1 Film reel (36 minutes, color silent; 1208 feet, 16mm)
Type:
Archival materials
Film reels
Date:
circa 1954
Scope and Contents:
Footage shot by Andreas E. Laszlo, M.D., of the Cree Indians and, in particular, the process of making snowshoes, during travels with his wife, Lucile, and friend Narcisse Nosky, a Cree Indian, in Cree trapping grounds near an unnamed tributary of the Jennings, close to Teslin Lake. Footage opens with a map of western Canada and snow covered mountains, a map of British Columbia with, presumably, a group of Cree and mongrel dogs carrying packs walking across snow and a topographical map followed by what appears to be an early fall Cree encampment in a wooded area. Dogs are harnessed to a sled and a small group of men and women leaves the camp, some on horses. There appears to be some difficulty getting the dogs harnessed and moving in the right direction. They travel through wooded areas and down a frozen waterway, and along a mountain top. An animal is killed, possibly a juvenile or female elk. The group sets up an encampment near a partially frozen river. Two Cree men look over a pair of broken snow shoes which begins the process demonstration of making a new pair of snow shoes. Two men on horse cross the swiftly flowing river followed by dogs struggling against the current. A Birch tree about eight inches in diameter is cut down, trimmed, and carried back across the river to camp. Smaller trees of about 2-3 inches in diameter are trimmed and stripped of bark. The following footage shows in some detail the making of a snow shoe including stages of creating and preparing the shoe's frame and turning up toe which is typical of a Cree snow shoe; drilling and burning holes for the lacing; preparing animal hide for lacing and cutting strips of hide for the lattice and wrapping the frame; and lacing with the strips of hide. In addition, repairing a broken snow shoe is shown. A man works with the frame and the women primarily process the hide and lace the lattice work. Footage ends before the snow shoe is finished.
Legacy Keywords: Snowshoes and snowshoeing ; Dogsledding ; Dogs Canada ; Trapping pelts ; Language and culture
Local Number:
HSFA 1999.3.3
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Andreas E. Laszlo films, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Edited film was made in the course of two expeditions to the Canadian Arctic region of Ellesmere Island, Jones Sound, and Baffin Island in 1962 and 1963. In focusing on the life of an extended Inuit "family," Cotlow attempts to portray the adaptation and survival strategies necessary in the frigid environment of the northern Arctic. Sequences focus on family life, relationships between family members, preparation and cooking of meals, a "trial marriage," transportation by dog sleds, building of an igloo, seal hunting with a teliwak hunting screen, walrus hunting, and killing of a polar bear. Other footage includes trading of fur pelts, target practice with both rifle and harpoon, soapstone carvings, making of caribou sinew thread and the sewing of parkas, and gift giving to the children by the filmmaker.
Producer: Sinclar, Douglas
Legacy Keywords: Language and culture ; Hunting techniques of seals polar bears ; Food quest hunting ; Food consumption seal meat ; Houses construction of igloos ; Hides used as bedding used as clothing ; Garb use of animal skins ; Nomadism Eskimoes ; Singing as palliative to work Eskimoes ; Work groups construction of igloos ; Play children Eskimoes ; Transportation dog sleds ; Trapping pelts ; Trade trapping pelts trading posts ; Carving soapstone Eskimos ; Marriage conventions of trial marriage Eskimos ; Sewing garb
Local Number:
HSFA 1978.1.1/1985.11.7
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Sponsor:
Cataloging supported by Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee.
Film reels (1 hour 40 minutes, black-and-white color sound; 4000 feet, 16mm)
Type:
Archival materials
Film reels
Date:
1972-1973
Scope and Contents:
Full film record of a research film project documenting the Himba, a pastoral Bantu people of southwestern Angola and northwestern Namibia. Footage features documentation of a rainmaking ceremony with animal sacrifices to the ancestors and the annointing of ombale stones (rain shrines), the tending of cattle herds and the problems of drought, various musical performances, a baby-naming ceremony, and techniques of female hairdressing and braiding. Edited films THE HIMBA and HIMBA WEDDING were produced from this project. Includes associated texts, sound recordings, and production logs.
Legacy Keywords: Language and culture ; Ritual propitiation rainmaking ; Rainmaking magic sympathetic rocks water ; Animal sacrifice divination entrails ; Ritual annointing stones sacred ; Rainmaking ceremony descent group ancestors animal sacrifice ; Animal sacrifice suffocation blood ; Singing males praise songs cattle ; Shrines sacred rocks "ombale stones" ; Adornment women hair styles ; Clothing traditional leather sheepskin ; Hair styles sex status life cycle social identity ; Pastoral activities seasonal migration ecology ; Musical instruments horn pluriarch ; Music songs cattle praises oral history ; Naming infant rites of passage ; Ceremony naming annointing clan ; Inheritance cattle ceremony baby naming ; Milk purification sacred cattle ritual tasting ; Curing singing women trance ; Adornment necklaces wristbands women ; Adornment hair styles women braiding ; Hair styles hair dressing braiding grease wood ash red ochre ; Tillage division of labor by sex hoe ; Hair styles boys clan membership ; Animal husbandry division of labor by sex herding milking ; Seasonal migrations ; Rites and ceremonies
Local Number:
HSFA 1983.5.1
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Gordon Gibson films, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Cataloging supported by Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee
1 Film reel (33 minutes, color sound; 1200 feet, 16mm)
Type:
Archival materials
Film reels
Date:
1969
Scope and Contents:
Edited film of wedding rites among the Himba, a pastoral Bantu people of Kackoveld in Namibia. Film documents the taking of a second wife by a Himba man and discusses the marriage in connection with intervillage kinship relations, bridewealth, and polygymy. Film includes: the adornment and ritualization surrounding zacirwa (seclusion of the bride), customary strangulation and butchering of a bridewealth ox and the reading of its viscera, onjongu dancing by guests, ritual capture of the bride by groom's age-mates, and ceremonial incorporation of the bride into the homestead of her husband. Includes sound recordings.
Legacy Keywords: Marriage rites of passage ritual phases ; Food preparation butchering ritual cooking ; Divination butchering augury ; Adornment headdress marriage nubility ; Bridewealth marriage animal sacrifice kinship relationships ; Avoidance groom mother-in-law ; Dancing celebration mimicry feasting ; Rites of passage seclusion bride veil bridal hut ; Symbols ritual bride prosperity ox stomach fat ; Marriage bride capture kinship relationships ; Residence post-marital virilocal ; Food consumption ceremony commensality marriage ; Feasting marriage groom seclusion age mates ; Animal husbandry pastoral activities cattle wealth ; Language and culture ; Rites and ceremonies ; Zacriwa bride ; Naango bride's mother ; Vesenga groom ; Cakoya bride's father's brother ; Kackoveld (Namibia)
Local Number:
HSFA 1983.5.3
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Gordon Gibson films, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Cataloging supported by Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee
Glessner, J. C. (Jefferson Carlyle), 1895-1962 Search this
Extent:
Film reels (1 hour 51 minutes, black-and-white color silent positive; 1600 feet, 16mm)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Film reels
Silent films
Place:
Middle East
Iraq
Date:
circa 1928-1957
Scope and Contents:
Footage shot in Mesopotamia (Iraq) while Glessner worked as a missionary for the United Mission. Indigenous peoples filmed include the Iraq Bedouin, Yezidi, Kurds, Arabs, and Turkamen. Documentation covers a wide range of daily subsistence and domestic, ceremonial, and religious activities including: outdoor church services, animal husbandry (sheep), harvesting and threshing of wheat, water wells and wheels, Bedouin tents and dancing at Sulimani, Yezidi festival and whitewashing of a Yezidi shrine, circumcision ceremony, women carrying pans of yogurt on head to Bagdad, operations of a brick factory in Bagdad, tarring roads, and building Glessner home as well as other mission buildings. Footage annotated by Mrs. Glessner and daughter, Lois, in 1983.
Supplementary materials: 3,4
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or Anthropology Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Local Number:
HSFA 1981.3.1
Provenance:
Received from Lois Kratz in 1981.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
silent films
Citation:
J.C. Glessner films of Iraq, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Cataloging supported by Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee
Footage shot by Jerry Payne for the first detailed study of arthropod succesion in animal decomposition and the first to use a pig as the model.
Because a pig closely approximates the human body, the data generated could be used in modern forensic science to approximate the time of human deaths. The time lapse footage was taken over 4 days and demonstrates the sequence of tissue destruction and the role of insects in the ultimate dismemberment of the carcass and soil movement. Pink and purple beads were added to show the intense activities of the insects in moving the carcass and soil.
A hardbound copy of Payne's graduate thesis related to the film is also available.
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or Anthropology Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Local Numbers:
HSFA 2007.8.1
Provenance:
Received from Jerry Payne in 2007 and 2012.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Film reels (30 minutes, color silent; 1200 feet, 16mm)
Type:
Archival materials
Film reels
Date:
1971
Scope and Contents:
Full film record documenting the pastoralist Kuvale people of the Mocamedes Desert, Mbambi region, southwestern Angola. Footage documents the organization of Kuvale homesteads and styles of dress and adornment. Various leisure, child-rearing, and domestic activities include: hairdressing, women grinding grain and milking cows, men butchering animals, and prepartion of meals. Includes sound recordings, annotation, filming logs.
Legacy Keywords: Language and culture ; Domestic relations ; Homesteads domestic groups marriage ; Adornment women hair styles ; Clothing and dress ; Child rearing ; Food preparation cooking ; Food crops g ; Milking ; Butchering
Local Number:
HSFA 1983.5.5
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Gordon Gibson films, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Cataloging supported by Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee
1 Film reel (11 minutes, color sound; 400 feet, 16mm)
Type:
Archival materials
Film reels
Date:
1981
Scope and Contents:
Edited film showing the early morning activities of a Tibetan family during harvest in Mathoo Village, Ladakh, India. Film was made from [Film Studies of Traditional Tibetan Life and Culture: Ladakh, India, 1978].
Legacy Keywords: Language and culture ; Domestic and family life ; Domestic animals ; Threshing ; Food preparation cooking
