Reflections on Ethnic Music

This is a brief meditation on ethnicity as a source of all powerful musical styles, as a kind of curse in the contemporary world of nation states, and as an ever more complex puzzle for every student of popular music to solve. Browsing through the Wilfrid Mellers classic, one can browse a long time before finding much on ethnicity  or class as foundations for musicking. Music in a New Found Land simply extends the high culture worldview used in writing about Bach or Beethoven or Orpheus to generously include the best of popular music in a civilization that is ever broader but always universal. Mellers writes from on high, a heavenly perspective, in which sympathetic judgments of everything musical under the sun are dispensed with gusto and St. Peter is encouraged to let all kinds of quality pass the gates, or perhaps we should describe it as an Olympian-situated knowledge that savors the foibles and idiosyncrasies of all the music makers below because the gods and mortals share so many  passions. I know I have enjoyed this recent browsing greatly because I share in almost all the judgments: the appreciation of Thelonius Monk’s fingerings, the disgust with Stan Kenton’s mechanization, the appraisal of Menotti’s emptiness, the disappointments of so many ‘third stream’ syntheses. Mellers gets it right in phrase after phrase, page after page, but almost always by listening intelligently from the top down.

A theoretical or interesting quotation from Mellers on ethnicity per se is hard to find. While he does not 'pronounce' on ethnicity, he does have a lot to say about musics which are often thought of as ethnic - and not only Africans-American and country but other 'primitive' or 'prime' musics of the world as well. The primacy or firstness or originality of these musics seems to be taken for granted as varieties of grist for a universal mill in which 'serious' music, perhaps, is the miller. A few years ago I would have been very offended by this. After all, 'ethnicity' has been an axiom in most of my work, phrased as nationalist perspective in Urban Blues (1992), combined with classlessness in Tiv Song (1979), with class in Polka Happiness (Keil et al., 1992), with class and caste in our work on Greek Macedonian Gypsy musicians (The Instruments with A. V. Keil, in progress). All along, and especially in My Music (Crafts et al., 1993) I have been working from an ethnographic, bottom-up or culture-constituting point of view - where does the music come from? or in My Music how does each person fit music into a life? - rather than from a critical or interpretive, 'here is how I hear it' perspective. At the moment , however, I am very sympathetic to the Mellers variety of intelligent listening to everything from aloft, and more than a little ambivalent about my own past prediction for snipping out identities, both ethnic and idiocultural, from the social fabric, in order to celebrate them.

Much of this ambivalence has grown out of our Gypsy research. Mulling over interviews with the most senior musicians of Iraklia's neighbourhood, it is clear that despite having been settled in this one town for well over a century, the oldest people can think of themselves as having had at least three ethnic identities in addition to being Roma or Gypsies. In the interviews these ethnic identities are presented as choices made or not made in the midst of historical crises. 'When the Turks left this town in 1922 during the exchange of  populations we could have gone with the Turko-Gyftoi because we certainly spoke Turkish fluently.' 'When we were starving during World War II and the occupying Bulgarian forces asked us if we were Bulgarian we probably should have said yes because more of us would have lived and we certainly spoke Bulgarian fluently. I served for two years in a Bulgarian army band playing for the officers.' 'All of our people have been Greek for as long as anyone can remember.' 'We Rom really have no music or folklore of our own, our deepest music for our own weddings is really Turkish.' 'The people who love our music the most are "the pained peoples," the Pontic Greek refugees from around the Black Sea, the Vlachs (a Rumanian speaking minority), the Slavic speaking minority.' I have made up these sentences and I could either make up more or patiently extract from our interview transcripts dozens of similar examples of people testifying to the flexibility of 'ethnicity' in Greek Macedonia.

This may be an extreme case of multiple or overlapped identities, but I suspect that just about every person you or I meet in the street is less mono-ethnic and much more complicated musically, historically, culturally than we think. Who has four grandparents from one tribe any more? Who listens to fewer than a dozen styles music?

From a Gypsy point of view and also from a universal or xenographic perspective outside all specific cultures (assuming for a moment, incorrectly, that such a xenographic vantage point exists), the quite recently invented states, with brand new and variably fascistic definitions of ethnicity in hand, have forced people to join their 'bundle' with defined borders if they want to claim land and citizenship. What had been flexible, fluid, complex, mosaicised identities for both individuals and groups suddenly assume a fixed and layered look as the big lie of a mono-ethnic nation-state becomes naturalized. The Gypsies of northern Greece can choose at times of war, whether or not to be Greek, Bulgarian or Turkish (and may yet be offered these choices again) but they cannot choose to be Rom. Or put it this way, they have less chance of choosing a Rom identity than 20 million Kurds have of choosing a Kurdish identity. Over a hundreds other peoples united on their territories are struggling for states ahead of the scattered Gypsy populations. Only a planned and peaceful reduction of populations in world-governed loose federations might eventually have room for Rom qua Rom, both settled and roaming.

What does all this have to do with 'ethnic' music in the USA? Well, in the past all music has been coming from tribes or 'ethnic groups' until very recently (remember Phrygian, Dorian and Lydian describe how those tribes sang in the era before homer, and rap was strictly a Bronx street corner phenomenon fifteen years ago). In the future I have the deepest desire to restore Gaia's world of maximized cultural and species diversity. But at this historical moment, as the 'cleansing' continues unopposed in Bosnia and the Third World War (Nietschmann, 1987) continues inside dozens of other states, my original title for this essay presented a sequential analysis within the parentheses - '(Black music, country music, others all)' - that is both very logical and completely problematic. Logical because 'Black music' has become virtually all of American music as jazz suffused pop and rhythm and blues became rock; 'country' is the next biggest music in America; 'other' could include every thing from Latin or salsa to the six varieties of polka; and finally, one could argue, 'all' of our music is ethnic - as 'James' puts it My Music, 'everything you hear comes from some kind of ethnic background, and from somewhere. So why do you want to be narrow?' (Crafts et al., 1993, p. 180).

But from ethnographic perspectives 'ethnicity' is completely problematic, too. Black musicians and leaders usually do not want to be considered 'ethnic' because it lumps the black experience within all the other immigrant experiences as if everyone volunteered to come over here; glossing over the middle passage, slavery and racism is the last thing they want to do. Country musicians would probably scratch their heads in puzzlement over the 'ethnic' label since country is just plain old everyday American music; hell, Charlie Pride sounds like a good ol' boy, ain't nothin' ethnic about it, we're singin' the songs of the unsilent majority. Most of the 'others' - German-Americans, Italian-Americans, Polish-Americans, Slovenian-Americans, etc. etc. - have been leaving the ethnic urban neighborhoods for the more anonymous suburbs just as fast as they can get the money together to buy a home and a monocultural lawn (no dandelions or clovers please). We are certainly 'all' ethnic, but it is ironic to realize this just as the 'all' has disappeared into the shopping mall.

Should analysts, both humanist and social scientific, continue to draw tight circles around people and call them members of a culture or subculture? We have just published a book about Polish-American polka music (Keil et al., 1992) but only two or three per cent of the Polish-Americans in western New York are enthusiastic enough about Polka dances to go to one every so often; have we falsely characterized this community by putting Polka music in an emblematic pose, the soul music of an ethnic working class community? When I drew a circle around the fans of B.B. King, Bobby Bland and Junior Parker in Chicago circa 1963 I did not pay any attention at all to other musicians and musics they were  hearing and loving; no notice of Motown, a word or two for James Brown, and I hate to think how many of B's fans could have talked to me eloquently about country music if I has asked. In other words, reifying culture and simplifying the identities of people has been standard practice in the American academy for a long time now.

So perhaps I should quit my unannounced and largely unfought battle with the British critics and the cultural studies movement over people's music as something different from high, mass or folk music (see Feld and Keil, 1994, chapter 5); something different from the various fusions of high, mass and folk that Mellers in his closing pages (1964, pp. 436-7) wants to hear consummated in the new found land. It has long seemed to me that British and Canadian colleagues are always talking about mass culture or popular culture, sometimes in relation to high culture, but almost never talking about people's culture and music: brass bands, singing in pubs, amateur string quartets, and so forth. The universalizing, the globalization of culture and the trend toward a single civilization is certainly moving along at an ever-quickening pace; scholarship celebrating what people do for themselves in any given locality does seem more and more folkloric and quixotic. Postmodernists have been assuring me that globalization and localization of culture go hand in hand, the global economy eroding the old nation-sate identifies and leaving space for local communities to reassert themselves. I do not see or hear it in Buffalo yet. Each new mall in the suburbs is bigger and more appalling than the one before; the city shrinks and there is less and less live music. I find it harder and harder to locate local cultures and to do this ethnographic or documentary work in many other parts of the world. And conversely, it seems more and more urgent to participate in local musicking with the aim of creating a culture or cultures for this watershed, this echo-niche, that will do what music used to do so well - bind people, their beliefs and the natural world together in a specific time and place.

I think of the work we do at MUSE (Musicians United for Superior Education) Incorporated as experiments in ethnogenesis, culture creation, retribalisation, planting the seeds for new ethnicities. We raise money and send teams of African-American, Afro-Latin, Native American musicians and dancers to schools and community centres on a regular weekly basis to see if they can instigate self-sustaining music-dance styles in which the older children are able to teach the younger ones the traditions of their particular school or centre. After a few years of this work I cannot say with complete confidence that a new tradition has been invented or taken hold at a school yet, but suddenly there is a circle dance at an earth day celebration at one school or a demand from students at another school for an afterschool club that would let the bomba really blossom. Will the earth day celebration be repeated with variations next year? Will the afterschool club continue and spawn new lyrics, new dance steps, new events that become annual? Cultural invention is one thing; reliable transmission and annual rites take a lot of time to establish themselves.

I have no idea if my own musicking or these muse incorporating experiments will work, but high culture art has seemed dead to me for decades by now, mass culture commodities are ever more spectacularly stultifying, and the diverse people’s musics increasingly either ratified, commodified or marginalized as residual, ethclass folk music. In any case, it is more fun to invent oneself as a possible ancestor of new tribes than to document the pain and repression of the old ones.

References
Crafts, S., Cavicchi, D. and Keil, C. (1993). My music: Explorations of music in daily life. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
Feld S. and Keil, C. (1994). Music grooves: Essays and dialogues. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Keil, C. (1992). Urban blues. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Keil, C. (1979). Tiv song: The sociology of art in a classless society. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Keil, A. V., Keil, C. and Blau, R. (1992). Polka happiness. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Mellers,W. (1964). Music in a new found land: Themes and developments in the history of American music. London: Barrie and Rockliff.
Nietschmann, B. (1987). The third world war. Cultural Survival, 11(3), 1-16.

[This essay was written by Charles Keil and was originally published in 1994 under the title '"Ethnic" music traditions in the USA (black music; country music; others; all)' in Popular Music (Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 175-78). It has been slightly edited for reprinting here. Keil is a recent recipient of the Koizumi Fumio Prize for his achievements in ethnomusicology. A full text of his prize lecture is available here.]

Two Ethnographic Films on Muslim Music

Ethnomusicologist John Baily researched, directed and edited two films during a two-year Leverhulme Film Training Fellowship at The National Film and Television School (NFTS) in the United Kingdom. 'Amir: An Afghan Refugee Musician's Life in Peshwar, Pakistan' was made in 1985 (with photography by Wayne Derrick), and 'Lessons from Gulam: Asian Music in Bradford' in 1986 (with photography by Andy Jillings). In each film Baily worked with a student cameraman who was in his last year of studies. The films are very much in the documentary style of the NFTS, forged by its director, Colin Young. The film making process is acknowledged in the films rather than hidden, and the (short) commentaries are spoken by the film maker in the first person. While editing the films, Baily was able to benefit from feedback by other film makers at the NFTS during regular weekly screening of the work in progress.

In 'Amir,' all the dialogue and interviews are subtitled, as well as the song texts. In 'Lessons from Gulam' the performers, Asian immigrants in the British city of Bradford, speak English, thus subtitling was unnecessary, but Baily did not subtitle the song texts (for financial reasons or to leave the image free, or for both reasons?). The audience that does not speak and understand Urdu would certainly be grateful for translations of the songs, and not every film spectator will have the opportunity to read the forthcoming booklet where the translations are given.

It is worthwhile reproducing the film maker's stated aims, since some ethnomusicologists and anthropologists claim that ethnographic or ethnomusicological films should be made (and judged) with a well defined audience in mind (e.g. archive, university, museum, TV, etc.). The accompanying booklet indicates that the film 'Amir' had to satisfy several audiences: '1.The general audience. 2. Specialists in ethnomusicology, anthropology and regional studies. For them the film is a report on the condition of Afghan refugee musicians in Peshawar. 3. The Afghan audience, for whom very few films had ever been made in their own languages, Pashto and Dari. 4. It had to satisfy the cinematic criteria of the NFTS audience, concerned less with anthropology than with making good movies.' The film

'Lessons from Gulam' had similar aims, with exception of the general audience: '1. The Bradford audience; not only had the interests of the musicians themselves to be paramount, but if one of the goals of the film was to help promote Asian music education in Bradford then it was important to present the musicians in as positive a way as possible according to Muslim values. 2. The film had to have an educational content and be of interest to school teachers who were faced with the problem of introducing Asian music into their curricula. 3. The film had to be ethnomusicologically sound.' 4. was identical with point 4 for 'Amir.'

According to the film aesthetics of the NFTS (summarized by Baily), there should be 'no supplementary information, all the information needed to interpret the action (or to arrive at an interpretation) is provided by the action itself'. In other words, each film should stand by itself. I have seen (and enjoyed) Baily's films on several occasions (ethnomusicology and film colloquia) without supplementary information other than his introduction and answers to the audience's questions. But in reading the manuscripts of the forthcoming booklets, I was struck by how much more informative the films become when complemented by the written texts. These not only give a general introduction to the historical and social context, and to the research, but also discuss shooting and editing strategies, and provide shot by shot analyses describing the conditions in which each shot was made and why it was edited in that way, as well as what happened before or after the shot, and what had not been kept in the final editing of the film. There are also transcriptions of Baily's spoken commentaries and translations of the song texts (but not of the dialogues and interviews).

Many ethnographic film makers claim that films should be accompanied by printed study guides. John Baily provides an outstanding model for such booklets for ethnomusicological films. One might only regret the absence of musical transcriptions and analyses. The main focus of the booklets is film making, and on this topic I would have liked to know a bit more about the actual working methods with the cameraman during shooting. Who made decisions about focal length, angle, framing, length of the shots, mobility or fixity to the camera, etc.? From the booklet we learn that, in the case of 'Lessons from Gulam,' 'the shoot was characterized by endless self-questioning and discussions with Andy Jillings (the cameraman) about what we were doing, about the subject of the film, with constant reviews of what had been shot and what else required to be shot.' I have heard from other film makers that it is difficult to control efficiently the shooting while simultaneously making the sound recordings. The soundman has to choose the best position to pick up the best sound without being in frame, he has to be careful not to get extraneous noises from the microphone and cables, and he cannot communicate in sign language with the cameraman, tap on his shoulder or guide him in lengthy sequence-shots. Ethnomusicologists who consider making films with a similar minimal crew would certainly be grateful for more information about how Baily managed to both direct and record the sound. As the study guides are not printed yet, it is maybe not too late to include something about that.

'Amir' is a film portrait of an Afghan professional musician, a refugee in Pakistan. Amir is presented in a wide range of situations, showing the environment and conditions of a refugee's life: in Peshwar's street, at his home, in his band leader's ‘office,’ in a cemetery and at a shrine, etc. He plays the rubab in the band of a well-known singer and harmonium player, and we see him playing solo and in the group at private sessions and during a Pakistani wedding. He takes music lessons from a Pakistani master musician who speaks with some beautiful metaphors about the value of music. While the spectator might expect that refugees perform many resistance songs, an interesting discussion about an audio cassette reveals that their condition forces them to record love songs ‘for business’ instead. There are some striking cinematographic high points in the film. At the wedding nationalistic songs which have meaning for the Pakistani wedding guests as well as for the Afghan musicians are filmed in a virtuoso sequence-shot. The camera follows the playing, dancing, offering of money and the shooting of a rifle (with the additional dramatic insert of a Kalashnikov being fired). Another strong emotional impact is achieved by a special editing effect in image and sound. Speaking about his life as a refugee Amir starts to weep and, hearing an aircraft approaching, he looks up to the sky. This, of course, evokes bombers devastating his homeland. The sound amplifies and cross-fades into the sound of the next image showing a river, a ‘metaphorical river of tears.’ After the first surprise, the emotion is taken away as quickly as it arose when we discover Amir sitting by the river in his usual cheery mood, speaking about this resort where he passes Ramadan in the cool mountain air.

'Lessons from Gulam' is a film about ethnomusicological research. As Baily says: ‘The data shown - the lessons and rehearsals - are the research data, they are not illustrative of a wider investigation or set of conclusions. They show some facets of musical enculturation in Bradford, but the film does not tell us what these add up to. Rather, they should prompt further inquiry.’ The film is also a double portrait of two friends, Gulam and Shaukat, amateur musicians respectively of Gujerati and Pakistani origin, living in the British city of Bradford, who specialize in a type of Muslim religious music called qawali, which has been popularized through films and records. Inter-titles introduce each scene and thus reveal the overall structure of the film. Scene 1’Introduction to Gulam and Shaukat’ presents the two friends in their environment: John Baily has a short lesson from Gulam. In scene 2 ‘Shaukat’s Ghazal Lesson,’ Shaukat has problems in playing harmonium and singing at the same time. Scene 3 ‘Workshop’ focuses on rhythm: a third member of Gulam's group appears. Norman, an English guitarist and sitar player, who demonstrates metric cycles to a school class; later a young boy teaches an adult tabla playing, Gulam's father, formerly a professional drummer, gives a demonstration of his art. Scene 4 ‘Qawali Rehearsal’ shows the main performance context for Gulam’s group: playing on Sunday afternoons for the musicians' own enjoyment. In scene 5 'The Touchstone', we are again at a workshop where Norman teaches the schoolchildren a well known movie-song, and Shaukat performs another song. Scene 6 'Ramadan: The month of Fast' is a section without music but which talks about the fast. The high point of the final scene 7 'Celebrating the End of the Fast' is the performance of a song by Gulam accompanied by his group. The film ends somewhat abruptly with a very short shot showing Shaukat arriving in the street and saying to the camera: 'Am I a bit late?' In the booklet, Baily justifies his choice of cutting in this shot taken on a different day, saying that for cinematographic reasons it was essential to end the film with Gulam and Shaukat in close proximity.’ To that I would argue that with his last shot the proximity is not shown (they are not together), and that this abrupt ending gives the film a conclusion which is at odds with its main focus, musical enculturation. Baily honesty reports Shaukat's complaint that ‘it made him look as though he was always late.’ But apart from this ending, which I dislike as much as Shaukat, I admire the way the film is carefully thought out and edited. Those who believe that making movies is simply a matter of pressing a video camera button and putting the shots together as they come may learn a lot through studying the booklet and analysing the film at a micro level (cutting from one shot to another) and at a macro level (the overall structure). Besides taking ‘Lessons from Gulam’ in performing qawali music, one can take 'Lessons from Baily' in how to structure a film.

Despite this compliment about the editing of 'Lessons from Gulam' (which was more difficult to edit than 'Amir'), I think 'Amir' is more successful from the cinematographic point of view, since the success of portrait films relies heavily on the personality of the figure portrayed. Amir is a stronger personality, more articulate and more open about himself, and his situation as a refugee contributes to the emotional power of the film. In contrast, in 'Lessons from Gulam,' Gulam and Shaukat are shy, 'even when performing,' as Baily writes in his booklet, admitting that he had to ask 'too many questions in order to elicit information.' Indeed, the viewer gets the impression that every bit of information had to be squeezed out of the musicians. This situation, of which Baily was fully aware and about which he felt uncomfortable, prompted him to resign his status as unseen film maker and interviewer, and enter the film as an actor, a learning and performing musician. 'Through joining them on the other side of the camera I was able to experience something of what I was asking of them, and at the same time give them more confidence.' Besides the difference in personality and the social and political context, Amir's more open response may also come from the fact that he is an old friend of John Baily who had worked with him in Afghanistan 10 years before, and they share memories of life in Herat before the Soviet invasion. On the other hand, Baily's short period of fieldwork with Gulan anti Shaukat in Bradford was conducted just before filming started.

Both films have longer shots than most conventional TV documentaries, with many spectacular takes, for example when the walking cameraman accompanies walking people, even following them during changing light conditions (these are ‘training films’ and the cameraman wanted to show his professional skill). The remarkable long sequence shots are particularly relevant since they allow one to see the performance techniques of the different musicians of the group, and the interaction amongst themselves and with their audience.

For ethnomusicologists who judge the quality of a film by the quantity of musical performance (I know at least one who criticized 'Amir' - and other films - for having too little music), 'Lessons from Gulam' should be slightly more satisfying since it has more than 25 minutes of musical performance and lessons, while 'Amir' has 'only' 19 minutes out of a 52-minute film. In my opinion, both films are fascinating for ethnomusicologists and music lovers. Furthermore, 'Amir' appeals very strongly to a general audience through its human and emotional portrait of a refugee. Thanks to this film we become close to him and we would greet him as an old friend it we had the opportunity to meet him in reality. At the fifth ‘Bilan du Film Ethnographique,’ Paris 1986, a ‘Prix special du jury’ for film schools was attributed to the NFTS in England for the film 'Amir.'

Both films show that with good training in film making, lengthy work in editing and careful reflexion about what one is doing cinematographically, it is possible to make films which are 'ethnomusicologically sound' as well as being 'good movies.' Accompanied by their study guides (and John Baily’s other publications), the two films should be acquired by every ethnomusicology program, institution, archive and museum department. Not only are both films highly interesting for area studies in Asian music, but they are also outstanding examples in the methodology of filming music and musicians.

[The foregoing was written by Hugo Zemp and originally published in the Yearbook for Traditional Music, Vol. 20, 1988, pp. 257-60. Both films were originally shot and edited in 16mm but they're now available on DVD with study guides in PDF from Documentary Educational Resources here and here.]

A Film on Music in the Trobriand Islands

The Trobriand Islands are usually assumed to be well known, thanks to the research of Bronislaw Malinowski and numerous subsequent anthropologists. But in spite of the abundant documentation of other cultural components, the music of the area had been little studied and is almost inaccessible aurally to listeners outside of Papua New Guinea. Therefore, the film 'Kama Wosi' ('Our Songs' in Kilivila language), shot in 1975 by Les McLaren and released in 1979, was a very welcome addition to knowledge of this area. What immediately strikes the viewer familiar with Malinowski's photographs of Trobriand life from 1915-1918 is that few things seem to have changed in 65 years. Even traditional music had not been supplanted by string bands, as the opening credits reveal: 'Although some music was performed expressly for the film, it still functions integrally to Trobriand society.'

The commentary of the film relates basic information concerning the socio-political system, gardening, magic, intersexual relations, kula trade, and religion. Each of these subjects is illuminated by the music - either through its contextual importance to the topic being discussed or through the relevance of the song text. For example, the discussion of the kula trade is followed by songs performed at various stages during the voyage, as well as songs with textual references to kula canoes and concern about success during the trade. Kilivila texts can be very complicated metaphorically, as can be seen by examining annotated translations (as in, for example, those done by Baldwin 1945 and 1950, and also by Kasaipwalova and Beier at the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies in 1978). Undoubtedly some of this was lost in translating song texts for the film, but the translators did a good job in conveying some idea of the poetry involved.

No attempt is made to conceal the fact that a camera is filming and that the people being filmed are aware of this. Such honesty can be an effective technique. Two young men sit on a veranda. One of them is carving an intricate design on the handle of a drum. While carving, he speaks to the filmmakers, and, ultimately, to all outsiders: 'Carving is nothing special - what are you taking pictures for? Day and night, day and night - taking pictures for nothing. You take these pictures and take them away - what about us? People will laugh at us.' 'Don't worry about him... I think that's their work. They go and get their pay.' 'I'll do this carving. I'll spoil my design.'

A variety of songs are presented throughout the film. The majority are those known as wosi baku, which are composed on numerous topics and sung while walking in the bush or sitting in the village. Quite a few different solo singers are heard, ranging from a very young boy telling how perfectly he will dance, to well-known singers. In fact, the people of the Trobriands have great respect for singers and composers. Sebwagau is one of the most famous. In June 1981, when I showed 'Kama Wosi' at the government headquarters of Losuia and at Tukwaukwa Catholic Mission, both in the Trobriands, everyone present knew Sebwagau, although his village was not nearby. In the film he sings a newly composed song about a caterpillar, asking it not to eat his taro. His song was learned by the audience from these showings. Additionally, wosi moyovau (kula songs) and valam (mourning 'cries') are heard. Regarding the latter, as in many parts of Papua New Guinea Trobriand Islanders do not classify their mourning as 'song,' even though poetic texts are included. Rather, it is considered a type of crying.

In the Trobriands, as in many other parts of Papua New Guinea, songs are much more important than purely instrumental music. We do, however, hear some examples of the latter, particularly the loloni, an end-blown flute made of a papaya branch. The distal end is alternately opened and closed to produce the corresponding overtone series.

At the end of the film, a portion of a choreographed usu mwaya dance called Bwetayobu is presented. The dancers (kasa), who are all male (and do not sing), wear women's skirts (doba) and hold pandanus streamers (biyala). They dance in a circle around drummers (towaisi kaisosau) and singers (towosi or tokaiwala), a group collectly known as kepou. Two sizes of drums are used: katuneniya (a small drum, which signals changes of dance movements) and kaisosau (a larger drum, which provides a rhythmic back-up to the katuneniya). The mweki (literally, 'go with') dance is commonly presented at national festivals on 'culture days,' although it has only developed in the Trobriands within the past 30-35 years. Boys hit their buttocks and both boys and girls thrust forward their pelvises while chanting sexually explicit texts. Mweki is disliked by elders, not because of its overt sexual references, but because it lacks the seriousness and poetic metaphors of other music. (Information contained in the three preceding paragraphs is the result of fieldwork undertaken by the Music Department of the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, 1974-1981.)

'Kama Wosi' suffers a bit from scenes included to conform to a Westerner's fantasy of the idyllic tropics, but they do not tarnish the overall sensitivity of the presentation.

[This is is an edited version of a review by Don Niles of the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, Boroko, Papual New Guinea. It was originally published in the journal Ethnomusicology (Vol. 26, No. 3, September 1982, pp. 505-506). Although Niles used a 16mm print and transcript to write the review, the film is now available on DVD from Documentary Educational Resources in the US and from Ronin Films in Australia. Further information on Melanesian music and the music of Papua New Guinea is available here.]

Ways of Looking at Ethnographic Film

In 1970, at the American Anthropological Association meetings in San Diego, Robert Gardner screened 'The Nuer' to a large anthropological audience for the first time. Probably everyone in the audience knew the Nuer from Evans-Pritchard's ethnographies. When it was over and the lights came up, we sat stunned. People said, 'Evans-Pritchard had never told us that the Nuer were like this!' A picture is worth a thousand words. What can that mean? Can one second of a movie (at 24 frames per second) be worth 24,000 words? No. But one could easily use 1,000 words to describe and analyze what is happening in a picture. The notion of 'seeing anthropology' is important, for both still photographs and moving images can complement the words anthropologists use to describe how culture works. Just as the words need to be studied, so the images must be thought about carefully.

Look at the picture to the right, which is taken from a book published in 1879. You can see at a glance that it refers to Europeans' schemas of their role among humanity. Now spend some time with the picture. Look at it more carefully. Describe and analyze it. What about the faces, clothing, body language, genders, and actions? What do all these details mean? Now try this exercise again: What is the Europeans' image of themselves, of those Others, and of their interrelationships? You can easily use more than 1,000 words to describe this picture. It is in this way that 'visual anthropology' implies the critical visual analysis of human behavior. The visuals mentioned in this article - both the still photographs and the video clips - are offered here for critical visual analysis.

This article is a very brief introduction to ethnographic film, intended to highlight some concepts and some ideas to keep in mind while studying the films. By now, a great deal of literature has focused on ethnographic film. My own book Ethnographic Film (1976) is a convenient starting place, but there are many more recent publications. For general overviews, there are excellent books by Peter Loizos, such as Innovation in Ethnographic Filmmaking (1993), and by Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Taylor, including Cross Cultural Filmmaking (1997). There are also books by or about some of the most important ethnographic filmmakers: Jean Rouch (Stoller 1992), John Marshall (Ruby 1993); Robert Gardner (National Rhythms by T. Cooper 1995 and Kapfer, Petermann, and Thomas 1990); David and Judith MacDougall (MacDougall 1998); and Timothy Asch (Lutkehaus 1995). Here we will touch on a few of the most important issues in ethnographic film. First, though, an abridged history.

As soon as camera and film technology became available, filmmakers looked for subjects. Different exotic peoples, with their costumes and dances, were considered good subject matter. People who were brought from afar to be exhibited in European expositions were recorded. Explorers and anthropologists went abroad to film Australian Aborigines, Native Americans, and others in their own lands. The first major milestone was in 1922, when Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North was released to tremendous public acclaim. Edward Curtis' film In the Land of the Head-Hunters, later retitled In the Land of the War Canoes, was made eight years earlier among the Kwa Kwaka' Wakw (Kwakiutl), but it was not commercially successful. It fell into complete obscurity until a copy was found in the 1940s. Flaherty is known to have seen this film, however, and it likely influenced the making of Nanook.

Anthropologists were slower to see the uses of film in their research. Franz Boas had shot footage of the Kwa Kwaka' Wakw before World War I, but it was not until Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead did fieldwork in Bali between 1936 and 1939 that major research really incorporated film. Those films were not edited and released until the early 1950s. The beginning of the modern era of ethnographic filmmaking came in the mid-1940s, with the films of Jean Rouch in France, and in the mid-1950s in the United States, with the films of John Marshall. Marshall began shooting extensive footage of the Jul'hoansi of the Kalahari Desert in 1951 at the age of 17. The release of The Hunters in 1957 opened a productive era for ethnographic filmmaking in the United States. John Marshall returned to the Kalahari throughout his life to make films and advocate for Jul'hoan self-determination. His ethnographic film achievements culminated in a six-hour, five-part series, A Kalahari Family, chronicling the lives of a band of Jul'hoansi over the span of fifty years, completed in 2002. Jean Rouch made many films in West Africa that are now classics. Rouch first visited West Africa in 1941 and returned frequently throughout his life. The films that we will see range from early footage by John Marshall to decidedly more modern films, often made from a more emic, or native, point of view (for example, the Vietnamese film, How to Behave (Chuyen Tute).

Words are linear; pictures are nonlinear. That is, words are arranged in sentences that are read in the order intended by the author. Those words refer to one thing at a time. 'A well-dressed European man, holding a Bible in his right hand . . . ' So could you begin the description of the picture we studied above. When you look at the picture, however, your eye has great freedom to roam around, to notice or ignore details, to make connections, and to interpret meanings. Your reading of the picture is hardly a neat, determined linear act. This idea is even more applicable to films. To complicate things even further, in films there is sometimes a wordy narration that tries to draw attention to only one aspect of the visuals. One skill of critical visual analysis of these films is the ability to see what is happening in the background, or at the sides of the frame, rather than only what the camera has focused on.

Although photographs and film have an apparent veracity, there are at least five ways in which this truthfulness of photographs can be affected:

1. The presence of the camera, or the film crew, can make people self-conscious, altering their usual behavior, perhaps evoking mugging for the camera.


2. The filmmakers can stage scenes, or pose people, to get more effective or more aesthetic shots, in the process altering reality.


3. The very act of photography is extremely selective, pointing the lens in one direction and thus not filming all other possible directions, as well as turning the camera on for only a few moments and so not capturing the rest of the action.


4. Editing, in its acts of including or cutting shots, is selective.


5. Editing, in juxtaposing shots from different times and places (the process called montage), creates an implied unity of action that may not have existed.

And let's not even get into the digital editing possibilities of adding or removing people or things from shots.

Imagine that an anthropologist does fieldwork somewhere. She takes notes and shoots film or video footage. She comes home and prepares a film and a book. For the book, she works over her notes, writes, rewrites, and produces a smoothly flowing manuscript. As she prepares the film, she edits her footage. She throws out some shots, shortens and rearranges other shots. Although she cannot create new footage, the anthropologist can manipulate the original footage - cutting, pasting, and discarding, as well as using narration to cover gaps of shooting and to provide understandings that she has developed late in the game.

In the film Dead Birds, for example, there are battle sequences edited from footage shot at several different battles. As the narration does not mention this point, only the most attentive observers would pick it up. (I have discussed it in print - see Heider, 1972, 1976, 1997.) The narration says that women are making the trip to the brine pool on the day of the battle. It is probably obvious that Robert Gardner, with his camera, was not simultaneously filming both the battle and the salt trek. Both of these constructions of reality seemed reasonable in the early 1960s, when the film was made, for they gave an accurate picture of Dani battles and division of labor. Today, a desire for a different, more literal accuracy might have resulted in different editing.

Another example of creative editing occurs in John Marshall's classic 1957 film about the Jul'hoansi, The Hunters (some shots from it are included in Marshall's film N!ai). Four men are followed on a long and eventually successful giraffe hunt. The film presents a basically accurate picture of Jul'hoansi hunting knowledge and techniques. But the hunt itself has been edited together from footage of different men, shot in different years. These conventions of editing have been criticized in recent years. In reality, it would be virtually impossible to make a film that did not, to some extent, use them. Nevertheless, ethnographic film, in so far as it is ethnographic, is held to more scientific standards of truthfulness than other types of film. One solution is to have a study guide of some sort accompany the film to explain the editing decisions. (As models, see Heider, 1972; Rundstrom, Rundstrom, and Bergum, 1973; Connor, Asch, and Asch, 1986.)

Words can make abstractions and generalizations, but film cannot. Think of trying to visualize 'the Nuer have patrilineal clans,' or Vietnamese 'kindness,' or Mayan cargo rankings. Each of these concepts is easy to explain in words but virtually impossible to show in visuals alone. That is, in part, why narration seems so necessary for ethnographic films.

In earlier ethnographic films, the voice, or point of view, was that of the filmmaker speaking through the narration. This conceit was not so much a choice as the result of the available technology. There was no way to record sound simultaneously with the visuals ('synch sound'). The machinery was bulky, and the camera made noise that would be picked up by the tape recorder. At best, one could record appropriate sound ('wild sound') and try to match it up with the visuals during the editing process. So, for example, when he was shooting footage for Dead Birds, Robert Gardner would ask Michael Rockefeller (our sound man) to record men's feet running on dry ground, or women splashing and chatting at the brine pool. In editing, this wild sound was laid in carefully to give the illusion of synch sound reality. By the early 1970s, it was possible to have real synch sound with 16-mm cameras, but it was still expensive. Most of the footage for The Nuer was done with older cameras and wild sound. When Robert Gardner visited Hilary Harris on location (Gardner had been filming the Hamar, another group), however, he brought his own camera and filmed several interviews in synch sound.

Later in the 1970s, synch sound equipment became widely available and ethnographic filming began to incorporate it routinely. This technological advance had a major effect on ethnographic filmmaking. Hearing the voices of the people themselves was not just an audio flourish. It changed the very nature of authority on film. Instead of being instructed by the all-knowing narration of the (usually male) outsider, we could listen to the people explain themselves. Even when the conversation was idle chitchat, a sense of greater reality was present. Most of the films featured in this article convey key ideas and interpretations through such peoples' voices. Of course, outsiders made each of these films - even the Vietnamese film crew of How to Behave carefully defines itself as different. Nevertheless, synch sound does much to mitigate the 'outsiderness' of film and to give some touch of the native point of view. Even in Dead Birds and Cows of Dolo Ken Paye, the omniscient narrators at times quote or paraphrase people's comments. (The only exception, alas, is my own film, Dani Sweet Potatoes.)

A second important change that synch sound made is to give us not just 'the' voice of the people, but multiple, often discordant, voices. The narration style had often simplified matters with statements like 'the Dani say. . . ' or 'the Kpelle believe...' In films that let us hear more than one 'voice of the people,' we learn that Vietnamese have varied understandings of the concept 'kindness,' as suggested in the film How to Behave, that not all Indian wives agree about arranged marriages and dominant mothers-in-law (Dadi's Family), and that Malay villagers have many explanations for latah (Latah: A Culture Specific Elaboration of the Startle Reflex). This plurality of voices is not trivial, but speaks to the issue of culture as shared.

None of the films referenced in this article are purely visual. Each has a soundtrack, and each soundtrack carries not only general noise but also words, sentences, and utterances. One - Dani Sweet Potatoes - has only words on the soundtrack. At best, the words complement and inform the visuals; at worst, they present information quite unrelated to the visuals and so distract the viewer's attention. For the viewer, it is already a challenge to search shots for complex visual information. If one is being fed data on population density, or some such topic that has little to do with the action on screen, one is distracted from both visual and verbal data. Ethnographic films do not always use narration. In the 1960s, Asen Balikci and Robert Young made a series of 30-minute films of Netsilik Eskimo life that had only natural sound and no English explanation or translation at all. These films were part of a grade-school curriculum project, and their goal was to show Netsilik technology in such detail that American schoolchildren could follow and understand the making of an igloo, the creation of a sled, or seal hunting.

One way of thinking about behavior is in terms of multiple sets of acts that have beginnings, come to peaks of intensity, and then end. A major challenge of ethnographic filming is to capture these whole acts. It takes considerable knowledge of the culture to begin shooting even before an act begins, so as to get its prehistory. Then it takes great patience (and lots of film) to keep shooting as an act winds down and the actors move on to other acts. Anyone can see to shoot the peak moments, but it is the rare photographer who can capture whole acts. Whether the act lasts moments, minutes, hours, days, or years changes the magnitude of the problem but not its basic shape. Even when shooting whole acts, the filmmaker often zooms in for close-up shots. Certainly, there are some moments when close-up detail is needed. I have taken the position that for the most part the lens should be open wider. (This position is not universally applauded, as evidenced by Paul Hockings' 1997 review of my book in the journal Cultural Anthropology). There are several reasons for using a wide angle.

First, when filming a person, there is a temptation to zoom in on the face. This choice cuts out the rest of the body, and many cultures employ hands and arms to carry important nonverbal information in communication (as illustrated, for example, by the film Box of Treasures). Many or most ethnographic films have been shot by filmmakers from northern Europe or North America, where nonverbal patterns typically emphasize facial communication and the rest of the body is relatively ignored. In filming people of other cultures, these northern Europeans are not aware of the importance of hands and arms and simply do not think to include them in the frame. The principle of whole bodies refers to the need, in much communication, to be able to see more than just the face.

A second reason to avoid close-ups in filming communication is that when two people are talking, both are communicating constantly. Perhaps it was Gregory Bateson who said, 'Nothing never happens,' meaning that no one is ever just sitting there, not communicating. The work of conversation analysts like Charles Goodwin, in his 1981 book Conversational Interaction, shows that although two people take turns speaking (with the verbal channel), the person not speaking is still sending messages (through the nonverbal channels) that contribute to the forming of the conversation. Goodwin speaks of 'the emergent form of the utterances,' meaning that the speaker is constantly reacting to those nonverbal signals being sent by the 'listener' and that the two work steadily to shape the utterances. A convention in American fiction films calls for representing a conversation by showing first one person full-frame speaking, then cutting to a full frame of the other answering. This practice does give fine detail of one speaker's face alternating with the other speaker's face, but it completely denies the interactional character of the conversation. The solution is to open the lens wider to include both (or all) speakers at once, thereby capturing the (nonverbal) messages sent by the 'listener.'

A third reason for using a wide lens is to show the behavioral context, or setting, of an act. Behavior takes place in settings. There are appropriate and inappropriate settings, and settings influence behavior. Thus, especially when looking at unfamiliar cultural behavior, it is important to be able to see it in context. This argument does not imply that all close-ups are always bad. Sometimes the importance of detail warrants being deprived of the view of the whole body or of the greater context. Ethnographic films rarely show too much context, however, for the zoom lens has a siren song that few photographers can resist - it says, 'Zoom me! Zoom me!'

We have seen that ethnographies are becoming more reflexive, incorporating information about the ethnographer and the effect of the ethnographer on the situation described. The films used in this book show little of such reflexivity. For example, Dead Birds gives no hint that the entire Harvard Peabody Expedition was living in the neighborhood and that we were often present, just outside the frame, at many events. Cows of Dolo Ken Paye shows a brief glimpse of the anthropologist, James L. Gibbs, Jr., serving for the moment as soundman. Other, more recent films actually show the anthropologist interviewing people. None of these films really deals with the effect that anthropologists may have on the subjects' behavior, however.

A problem for many filmmakers is how to make people sympathetic and understandable when they are doing things bound to disgust the film's audiences. In Dead Birds, the killing of a pig at the boy's funeral often turns Americans off and convince them that the Dani are savage. Never mind that most of those Americans are not vegetarians - they are just not able to watch animals die. As a Nuer man cleans his teeth in the morning in The Nuer, the narrator dances away from the fact that he is doing it with cow dung ashes. Surely, these films must at the very least create empathy and understanding across cultures. Must one therefore omit any scene that might have the opposite effect? I made two films about the Dani - Dani Houses and Dani Sweet Potatoes - to explain the simplicity and sophistication of Dani gardening and architecture. When I showed them to my introductory anthropology class at Andalas University in West Sumatra, Indonesia, I was shocked at the students' reaction. When they saw the films, they roared with scornful laughter, convinced that those people in Irian Jaya were indeed primitive orangutans ('people of the forest'). It was a low moment in my teaching career.

'Taking photographs,' 'shooting film,' and 'captured on film' are not totally inadvertent metaphors for a process that raises daunting ethical issues. There is inevitably an element of theft and of aggression in filming. One way to avoid the problem is to get 'informed consent' from everyone in the film. But even camera-sophisticated Americans cannot be really made aware of all of the possible consequences of appearing in a film. Even if they view the final version of the film, they will not know in advance how audiences will react to them. And what of the people shown in our various film clips? It would have been impossible to obtain truly 'informed consent' from each of them, and signed release forms are not the answer.

Speaking as both an anthropologist and a filmmaker, I suggest that there are two possible solutions to this problem. One is to stop making films. The other is to take the greatest care to make films that represent people with understanding and respect, and during the filming to inform and involve them. I choose the second way, even though no magic formula is available for achieving these goals. Nevertheless, these standards allow ethnographic films to be made ethically, doing more good than harm.

Finally, here are some questions to ask yourself when you watch ethnographic films:

1. Whose voice(s) or point(s) of view does the film present?


2. How much information is carried by the visuals and how much by the sound (talk or narration)?


3. Does the narration complement of distract from the visuals?


4. How visual is the film? Does it show things that would be difficult or impossible to describe in words?


5. What is the balance between close-ups and long shots? What does each contribute?


6. Are whole bodies shown? To what effect? (Is there too much or too little zooming?)


7. Are whole acts shown? To what effect? (Are shots or sequences of shots too short or too long?)


8. Are the anthropologists acknowledged? To what extent?


9. Does the film create empathy? Are there scenes that create antipathy?


10. How does the film establish generalizations or state abstract concepts?


11. Does the film contradict itself? Is this a strength or a weakness?

[This article is extracted and edited from Seeing Anthropology: Cultural Anthropology Through Film by Karl G. Heider (Pearson Education, 2007, pp. 434-440).]

Review of 'Dance and Human History'

Alan Lomax was an American ethnomusicologist and folklorist known for collecting and bringing to public attention a wide variety of folk music from the United States, Europe and Latin America. He was an early proponent of what is today commonly referred to as 'multiculturalism.' He received numerous awards and honors, including the Library of Congress Living Legends Award in 2000, two years before his death at the age of 87. In addition to his work in music Lomax was interested in dance, for which he developed the theory and method of 'choreometrics,' which was designed to observe and interpret the relationship between dance and social structure. Although the social sciences, particularly anthropology, have moved away from what came to be known as structuralism, Lomax produced a number of enduring works as part of the choreometrics project, including the documentary film 'Dance and Human History.'

Alan Lomax's Dance and Human History can be a most stimulating teaching tool for as many reasons as Joann Kealiinohomoku criticized it in the journal Ethnomusicology (Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 169-76). That is, the film, used together with the written theory, goals, methods, analyses, and criticisms of choreometrics is an excellent way to introduce students to the major issues, problems, and methods in dance ethnography or (as Kealiinohomoku calls the field) ethnochoreology. In an introductory dance theory course, I've used the film in precisely this manner. The students read two other theoretical overviews that attempt a cross-cultural synthesis of dance, Maria-Gabriele Wosien's Sacred Dance: Encounter with the Gods (1974) and European Folk Dance: Its National and Musical Characteristics by Joan Lawson (1962). They then read the chapters on choreometrics in Folk Song Style and Culture (Lomax 1968). They also read "Cross Cultural Study of Dance: Description and Implications" by Irmgard Bartenieff and Forrestine Paulay (1970), the effort/shape experts who worked out the movement coding system for choreometrics. Then they read the critical reviews of Lomax's approach, project, and method by Kealiinohomoku, Drid Williams, and Suzanne Youngerman published by the Committee on Research in Dance in 1974. To this list I will now add Kealiinohomoku's review in Ethnomusicology. Students read from among several ethnographic studies that place dance and other arts in the context of their own culture. They then write an analysis of the issues and problems in this growing field by comparing the two methodological viewpoints, dance in its specific cultural context and dance from a cross-cultural perspective. So, used carefully, Lomax's attempt to study dance and human history can be made understandable to students.

When Lomax showed the film at the Society for Ethnomusicology Conference in October 1975, he introduced it as a teaching film. He indicated that the purpose of the film was to demonstrate how to see 5 of the 100 or more "motion qualities" specifically identified for study in choreometric coding procedure. In Four Adaptations of Effort Theory in Research and Teaching (1973), Bartenieff and Paulay summarize the range that these observations encompass:

"(a) body parts habitually involved, (b) the body attitude, (active stance), (c) the shape and dimension of movement, (d) the way direction changes in movement, (e) movement qualities such as relative smoothness and tempo, (f) torso-unit relationship, (g) the degree and kind of synchrony between movers, and (h) features of group formation."

Seeing the swift array of sections of entire dances race by as they do in the film tends to dislodge from the viewer's mind the idea that only 5 features of movement are being highlighted. Lomax made the film to train the viewer to see these dimensions of dance action. This goal is similar to the purpose of the cantometrics training tapes, designed to teach the listener to hear the components of music that Lomax identified for study. When presented with this training-to-see goal, the film and its narrative script imply less of an "A causes B" message. In Lomax's final generalization that dance movements "represent the interplay of economic productivity and climatically-influenced division of labor," he suggests that these factors are closely related, not necessarily causally related.

Preparatory reading surely enables students to understand the purpose of the film. The students benefit by analyzing Lomax's method. First, he brings to this mass of dance material an hypothesis as stated in Folk Song Style and Culture: "We are comparing dance to everyday movement in order to verify the hypothesis that danced movement is patterned reinforcement of the habitual movement patterns of each culture or culture area" (1968, p. xv). Thus students are aware that he is operating deductively, not inductively, and they know that he is studying gross cultural features on a large scale. In the film, Lomax shows part of the results.

My students question the juxtaposition of entertainment, ceremonial, recreational, folk dance, etc. Lomax says in Folk Song Style and Culture that his visual association is deliberate:

"there has been no means of description suitable to comparative study and no body of theory to explain how dance and culture are linked in all societies and in all stages of development. The aim of the present investigation, therefore, becomes one of recording and noting regularities and contrasts in movement pattern sufficiently frequent and gross to produce units universally applicable in cross-cultural studies."

(I am aware that Lomax's phrase "stages of development" reflects an outdated evolutionary premise of cultural history, and alert students to this issue. Lomax, in answer to my question, admits that he read no other comparative dance theory before or during his study, so was unaware that Curt Sachs had suggested this work-dance connection in his 1937 book World History of the Dance.)

Students aware of the problems intrinsic to filming any type of dance, question Lomax's use of the existing films available to him as data. Again the answer is found in Folk Song Style and Culture (1968, p.263):

"The cinema has thus far served the ethnologist largely as a way to supplement and preserve observations already recorded in his notebooks, or relationships already analyzed out of his field work... Choreometrics, however, is an attempt to employ film as a source and a tool in the comparative and historical study of culture and of human behavior. We regard the vast, endlessly provocative, prejudice-laden, existing sea of documentary footage as the richest and most unequivocal storehouse of information about humanity."

Adding introductory remarks to the film, clearly stating that the 200 films drawn on are not a random sample would undoubtedly clarify that the film demonstrates a method of study, and the conclusions are based on the limited sources used. Lomax clearly states his perspective, that of looking for universal positive relationships among dance patterns around the world. His general and broadly comparative viewpoint differs vastly from many dance ethnographers whose perspective is specific cultural description and analysis. Their major methodological challenge is to understand the interrelationships of a single culture's components with as little simplification and distortion as possible. Therefore Lomax's attempt at such a large cross-cultural synthesis appears undisciplined. Anya Royce, in The Anthropology of Dance (1977), discusses Lomax's cross-cultural method. She uses it to illustrate the problems of such a large scale study when the new field of dance ethnography is just evolving updated systematic techniques. She compares Lomax's study with the outdated work of Curt Sachs, as did Suzanne Youngerman in 1974 for the Committee on Research in Dance. Royce notes that Lomax uses "appropriate statistical tests for reliability and inter-coder agreement," whereas Sachs "produced essentially impressionistic statements about styles" (1977, p. 138). Royce does credit the choreometric coding method as useful, however (1977, p. 60):

"The coding sheet and the explanations of the abbreviations used in it could profitably be used by field researchers who are concerned with recording the gross structural features of a dance or dance complex. A less comprehensive set of features may also be used as a preliminary step, scoring the dance, for example, only in terms of three major features: body attitude, body parts most frequently articulated, and dimensionality of movement path. It must be emphasized, however that neither the Choreometrics coding sheet nor the preliminary version of it will provide a complete description of a particular dance. They are designed to pick out gross features and they do it well. For some kinds of research, this is perfectly adequate, and in some field situations it may be all that one can record."

The choreometric method of seeing features of dance in cross-cultural context is basically what Dance and Human History is about. Used for teaching part of the coding scheme and to illustrate problems of cross-cultural analysis using a variety of types of available film footage, Lomax's film can sink students directly into the center of the exciting, self-critical, and challenging field of dance ethnography. Used with a number of cautions, it can be stimulating, to say the least. Certainly the sample of dances of the world, put side by side, is enriching and may entice students to investigate any of the number of questions Lomax's commentary raises.

Since I personally value the style of thinking and resulting projects that work toward a synthesis of large quantities of ideas, material, or information, I enjoy (intellectually and emotionally) the type of work Lomax is doing. I also want to go on record to say how much I respect and value Kealiinohomoku's work and expertise in ethnochoreology. I am a teacher of dance and dance theory, not an expert in dance ethnography - though I am carefully enough informed to teach about it at an introductory level. This alternate review can only reflect my limited perspective. I use the film as a teaching tool and by-pass the distorted, exaggerated, and as yet unfounded theoretical ideas scattered through the film script. I think the script does not represent the choreometrics project adequately, because Lomax oversimplifies his long range goals of understanding dance in relation to culture and cultural history by drawing conclusions too soon.

I understand that there are students successfully using the choreometrics coding scheme to study dance in specific cultures: so in spite of Lomax's "outdated" theoretical framework, the method he helped to initiate is indeed a useful research tool.

[This is a slightly edited version of a review written by Judith Alter that originally appeared under the title 'Another View of Lomax's Film Dance and Human History' in the journal Ethnomusicology, Vol. 23, No. 3 (September 1979), pp. 500-503. A selection of Alan Lomax's films can be viewed online at Folkstreams, which also provides useful biographical information and links to other related works.]

An Ethnobiographical Film by Jorge Preloran

Jorge Preloran (1933-2009) was an Argentinian-American filmmaker who developed a unique style of ethnobiographical documentary film during the 1960s. One of his most well known works in this genre is Hermogenes Cayo, the Spanish language version of which he made in 1969. A year later, Preloran collaborated with American Anthropologist Robert Gardner to produce an English language version of the film under the title Imaginero. In this film we have the sensitive and human portrayal of a folk artist living on the puna of Northwestern Argentina. The subject of the film, Hermogenes Cayo, is a self made man with a deep dedication to both folk Catholicism and the plastic arts. His creativity and ingenuity reveal a self confidence rarely found in descriptions of Andean lifeways.

The film allows Hermogenes to narrate in his own language, Spanish, some twenty years of his life. Though impoverished, he seems more than satisfied with his lot. His accomplishments are impressive. He produces paintings, altars, and images, and even designs and builds a chapel. When faced with the complexities of a broken harmonium, an instrument he has never seen before, he first rebuilds it without guidance and then proceeds to fashion one for himself from memory. As explanation as to how he accomplishes all this, he states simply that "these things are not of a different world; they were made by men just like me ... All you have to do is be determined and by thinking, thinking ... you can invent machines."

The film picks up the thread of Hermogenes' life at middle age and then, in flash backs, takes him to Buenos Aires. There, in 1946, he participated in the "Raid of Peace" as one of 175 peasants from the puna demanding restoration of ancestral lands that for centuries had belonged to the Church. As participant in the "Raid," he walked 1500 miles over several months time. The trip opened entirely new worlds to him. While in Buenos Aires, he visited nearby Lujan, the great Argentine center of religious pilgrimage. There he encountered forms that were to inspire him throughout the rest of his life.

On returning to the puna, Hermogenes took a woman. After living with her for over ten years, he one day was removed from a religious procession by a German missionary priest who objected to his "living in sin." Instead of turning against religion, Hermogenes reasoned that a man as religious as himself needed order in his life, and so he arranged a formal wedding. The film chronicles the wedding preparations and the ceremony. Since the wedding took place on February 2, the feast of Our Lady of Copacabana, its documentation simultaneously shows the blessing of household saints and Andean dance groups such as the wacawacas. Hermogenes's marriage, unfortunately, did not last long. Approximately one year after the ceremony he died of pneumonia. At death, he was sixty years old.

Hermogenes Cayo's life style was that of Andean, rather than Argentinian man, in cultural terms far more closely related to Bolivia than to Buenos Aires. In colonial days the section of northwestern Argentina shown in the film was part of Alto Peru. Race, economic base, religion, and even dress remain today an integral part of a cultural tradition that stretches from the Peruvian altiplano south. Filmmaker Preloran concentrates on the religious aspect of this tradition and, in particular, on its static qualities. He sees it as totally Spanish, rather than as the synthetic hybrid uncovered by anthropologists. In his words: "what happened was that the Jesuits came into that area with the Conquistadores in the 16th century and displaced native religion. And then it was frozen ... absolutely frozen. And the religion has not changed in 400 years. So today, you still have processions, the cult of images, the other religious festivities of that time, which of course have changed even in Spain; but there they remained exactly the same."

By focusing on one man through a lengthy period of his life, and by allowing that man himself to narrate the film, Preloran has produced the most believable portrait yet of Andean man. His excellent photography and careful editing keep the audience spell-bound. Colors, music, deliberateness, and long silences all ring as authentic for anyone who knows central Andean plateaus. The fact that this is a truly superb film, however, does not preclude flaws - particularly as seen from the point of view of the anthropologist. First of all, in dubbing English translation into Cayo's narrative, much becomes lost. There are spots where it is difficult to understand what is said in either language. Second, the matter of techniques and media used by the artist is very poorly presented. Students of folk art will be greatly disappointed, for they will learn nothing about the paints the artist employs, the canvases (or boards?) on which he paints, or the steps he takes to come up with a finished product. Nor will they have adequate information on the volume of works the artist produced. Most serious of all, however, is the fact that the film presents Hermogenes Cayo largely outside his social context. Even though Preloran assures us that his subject is extroverted and self confident, there seems to be consider- able evidence that he is marginal, and even borders on being a recluse. Hermogenes speaks of a friend, Ambrosio, but we learn nothing of the man. He refuses to participate in carnival, and in fact calls it the work of the devil. Yet anyone with any acquaintance of Andean culture knows that, as a rite of intensification, carnival is one of the most important events of each year. From his Lujan experience onward, Hermogenes considers himself a slave of the blessed virgin, and dedicates all his spare time and efforts to religion. While such intense religiosity is often found among folk peoples of the Andes, it is the exception rather than the rule. One explanation for such unusual orientation may lie in the fact that neither Hermogenes nor his wife knew their fathers. They seem to have been social isolates from birth. His role as religious chanter and image maker seems to have done little to break down his isolation. At his death only three mourners gathered. This, in a culture in which deep bilateral kin ties are the norm, seems unusual to say the least. Not even the fact that families in the area live from three to four miles apart adequately explains the event.

In all fairness to Jorge Preloran, however, it must be said that he never intended to present ethnography. He was working on several documentaries on the cultures of northwestern Argentina. While filming the feast of Our Lady of the Assumption in Casabindo, a hamlet lost in the 12,000 foot high desert that borders on Bolivia and Chile, he was told, by a school teacher, of a Colla artist who would make an interesting subject. For six months Preloran periodically visited Hermogenes, getting to know him as a person. The longer he knew the man, the more his admiration grew. He set up a tape recorder and let Hermogenes talk. From these conversations the idea of a film gradually took shape.

In February, 1966, shooting began with the documentation of Hermogenes's wedding. From then on, Preloran filmed off-and-on for over a year. He was still preparing documentaries in the area and would visit Hermogenes whenever he had time. On returning one day to take additional footage, he was shocked to find that his subject had died. Until that time, Preloran had felt no urgency in his endeavor, nor had he seriously thought of how he was going to make a film out of the footage. By listening anew to Hermogenes's taped narrative, and imposing a heavy editorial hand, Preloran gradually worked his disjointed sequences into a film. In doing so, he tried to keep uppermost the portrait of a living man. He succeeded superbly. In the end, Hermogenes Cayo emerged as a Renaissance type, not only in art style and religious perception, but in wide ranging curiosity and competence. His life, combining constant deprivation with an equally constant search for perfection, speaks in a universal way to the human condition.

Preloran's work brings a challenging dimension to the world of ethnographic films. He criticizes most such endeavors on the grounds that they concentrate overmuch on material culture. He argues that such films should rather present the dramatic flow of natural events, with the unabashed purpose of making an emotional impact. His approach is being amazingly well received. The Argentine National Fund for the Arts was forced to expand an originally planned single showing to six, and Film Comment recently published a nine page interview on his work.

Imaginero gives the most sensitive portrayal of an Andean man yet to be produced by the film medium. Its subject is presented with respect, sensitivity, and a refreshing absence of patronization. As a work of art, and even as ethnography, it is a must for any library which attempts to collect materials on either Latin America or folk art.

[This is a slightly edited version of a film review by William E. Carter that was originally published in American Anthropologist, Vol. 73, No. 6 (December 1971), pp. 1473-75. Further information about the films of Jorge Preloran is available in Louis Werner's essay 'Cineaste of the Human Angle.' Documentary Educational Resources has a filmmaker profile of Jorge Preloran, and has announced its upcoming release of several Preloran films on DVD.]