Source: Some 15 minutes of fragments of the film are available on the website of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford here.
Background: The film-maker, Wilfrid D. Humbly (1886-1962), was the then Assistant Curator (later Curator) of African Ethnology at the Field Museum in Chicago and the leader of the Frederick H. Rawson – Field Museum expedition to Angola and Nigeria in 1929-30.
The main purpose of the expedition was to make a collection of artefacts and to take anthropometric measurements. At the same time, Hambly also took photographs and shot the material for this film.
Background: this film is the result of a collaboration between Melville William Hilton-Simpson (1881-1938), an independent scholar based in Oxford, and John A. Haeseler (1900-1990), a US film-maker who had studied at Harvard and later for a Diploma in Anthropology at Oxford. The film was shot when Haeseler joined Hilton-Simpson and his wife Helen on what was their sixth field trip to the Ishawiyen (aka Chaoui) Berber people of the Aurès mountains, Eastern Algeria, in 1923-1924.
After editing the film, Hilton-Simpson and Haeseler showed it to the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in November 1924. This occasion as well as the film itself is described by Hilton-Simpson in the journal of the society (Hilton-Simpson 1925). Hilton-Simpson also collaborated with Haeseler on a short, more popular article about the practical circumstances of the shoot, which has been much cited in the visual anthropology literature (Hilton-Simpson and Haeseler 1925).
Haeseler went on to a long and distinguished career as a maker and producer of educational and ‘family’ films.
Content: the film has been very well shot by Haeseler with many fine images of craft and subsistence activities, as well as of the natural environment. It offers a largely descriptive account of Berber life, structured around a series of intertitles, though towards the end of the film, a narrative line emerges, contrasting the very heavy work carried out by the women (notably in carrying water and wood up the steep slopes to the village) with the eased way of life of the men.
The following description, available on the web here, follows closely the description given by Hilton-Simpson himself in the RGS journal.
“This film depicts the geography of the Aures, Roman ruins at Timgad, the Tighanimine gorge, and the villages built on the tops of escarpments overlooking the Sahara with only a narrow, tortuously steep access route.
Women of the fair-skinned Shawiya tribe of Berber stock, are seen grinding grain on a quern stone; combing, carding, and spinning wool; making pottery; and scrubbing laundry on stone by “dancing” on the cloth. They are also seen involved in the difficult task of fetching water up to the village. Children are depicted playing knucklebone, a jacks-like game, and what appears to be hockey.
The men are seen irrigating their gardens by means of a water “clock,” a copper bowl with a minute hole in its bottom, which is placed on top of water in a large bowl. It takes about fifteen minutes to sink. The number of sinkings is determined by the individual irrigation rights. After the alloted amount, the irrigation ditch (seggia) is dammed to divert the flow of water to another garden. The granaries are seen with their defensible facades. A man fashions wooden door locks with an adze (a cutting tool), while others tend goat herds, prepare snuff, and braid cord … The film is rich in detail, particularly in the weaving and pottery sequences”.
One of a series of short films shot in 1912-1913 in the Dutch East Indies by J.C. Lamster that were commissioned by the Koloniaal Institute.
Despite the title, there are very few shots inside a village. The film begins with series of sequences by river (children playing, crossing a bridge, washing clothes, oxen, gathering water from mountain streams). There is then a shot of village headman meeting another local authority and going off together on horses, followed by a brief shot of feast of roast goat meat, a lemonade seller and children enjoying his wares.
Mostly shot as a series of static wide-angle shots, though in the roast goat feast, there are some cuts to wide GVs to close shot of man doing the cooking by an open fire.
The hornbill bird masked dancer (left) dances with a group of other Karo-Batak masked dancers – ‘Gundala-gundala & Ndikkar’ – L.P. de Bussy (1917)
3:22 mins., b&w, silent (Dutch intertitles)
Production: Koloniaal Institut, Amsterdam
Background – This film was shot by L.P. de Bussy who made a number of films about the Karo-Batak for the Dutch Koloniaal Institut. It is available on YouTube here, where it has been uploaded with a soundtrack of extra-diegetic music. Although it carries the EYE logo, this film does not feature in the listing of its Dutch East Indies films.
Content – ‘Gundala-gundala’ is a Karo Batak term for a particular form of masked dancing, while ‘ndikkar’ is an archaic term for a traditional form of martial art. The film consists of a series of distant shots of dance performances. These are largely static though there are also a few pans. Notwithstanding its technical limitations, the film provides a valuable record of some remarkable dances.
The first sequences consists of Batak women dancing in a village plaza with masked men standing in the background. This is followed by a particularly impressive dance of a man wearing an elaborate mask representing the hornbill. He twists and turns his head rapidly, obviously imitating the movements of the bird. Other masked dancers dance in support (see above).
The action then moves to a rural location to show a ‘war dance’ performed under a broad shade tree: presumably this is ndikkar. A series of shots shows two men, stripped to the waist, dancing in opposition to one another, gesturing extravagantly, while a third man, dressed differently, acts as some form of intermediary or third party.
The film then returns to the village for the final dance, which consists of two men, also dancing in opposition to one another, but this time the dancers are older, are fully dressed and are wielding swords.
The film ends with a shot of the Sultan of Serdan and his chief administrator who, it is revealed in an inter title, were also spectators of the village dances.
This film was distributed for a period by the IWF but since the IWF collection was incorporated into the German National Library (TIB), it has not been available for distribution, due to copyright restrictions. It can, however, be viewed at the TIB itself.
As it was not possible to view the film, the descriptions offered here are derived from secondary sources.
Background – This film is made up primarily of material shot during an expedition led by Hans Schomburgk to northern Togo in 1913-14, but also incorporates some material shot on a previous expedition that he had made to Liberia. The material was shot by professional cameramen: James S. ‘Jimmy’ Hodgson in the case of the Togo footage, Georg Bürli in case of the Liberian footage. Schomburgk had a very low opinion of Bürli, but Hodgson had previously worked for Pathé and Gaumont and would go on to develop a distinguished career as a newsreel cameraman.
Another prominent member of the expedition was the German actress Meg Gehrts, whom Schomburgk had invited along to play the lead role in a number of fictional melodramas, notably The White Goddess of the Wangora, but also Odd Man Out, The Outlaw of the Sudu Mountains and The Heroes of the Paratau – all seemingly now lost.
Meg Gehrts rehearses as ‘The White Goddess’, while a local person, acting as a her servant, fans her. Photograph taken by Hans Schomburgk.
Schomburgk planned to make these fictional films alongside the more ethnographic footage, hoping to pay for the expedition as a whole through later box-office takings. Shortly after their return, in 1915, Gehrts published a memoir about the expedition that is interesting, though often irritatingly prejudiced to a modern reader. It includes some good photographs mostly taken by Schomburgk but also some by Gehrts herself. This is available on the web here.
The principal expedition film appears to have been released in various versions. A first version was premièred at the Royal Philharmonic Hall in London in 1914 under the title “Treks and Trails in West Africa”, but the material then appears to have been re-edited and presented under the title Im Deutschen Sudan for the first time in 1916 with a running time of 65 minutes. Other sources refer to a 76-minute version released in 1917. Either way, this was exceptionally long for an expedition film of ethnographic interest made prior to the First World War in Africa.
Content – Although some of the footage concerns wildlife, notably the sequence showing the capture of a pygmy hippopotamus which was filmed during the earlier expedition to Liberia and which is inserted in the middle of the film, most of the footage concerns the indigenous groups of northern Togo, particularly the Kotokoli. This material includes market scenes, cotton harvesting, spinning, men weaving on a treadle loom and women weaving on a vertical loom, selling of the cloth, games, basketry, making of belts from palm nut shells, men fishing collectively, equestrian games, and a visit to a traditional ruler (Uro Dyabo Bukari IV).
Market scenes recorded at Sansane-Mango mainly show the making of leather goods by the Hausa, but there are also scenes of salt and kola trading. Childcare and the preparation of food were filmed among the Tyokossi. Also important are iron processing among the Bassari and Konkomba archers shooting their bows and arrows. The film as a whole is framed by scenes of expedition life.
Background – This is an informational film entirely confined to street scenes in Seoul, though it is not clear who made it nor for what purpose. There is no main title : ‘Korea’ is simply how it is titled in the AMNH catalogue. The intertitles seem to be in American English, and although they are often supercilious or prejudiced, the film does not appear to have a specific agenda other than reportage.
On the other hand, the film-makers do appear to have been in favour of the Japanese annexation of Korea, which had formally taken place two years before the film was made. An intertitle towards the end of the film lauds the efforts of the Japanese to reforest hillsides around the city ‘denuded centuries ago by a corrupt government’.
Film content – Within the limited brief of showing something of the street life of Seoul, the film is valuable, representing the city at a time when ‘trolley cars and bullock carts share the city streets’ as one intertitle puts it.
Another intertitle claims that a few years previously, women would not have been seen in public, whereas now, as the film shows, they freely walk through the streets. The same intertitle also claims that they ‘even discuss women’s suffrage’ (though whether there was any form of democratic voting system at the time seems highly unlikely).
The film is perhaps most interesting with regard to dress. Almost all the adults in the street are wearing clothes of spotless white. Many men wear a distinctive form of headgear, which is a tubular horse-hat placed over a skull cap and tied with a crinoline bow (see above). There are also a number of engaging close-up personal portraits.
The palanquin preceding the coffin of the deceased – ‘Enterrement annamite’ [Annamite Burial] (1899-1900) – dir. Gabriel Veyre
Probably less than one minute, b&w, silent
Production/ Source : Lumière, catalogue no. 1271
This is one of some 33 ‘views’ shot in French Indochina by the leading Lumière cameraman, Gabriel Veyre in the period April 1899 – March 1900. While many of these were of military parades, industrial processes or general street scenes, this is one of ten ‘views’ that cover more obviously ethnographic subjects. For further details, see the page dedicated to Gabriel Veyre here.
Japanese singer accompanies herself on a ‘shemsin’ ‘Chanteuse japonaise’ (1898-99) – dir. Gabriel Veyre
probably less than a minute, b&w, silent
Production : Lumière, catalogue no. 1026
This is one of ten “views” shot in Japan between October 1898 and March 1899 by the leading Lumière cameraman, Gabriel Veyre. Details of the others are available on the page dedicated to Veyre.
Mohawk reservation of Kahnawake – ‘Danse indienne’ (1898) – dir. Gabriel Veyre.
Probably less than a minute, b&w, silent.
Source : revised Lumière catalogue no. 96 (1000)
This “view” was shot by the leading Lumière cameraman, Gabriel Veyre, on 2 or 3 September 1898, when he was travelling through Canada on his way to Japan. It seems to be the only “view” that Veyre shot while in Canada, though it is possible that others may not have survived.
It is described in the Lumière catalogue as showing a dance involving three men and as being shot on Kahnawake, the Mohawk reservation on the south side of the St. Lawrence river across from Montréal.
As an example of early footage of North American Native peoples shot on location, this “view” is second only to the footage of the Snake Dance at the Hopi Orayvi pueblo and of a Navajo “tournament”, shot some two weeks earlier, in August 1898, by Burton Holmes’s cameraman Oscar Depue. It is certainly the first moving image film of a Canadian indigenous group.
This is an informational film made for the YWCA (Young Woman’s Christian Association), which in an preliminary intertitle explains that it has been working in Japan for fifteen years ‘for Japanese students, for nurses, and for women who marry to join their husbands in the United States and Hawaii’.
Despite the YWCA’s patronage, however, the film is not overtly propagandistic for the organisation, except in the sense that in presenting Japan, it tends to emphasise women’s experience, e.g. in describing rice as the equivalent to bread in the Japanese diet and showing terraced rice fields, it points out that most of the labour involved in cultivating and processing rice is female.
The intertitles are sometimes patronising and the sequences are generally very brief, but the technical quality is surprisingly good and there are some interesting sequences of scenes of everyday life, particularly of women’s work. The most extended and most interesting sequence, however, is of the Ainu bear ceremony, though this ends before the bear is killed.
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