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.
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