5 mins., colour, silent with German titles and intertitles.
Production: Encyclopaedia Cinematographica, IWF.
Source: Encyclopaedia Cinematographica, IWF collection at TIB, the German National Library, see here. A copy is also held at the Museu de Anthropologia e Ethnografia (MAE) at the Universidade de São Paulo, see here.
Background: this is one of 67 short films made among the indigenous peoples of Brazilian Amazonia in the period 1944-1965 by Harald Schultz. Twenty eight of these films concerned the Krahô of the Tocantins River valley. Four of these films, including this one, were shot during his first visit to the Krahô in 1949.
The other films shot during this visit include two very short films about a Morning Ceremony, 2 minutes, and an even shorter film about Slash and Burn Cultivation, 1½ minutes. The footage for the remaining film, Preparation of a Large Manioc Cake, was combined with further footage on the same topic shot in 1959, resulting in an eventual film of 10½ minutes.
However, none of these films was ‘published’, i.e. released, by the Encyclopaedia Cinematographica (EC) until 1962.
Although Ritual Relay Races conforms in some regards to the methodology normally required by the EC, notably in being silent, without either ambient sound or explanatory commentary, it is discrepant in that it constructs several different events as if it were a single event.
A study guide to accompany the film which was written by Schultz and published in 1964 is available here.
Film Content:
The Krahô are one of several Gȇ-speaking peoples of Central Brazil who hold relay races involving the carrying of burití palm logs weighing as much as 90 kgs. In the Krahô case, these races take place on a dedicated track of several kilometres around the village, and end in the village plaza. Given the great weight of the logs, each runner only runs for a short distance, before handing the log over to a fellow team member. On no account, ideally, should the log be put down or the runner begin to walk.
At the time that this film was made the holding of such races was an almost daily occurrence among the Krahô and there were races both for women and for men. In their most formal ritual form, they involved a competition between two ceremonial moieties, each identified with one or other of two ancestral figures, the Sun and the Moon. However, they could also take place between different age grades, or between villages. Often they would take place between a group of young people just for amusement.
The film begins with a men’s race over 2-3 kilometres. In the study guide, Schultz explains that since it was impossible for him to keep up with the runners, he shot the various stages of the race on different occasions, though he argues that as the format is always the same, this amalgamated version of the race is representative of such races generally.
In the digital version viewed at the MAE, the race consisted more of a series of stills than sequences, though this may possibly have been the effect of a problem with the transfer from the original film.
The men’s race ends with the logs being dropped in the central plaza of the village in front of the house which, in the study guide, Schultz describes as being dedicated to the ‘vutú woman’, the patroness of one of the ceremonial groups. The participants then enter the house.
There is then a very similar women’s race, which is generally more animated, though here too there are freeze frames.
Finally, there is a race involving logs that are exceptionally heavy, requiring two men to carry them. There is a large crowd urging on the runners, and the course is very demanding: at one point, there is a dramatic shot in late afternoon sunlight of the runners passing through a stream (see the image above).
When the runners eventually reach the plaza, they drop the logs and both teams then dance in a circle and begin to sing, with a rocky bluff forming a dramatic background. As the film is silent, it is not possible to hear what they are singing, but the study guide explains that they are beseeching Sun and Moon, the ancestral figures from whom the ceremonial moieties are descended, to allow further such beautiful races in the future.
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