Paraguay – THE SILENT TIME MACHINE

Hans Krieg was a Bavarian zoologist who participated in various German scientific missions to South America. During an expedition to the Paraguayan and Brazilian areas of the Gran Chaco in 1931-32, of which he was the leader, Krieg shot the material for Indian Life in the Gran Chaco, though this was only released in 1950. Krieg was a talented zoological illustrator and he also made a number of films on zoological subjects.

Prior to the Second World War, Krieg was a leading academic proponent of National Socialism, but he survived the war and the institutional purge that followed it, to become the director of the Bavarian Natural Sciences Collection as well as a well-known popular writer on zoological topics. However, he made no further contributions to ethnographic film-making.

Further details here.

Senior man – **Indian Life in the Gran Chaco** (1932) – dir. Hans Krieg.

16 mins., b&w, silent.

Production : Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film.

Source : this film is viewable on the portal of the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) here.

An indigenous village in the Gran Chaco. After some preliminary sequences of subsistence practices, shot in a distant and rather dull manner, there are some more interesting sequences towards the end of the film concerning a ceremony and shamanic curing. Judging by their dress, particularly their fur leggings, they would appear to be Lengua people.

Although it was not released by the IWF until 1950, this film was shot in 1932 by Hans Krieg, the leader of a German zoological expedition to the northern part of the Gran Chaco, i.e. the borderlands lying between Paraguay and southern Brazil.

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Tag: Paraguay

Krieg, Hans (1888-1970)*

Indian Life in the Gran Chaco {Indianerleben im Gran Chaco} (1932/1950) – Hans Krieg *