10:50 mins., b&w, silent
Production : Hamburg Ethnological Museum
Source : IWF/TIB. An on-line version of the film may be viewed here.
General Background – This film consists of a series of mostly single-shot ‘views’ taken during the course of the expedition of the Hamburg Ethnological Museum in 1908-1910 to the ‘South Seas’, that is, to various islands in Micronesia, New Britain (then the German colony of Neu-Pommern) and the northern coast of Papua New Guinea (then the German colony of Neu-Guinea).
This expedition was conceived and co-ordinated by Georg Thilenius (1868-1937), the director of the Museum, but he remained in Hamburg. In the field, during first year, which was dedicated to the exploration of German Melanesia, the expedition was led by a tropical medicine specialist, Friedrich Fülleborn (1866-1933), while in the second year, dedicated to Micronesia, it was led by the ethnologist and trained doctor Augustin Krämer (1865-1941).
These cinematographic ‘views’ were but one very modest element in the extensive collection of local artefacts, photographic plates, drawings and sound recordings that the expedition brought back to Hamburg. It is not clear who took the ‘views’, but it seems to have been various different members of the expedition. Whoever it was, their competence as film-makers was clearly very limited.
Film Background – This particular assembly of the views appears to have been put together in the late 1930s, under the direction of Herbert Tischner (1906-1984) of the following generation of German Melanesianists. In the sort of ‘study guide’ that he wrote to accompany the film, Tischner acknowledges the poor technical quality of the material but argues that their value as a record of by-then disappeared customs outweighed their deficiencies and hence justified their ‘publication’.
It is not clear what proportion of the total amount of material filmed during the expedition that this film represents in its current form. It certainly does not represent all the material, since of the various dances that Tischner describes, there is one missing from the film, the first, suggesting that at some point, this was omitted, either because it was lost, or more probably, because the technical quality was very poor.
Tischner gives no reason for the order in which the ‘views’ have been placed in the assembly. It certainly does not correspond to the order in which they were shot since the film begins with Micronesian dances and ends with Melanesian crafts, whereas in reality the expedition visited Melanesia in the first year, and Micronesia in the second. It seems rather to have been ordered on a thematic principle, with dances first and crafts second.
Another curiosity is that the Micronesian dances are shot from very far away, while the Melanesian dances and the crafts are shot from much closer, suggesting that different operators were involved in the two different years of the expedition.
It seems very likely that the ordering of the assembly, giving priority to dance, was chosen on account of the theory, widespread in German anthropology in the early twentieth century, and reiterated in Tischner’s study guide also, that dance was extremely important to ‘Naturvölker’ as a means of expressing social sentiment.
Tischner acknowledges, however, that the Expedition had managed to discover very little about the significance of the dances, which he considers particularly lamentable since in recent times, he explains, even local men had often forgotten their meaning and, if they performed the dances at all, they did so merely to please their womenfolk.
Film Content – As described in Tischner’s study guide, the film contains the following sequences:
Paddle Dance – this was a dance performed on the Micronesian island of Ponape, in the Eastern Carolines, and was unusual in the region in that both men and women were involved. It was performed on a special stage on the occasion of the inauguration of a new canoe, and involved highly decorated ceremonial paddles, carved from the breadfruit tree. But although Tischner offers a very beautiful drawing of one of these paddles in the study guide, the dance is missing from the film.
Masked Dance – this is now the dance with which the film opens and is performed by a group of men on a beach in the Mortlock Islands (see above). The masks were carved from wood and painted white and black with limestone paste and soot. Tischner claims that these dances were originally intend to ward off the typhoons that afflict these islands, and that the name of the masks, tapuanu, is a reference to a spirit being, suggesting some deeper religious significance. In the film, the sequence lasts only 45 seconds, and has clearly been performed explicitly for a camera placed so far away from the action that it is difficult to see what is going on. The European trousers of some of the performers hint at a degree of acculturation.
Stick Dance – this is performed by the same group of men in the same location and involves two lines of men facing one another who joust with sticks about 1.25 long. Women wearing European dresses scurry past in the background. Tischner says that it takes place ‘in honour of certain spirits’.
Dances on Truk – These were shot on the cluster of Central Caroline islands now known as Chuuk and are all performed by women. The first two sequences, totalling only about a minute, are probably of the same dance in which two women are standing, one of whom performs a hula-like dance with much wiggling of the hips, while all the other women move energetically while sitting down. But again the event is filmed from very far away and it is only possible to see the women’s backs. The third dance from Truk, longer at just over a minute, is somewhat better filmed, in that the women stand in a line before the camera, but the film material itself is clearly damaged and as the dance is obviously a performance on demand, it lacks a certain vitality.
Drum Dance – this sequence of 45 seconds, with the camera much closer to the action, was shot on the south coast of New Britain (formerly Neu-Pommern), and shows three men wearing tall, conical headdresses who are dancing in circle and playing small, typically Melanesian hourglass-shaped drums at the level of their knees. The film is material is fogged but the performance is good.
Spear Dance – around 40 seconds, and also shot much closer to the action, this sequence shows a group of men, again on the south coast of New Britain, dancing back and forth with spears beside the sea or a river. Unfortunately, the film material is badly damaged. Tischner comments that these Melanesians dances are often associated with feasts for which large amounts of food is marshalled. On mainland New Guinea, he adds, as many as 800 pigs might be slaughtered, but this was exceptional even for Melanesia and certainly would not have been possibly on the materially much poorer Micronesian islands.
Pottery on the New Guinea mainland and in the Admiralty Islands – two sequences showing different stages of pottery-making. The first is about 1 min 20 seconds with two breaks, though with no significant change of angle, while the second is nearer 1 min 30 seconds. Both sequences are shot close to the subjects, though the first one particularly is fogged. Tischner comments that whereas pottery is widespread in Melanesia, it is unknown in Micronesia and most of Polynesia, where receptacles of wood and shell are used instead.
Fire making on the Admiralty Islands – a single shot of 1 min 26 seconds, also shot close to the action. The two subjects look off to someone off-screen as well as at the camera, probably because there was a certain amount of anxiety as to whether the fire would ignite before the end of the roll of film.
Weaving on St. Matthias Island – this sequence was shot on an island lying north of New Ireland (then Neu-Mecklenberg) and as such on the boundary between Melanesia and Micronesia. This is the only sequence in the assembly in which there is an obviously purposeful change of angle, clearly designed to show the weaving from both the front, in a shot of one minute, and from the side, in a further shot of 30 seconds. As weaving is unknown elsewhere in Melanesia, Tischner speculates that it has been introduced from Indonesia via Micronesia.
Text : Tischner 1941, Berg 1988, Jordan 1992, pp. 162-173, Weinstein 2010.
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