55 mins, colour, voice-over in English with some post-synchronised sounds. Production: School of Oriental and African Studies in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute.
Source: viewable on-line in a poor copy here.
The last major film made by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, based on footage that he shot during an expedition made in 1972 to the then-remote Humla District, northwest Nepal. The film, which is structured by a continuous commentary by Haimendorf, proceeds up the valley of the Karmali river connecting this part of Nepal with the Tibetan market town of Taklakot. Traditionally, and still at the time that this film was made, despite the Chinese presence in Tibet, this served as an important local trade route, through which salt produced in Tibet was traded against cereals and rice cultivated lower down in the valley. However, at the end of the film, it is suggested that even then, the viability of this exchange was threatened by the importation of cheap rice from India.
Although trading serves as its general narrative focus, the film is also about a great deal more than this. Through Haimendorf’s commentary, we learn about the history of the region, still present in the form of stone monuments, the significance of which is unknown to the present inhabitants of the Karmali valley, as well as about the relations between the upper caste Hindu communities living in the lower part of the valley, and the Buddhist Bhotiya communities, of Tibetan cultural origin, who live in the upper part.
In passing, there is a great deal of commentary on subsistence practices, crafts, house-building and kinship organisation. A particularly memorable sequence concerns a ceremony in which Untouchables living in the Hindu community become possessed by spirits and while in this condition, diagnose the cause of illnesses. Another striking sequence concerns the ritual restitution of an abandoned Bhuddist temple by a Bhotiya community.
Text: Macfarlane 2010
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