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’.
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