Category: Archives

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Museu do ĺndio, Rio de Janeiro

A dependency of the Fundação Nacional do ĺndio (FUNAI), the principal federal government agency responsible for indigenous affairs, the Museu do Índio holds a significant collection of films of ethnographic interest, most of which were made during the 1940s and 1950s, but going as far back as 1912. The majority of these films were made under the auspices of either the Comissão Rondon, a government agency charged with opening of the interior of Brazil between the 1890s and the 1930s, or the Serviço da Protecçao aos ĺndios (SPI), the predecessor institution of FUNAI, originally set up in 1910 in association with the Comissão Rondon.

These films are available as DVDs that may be consulted in the library of the Museu do Índio, but recently a number have also been made available in the form of a YouTube playlist which can be accessed here.

A general catalogue of the Museu’s audiovisual holdings is available here

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Library of Congress (LoC), Washington

The LoC offers an important collection of early films on-line including Thomas Edison’s two well-known early films, Buffalo Dance and Sioux Ghost Dance. See https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/?sb=date

The LoC also holds other early ethnographic films, including ‘classics’ such as Edward C. Curtis’s In the Land of the Head Hunters, Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North and Trance and Dance in Bali, by Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead. It holds a number of films by Paul Fejos, including Jungle of Chang and The Yagua. Access to these films is possible through a Reader Registration process. http://www.loc.gov/rr/readerregistration.html

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National Anthropological Film Collection (NAFC), National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington

The archive collection known for many years as the Human Studies Film Archive (HSFA) has recently changed its name to the National Anthropological Film Collection (NAFC). This forms part of the National Anthropological Archives within the Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History, which is one of the Smithsonian Institution museums.

The on-line catalogue of the NAFC can be accessed via the Department of Anthropology page. However, please note that once you have reached that page, it is necessary to scroll down and click on a box to the right where the NAFC is still identified under its old name, i.e. Human Studies Film Archives. You can access the Department of Anthropology page here.

In contrast to the American Museum of Natural History film collection in New York, the NAFC is entirely focused on films of ethnographic interest. It is also much more extensive. Among its holdings are an interesting collection of early films made by an eclectic range of filmmakers, including naturalists, explorers, missionaries, leisure travellers, an army doctor, and the Tamil art historian and philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy, but also including footage gathered by the celebrated anthropologist Melville Herskovits and by the ethnomusicologist Laura Boulton.

Although there are plans to digitise the collection, most films have currently to be viewed on site, not at the main Museum of Natural History building in downtown Washington, but rather at the Museum Support Center in Suitland, Maryland (see above). This lies beyond the Beltway but can be reached relatively easily via the subway system.

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American Museum of National History (AMNH), New York

Overlooking Central Park, the AMNH has a collection of almost 300 films that have been catalogued and transferred to a viewable analog video or digital format. A significant proportion of these were shot in the 1920s and 1930s when the AMNH itself sponsored hundreds of expeditions across the globe. Though the majority of these concerned natural history more generally, they may also include sequences of ethnographic interest. The collection also contains a rather eclectic group of other early ethnographic films made by third parties. Films have to be viewed on site at the Museum, following the submission of a formal Request for Access.
https://www.amnh.org/our-research/research-library/special-collections/collections/moving-image-collection

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Gaumont-Pathé Archives

Located in the north of Paris, these archives contain many early short films, mostly of reportage but also of ethnographic interest, though many remain to be fully identified and catalogued.

It is possible to view at least some of these films on-line by registering and establishing a password, but films may also be viewed at the archives themselves.

To access the site, click here

 

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Musée Albert-Kahn

This museum was created to house the Archives de la planète, a collection of films and photographs assembled and mostly commissioned by the philanthropic banker Albert Kahn between 1912 and 1933. It is located in the grounds of his former mansion at Boulogne in southwest Paris, where he also developed a series of gardens, each dedicated to a particular national tradition. One of the most elaborate of these is the Japanese garden (see above).

The great majority of the films in the Musée Albert-Kahn are films of documentation, often taken from a single static vantage point using a wide-angle lens. The aim of the archive was to create a record of cultural phenomena around the world rather than provide the wherewithal for editable films with complex narratives. However, it does contain a number of gems, including the six hours of material shot in 1930 in Dahomey (today Bénin), much of it on vodoun religious ceremonies.

The filmic records in the archive were not intended for popular consumption, but for screening to elite audiences of the ‘opinion-formers’ of those days – leading politicians, academics, scientists, military figures, religious leaders. Kahn’s hope was that by exposing such influential figures to examples of cultural difference, he could promote the cause of world peace and understanding.

For a modest fee, most of its film collection is normally viewable on-line at the museum itself at Boulogne. However, it is currently closed and undergoing restoration, though it is due to re-open in March 2018.

Further details here.

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CNC (Centre national du cinéma)

This has a large collection of early films of ethnographic interest, many of which have been digitized. The latter can be viewed for a modest fee at the Bibliothèque nationale François Mitterand (BnF) in central Paris, as well as at various points elsewhere in France.

Films that have not been digitized have to be viewed at the central film archive, located in a disused fort at Bois d’Arcy, close to Versailles and a 30-minute train ride from central Paris.

There is an on-line catalogue that can be consulted beforehand here.

© 2018 Paul Henley