Category: SOUTH ASIA

38 mins., 15 mins. in b&w, 23 mins in colour, silent

Source : this material may be viewed via the Pitt Rivers Museum website here.

Content : this material was shot by Ursula Graham Bower, when she was living in the Subsansiri District of Arunachal Pradesh, where her husband, F.N. ‘Tim’ Betts had been appointed the Political Officer. This material appears not to have been edited in any way, and much of it is damaged or discoloured.

The quality of this material, both in terms of technical film-craft and in terms of content, is considerably inferior to the footage that Graham Bower previously shot in Nagaland.  Much of the material consists of distant and often unstable shots of landscape. While there are some interesting passages relating to ritual events, some impressive shots of the rice paddies and some intriguing personal portraits, it is clear that Graham Bower did not have the rapport with the subjects that she had during her more prolonged stay in the Naga Hills.

In general, there is also a more personal ‘home-movie’ feel to this material compared to her Naga material. There are quite a number of shots of European men, including presumably her husband, as well as some shots of Graham Bower herself, indicating that her husband must have done some of the shooting.

Some of this material appears to have been used in an edition of the BBC Television series, Travellers’ Tales, produced by David Attenborough and broadcast on 29 February 1956. According to the schedule, Graham Bower was joined on the programme by Christoph von Fürer- Haimendorf, described as ‘the first European’ to enter the valley ‘of these savage and dramatic people’.

 

37.5 mins., colour, silent, with English inter titles

Source :  accompanied by ethnographic notes, this film is viewable here, where it is also downloadable. A version without ethnographic notes is available on YouTube here.

Unfortunately, these versions appear to have been transferred to a digital format at an incorrect speed. Ursula Graham Bower would have shot her material at 16-18fps, which was the standard speed for 16mm cameras in the 1930s, but it would appear that the material has been transferred at the more recent standard of 24 or 25fps, with the result that the movements of the subjects appear unnaturally rapid.

Content : although this material has clearly been edited, and there are some carefully made inter titles, there is no principal title, nor credits.  Graham Bower’s field diaries indicate that she was shooting on the then relatively recently released Kodachrome.

The footage includes a diverse range of sequences, but all of them were shot among the Zemi Naga, many of them at a time when the Naga Hills were threatened by Japanese invasion.

More intimate domestic and personal sequences, such as one of Graham Bower’s Naga interpreter’s ear adornments and another of a young man playing a one-stringed bow instrument, are interspersed with shots of collective activities, including a fish poisoning expedition, the carrying of a large tree trunk that will serve as the beam of a collective house and the dragging in of a large gravestone in preparation for the Hgangi festival at Laisong, the principal village of the area.

There are also various sequences of young men’s sports, including spear-throwing and jumping over a stone obstacle known as a hazoa, and sequences of women engaged in weaving and spinning.

The material ends with a sequence of the playing of drums and dancing at the Hgangi festival, though this is interrupted by an unusual sequence in which Naga men are being issued with guns by British colonial officers in preparation for the threatened Japanese invasion.

13 mins., colour, silent with English inter titles

Source :  accompanied by ethnographic notes, this film is viewable here, where it is also downloadable. A version without ethnographic notes is available on YouTube here.

Unfortunately, these versions appear to have been transferred to a digital format at an incorrect speed. Ursula Graham Bower would have shot her material at 16-18fps, which was the standard speed for 16mm cameras in the 1930s, but it would appear that this material has been transferred at the more recent standard of 24 or 25fps, with the result that the movements of the subjects are unnaturally rapid.

Content : although this material has clearly been edited, and there are some carefully made inter titles, there is no principal title, nor credits.  Graham Bower’s field diaries indicate that this is the first material that she shot on colour film, which was the then relatively recently released Kodachrome.

The topics that she covers are not ambitious. The first shot shows people walking along a road in a town, probably an experimental shot before she left for the field. Thereafter, there is an intimate scene of her Naga porters inspecting her camera bag, as well as some more ethnographic, though brief, sequences of weaving, boys wrestling and some girls singing. There is a more extended sequence of a mock head-hunting raid, while the footage ends with some competitive spear-throwing.

17 mins., b&w, silent with English intertitles

Source :  a version of this footage, along with ethnographic annotations, is available on the University of Cambridge SMS site here, where it is downloadable. The same version, without annotations, is also available on YouTube here.

This material can also be found in a third form on the Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM) Film Collection site here, where it comprises the first 17 minutes of “Culture and Crafts in Manipur, northeast India (1939) – Part 1”.

The Cambridge version is the best from a technical point of view also the best supported ethnographically. But, unfortunately, it appears to have been transferred to a digital format at an incorrect speed. Ursula Graham Bower would have shot the material at 16-18fps, the standard speed for 16mm cameras in the 1930s, but it would appear that the material has been transferred at the later standard rate of 24-25fps, with the result that movements of the subjects are unnaturally rapid.

Although the PRM version is not accompanied by detailed ethnographic notes, it does appear to have been transferred at the correct speed.

Content : Ursula Graham Bower’s diary entries indicate that this material was shot in 1938 – 1939 when she was travelling in the Naga Hills, Manipur State, Northeast India. The original footage has clearly been edited, and there are even well-made intertitles, but there is no principal title or end credits.

The material is generally well shot and covers a range of diverse topics: along with sequences of traditional festivals and a wedding procession, there are some more personal sequences, such as one showing Graham Bower’s porters inspecting her camera accessories, and another of some European women learning to perform an indigenous dance on a lawn in front of a bungalow in the colonial town of Imphal.

33 mins., b&w, silent, with intertitles in English

Source : a single unified version of this footage, with ethnographic annotations, is available on the University of Cambridge SMS site here, where it is downloadable. The same version, without annotations, is also available on YouTube here.

This material can also be found in a third form on the Pitt Rivers Museum  (PRM) Film Collection site, but split over two different entries: the last ten minutes of Part 1 of  “Culture and Crafts in Manipur, northeast India (1939)” and the whole of Part 2. Both parts can be accessed here.

The Cambridge version is the best supported technically and ethnographically but, unfortunately, it appears to have been transferred to a digital format at the wrong speed. Ursula Graham Bower would have shot the material at 16-18fps, which was  the standard speed for 16mm cameras in the 1930s. But it seems that the material on the Cambridge site has been transferred at the more modern standard rate of 24- 25fps, with the result that the movements of the subjects are unnaturally rapid.

By contrast, although the PRM version is in other ways somewhat less well presented, it does appear to have been transferred at the correct speed.

Content : Ursula Graham Bower’s diary entries indicate that this material was shot between November 1938 and March 1939 as she was travelling through the Naga Hills of Manipur state, Northeast India. The original footage has clearly been edited, and there are even well-made inter titles, but there is no principal title or end credits.

The material, which is well shot, consists of a straightforward sequence of craft processes, as practised by various Naga subgroups: weaving using backstrap looms, pottery, and brass casting using the ‘cire-perdu’ method.