variously described as being 29 or 40 mins, b&w, 16mm, silent. Shot at 16fps.
Source : Powell-Cotton Museum, British Film Institute
Background and Content : This film was made by P.H.G. Powell-Cotton, a hunter and explorer who made a series of self-funded expeditions to Africa, almost annually between 1920 and 1939. He had no formal training as either ethnographer or film-maker, but on a number of these expeditions, he took a Bell & Howell Filmo 70 and shot some ethnographic footage.
In 1933-34, he visited the Southern Sudan and shot the material for this film. According to the UNESCO catalogue of ethnographic films about sub-Saharan Africa, it includes the following sequences:
- Lango – enacted war-dance, manufacture of spear shafts, washing of beads, making of a spoon, rope. A potter at work.
- Bari – construction of a house, hair-styles
- Didinga – men making roof thatch
- Latouka – warriors in costume, pounding of millet, ploughing, blacksmith, woman potter
- Azande – drums and dances, hair-styles, potter
- Dinka – women pounding millet, ploughing, beating grain, making roof thatching, man setting a trap, man making a pipe, woman potter
- Jur – woman potter at work
Texts : UNESCO catalogue, p.302; Nicklin 1981