepal, known as ‘Dolpo’, close to the border with Tibet. It was “presented” – i.e. the editing was overseen – by Joan Duff for the BBC series, Travellers Tales, while the series editor was Brian Branston, who worked with Haimendorf on a number of BBC television projects. An archival version of the BBC television schedule for 1965, available here, indicates that The Land of the Dolpo was broadcast in September of that year.
The voice-over commentary may now seem very dated, but this film includes some remarkable footage of the distinctive Bon Buddhist practices of the region, as well as of horse-racing at a traditional fair in the Muktinath valley. It is also of particular historical interest as it includes footage of a group of refugees recently arrived from Tibet following the imposition of Chinese direct rule.
The original rushes are also available, in rather better quality, via the Haimendorf playlist on Alan MacFarlane’s ayabaya website here. See, among possible others, films nos. 1, 60, 70, 72-74, 80-83, 86-87.
48 mins, colour, voice-over in English, with some post-synchronised sound.
Source : this film can be downloaded from the Digital Himalayas website here
This is a BBC television programme, jointly co-produced with the Bavarian television station, Bayarischer Rundfunk, that is extensively based on footage shot by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf among the Konyak and Wanchu Naga of North East India (the former head hunters of the title) as well as among the Apa Tani of the same region (who did not hunt heads). It was “presented” for television – in effect, the editing of the footage was overseen – by Anne Winder, who would later become a leading BBC producer. An archival version of the BBC television schedule for 1972, available here, indicates that it was broadcast as part of The World About Us series in January of that year.
The film is structured around Haimendorf’s return visit in 1971 to a region that he had first visited in the 1930s and he provides a framing voice-over in his aristocratic Germanic accent. The film exudes the same general ethos as the early Disappearing World films that were being broadcast by Granada Television around the same time, though Haimendorf’s archival footage marks it out as distinctive.
Notwithstanding the prioritising of the Naga in the general story-line of the film as well as the title, the Apa Tani archival material is equally interesting, particularly the footage of the traditional aerial acrobatics performed on the occasion of the Spring Festival. Some of the Naga footage had previously appeared in Wanchu Nagas (1962).
Text : Macfarlane 2010
Brian Branston was a BBC producer who in the early days of anthropology on British television collaborated with anthropologists on a number of occasions in preparing their footage for broadcast.
From the late 1950s, he “presented” – i.e. supervised the editing of – footage shot by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf for the BBC television films, Land of the Gurkhas (1959) and Hill Tribes of the Deccan (1960). He later acted as the series producer of The Land of Dolpo (1965) and the executive producer of The Men Who Hunted Heads (1972), both also extensively based on Haimendorf’s footage.
Similarly, in a programme broadcast in January 1967, as indicated here, Branston acted as the producer of a television version of The Hadza (1966), directed by Sean Hudson and the anthropologist James Woodburn.
Branston also produced his own television programmes combining natural history with scenes of local life in Oceania, Amazonia and among the Inuit of Pelly Bay (Nunavut). He was also a writer of popular books about pagan religious beliefs in Saxon England and among the Vikings.
30 mins., b&w, voice-over in English. Production: BBC Television.
Source : this film can be viewed here
This is a television film based on footage shot by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf in the course of a lengthy expedition during which, accompanied by his wife, Elisabeth (‘Betty’), and a team of porters, he travelled overland from Gorkha in western Nepal, through Katmandu, right across to the eastern frontier with the Darjeeling District of India. The title is somewhat misleading in that the film includes scenes not only of the life of the Gurkhas, but also of other groups that the expedition visited along the way, including the Gurung, the Tamang, the Sherpa and the Rai. The material was “presented” – that is, ordered and edited – by the BBC producer, Brian Branston, who worked on several programmes with Haimendorf, while the voice-over, which was scripted by Haimendorf himself, was performed by the then 33-year-old David Attenborough. An archival copy of the BBC television schedules, available here, indicates that this programme was first broadcast in August 1959.
At least part of the footage on which the Sherpa sequences in the film are based is available independently on the web, under the title Among the Sherpas of Nepal, here. Probably on account of the fact that it is in colour, this footage is sometimes erroneously dated to the 1970s, but as it appears in Land of the Gurkhas, it must have shot before 1959. Interestingly, when incorporated into this film, the Sherpa footage was not only transferred to black and white stock (as colour television did not exist in the UK at that time), but was also horizontally “flipped”, so that the right hand part of the image appears on the left and vice versa. The reason why this was done is unclear, but it may have been a by-product of copying from the original colour stock to monochrome stock.
Text: Macfarlane 2010
She was an academic member of staff of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, from 1935 to 1959, and during this time, made a number of expeditions to collect materials for the museum.
It was in 1936-37 that she made her principal contribution to ethnographic film history when she took an amateur 16mm camera with her on an expedition to Morobe Province in Highland New Guinea to make a collection for the museum of the artefacts produced by the Anga people.
The principal motivation for taking the camera was to shoot footage showing how the Anga made and used stone tools, though she also shot a number of sequences on other aspects of their life. Although limited in scope and duration, and not intended to work as a free-standing film, this footage, which can be viewed here, remains of considerable ethnographic and historical interest.
More general details about Beatrice Blackwood’s career are available here
16 mins., colour, silent
Source: viewable on-line here
An ethnographic expedition film shot by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, who studied the Naga over many years. However, it is clear that Haimendorf did not know the subjects of this film at all well: in the opening sequence, some older women hide from the camera, and there are a number of shots of villages and groups of people taken at considerable distance. In another sequence, Fürer-Haimendorf hands out small gifts to the subjects from behind the camera. The film ends with a sequence of an aeroplane dropping supplies.
Although the film has clearly been edited, beginning and ending with general shots of the mountain environment, there is no systematically developed narrative. Instead, the film offers a series of sequences, showing traditional house styles, some craft activity or simply groups of people standing in front of the camera. Towards the end of the film, the subjects perform a mock assault on an enemy, apparently in some government post, since they creep along a neatly defined stone-lined path.
However, within these limitations, this film offers some remarkable images of traditional Naga dress and architecture. There is also a very interesting sequence of a group of men striking a vast slit gong.
Texts: see Fürer-Haimendorf 1969, and also the website, The Nagas: Hill Peoples of Northeast India which may be accessed here.
9:08 mins., b&w, silent.
Production : Pathé and the Medizinisch-Kinematographischen Universitäts-Institut.
Source : Gaumont-Pathé Archives
This is a short film of a high technical standard that offers a series of portraits – remarkably intimate for the period – of artisans (embroiderers, barbers, lantern-makers) and also of beggars in the street, before concluding with a sequence of open-air stalls selling bowls of steaming food.
42 mins, b&w, silent
Source : A version of this film, without introductory titles, is held by the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and is available via its website here. A similar version is also held by the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and is available here.
Short assemblies of this and other footage clearly shot at the same time can also be found – without authorial attribution – on the website of the Gaumont-Pathé Archives (by entering ‘Chine’ and ‘<1910’ into the search engine).
This film is based on a compilation of footage shot by the French Consul, Auguste François, in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, southwest China, in the years 1901-1904. This footage appears to be the first moving images to be shot in China. Although this compilation was released in 1905, some parts of it may have been released earlier.
This film offers a rich account of everyday life in and around Kunming in the last years of the Qing dynasty that is remarkable both for its technical quality and ethnographic variety. In effect, it is a sort of miniature precursor to the ‘city symphonies’ of the 1920s.
Auguste François was the French consul in southern China, first in Guangxi province, then in Yunnan, from 1896 to 1904. He travelled widely in China, and also Vietnam, and was an accomplished photographer and filmmaker. While he was resident in Kunming, capital of Yunnan, from 1901 to 1904, he shot a series of film sequences in and around the city. These seem to be the very first moving images shot in China.
François was in direct contact with the cinema industry pioneer Léon Gaumont who supplied him with stock for his still cameras, and presumably for his moving image camera as well. This seems likely because a number of his Kunming sequences are preserved – without attribution – in the Gaumont-Pathé Archives. Also, in 1905, Gaumont released a compilation of some this footage under the title, Au pays des mandarins. The quality and variety of the material in this film are remarkable, providing a rich account of everyday urban life in the final years of the Qing dynasty.
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