Unknown Race, An (1924) – dir. John A. Haeseler and Melville William Hilton-Simpson

John A. Haeseler shooting ‘An Unknown Race’, watched by M.W. Hilton-Simpson. Photograph probably taken by Helen Hilton-Simpson.

36 mins., b&w, silent (intertitles in English)

Production: the original film appears to have been a private production, but it was also distributed by Pathé under a different title, L’ Aurès.

Source: AMNH film collection, no. 283

Background: this film is the result of a collaboration between Melville William Hilton-Simpson (1881-1938), an independent scholar based in Oxford, and John A. Haeseler (1900-1990), a US film-maker who had studied at Harvard and later for a Diploma in Anthropology at Oxford. The film was shot when Haeseler joined Hilton-Simpson and his wife Helen on what was their sixth field trip to the Ishawiyen (aka Chaoui) Berber people of the Aurès mountains, Eastern Algeria, in 1923-1924.

After editing the film, Hilton-Simpson and Haeseler showed it to the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in November 1924. This occasion as well as the film itself is described by Hilton-Simpson in the journal of the society (Hilton-Simpson 1925). Hilton-Simpson also collaborated with Haeseler on a short, more popular article about the practical circumstances of the shoot, which has been much cited in the visual anthropology literature (Hilton-Simpson and Haeseler 1925).

Haeseler went on to a long and distinguished career as a maker and producer of educational and ‘family’ films.

Content:  the film has been very well shot by Haeseler with many fine images of craft and subsistence activities, as well as of the natural environment. It offers a largely descriptive account of Berber life, structured around a series of intertitles, though towards the end of the film, a narrative line emerges, contrasting the very heavy work carried out by the women (notably in carrying water and wood up the steep slopes to the village) with the eased way of life of the men.

The following description, available on the web here, follows closely the description given by Hilton-Simpson himself in the RGS journal.

“This film depicts the geography of the Aures, Roman ruins at Timgad, the Tighanimine gorge, and the villages built on the tops of escarpments overlooking the Sahara with only a narrow, tortuously steep access route.

Women of the fair-skinned Shawiya tribe of Berber stock, are seen grinding grain on a quern stone; combing, carding, and spinning wool; making pottery; and scrubbing laundry on stone by “dancing” on the cloth. They are also seen involved in the difficult task of fetching water up to the village. Children are depicted playing knucklebone, a jacks-like game, and what appears to be hockey.

The men are seen irrigating their gardens by means of a water “clock,” a copper bowl with a minute hole in its bottom, which is placed on top of water in a large bowl. It takes about fifteen minutes to sink. The number of sinkings is determined by the individual irrigation rights. After the alloted amount, the irrigation ditch (seggia) is dammed to divert the flow of water to another garden. The granaries are seen with their defensible facades. A man fashions wooden door locks with an adze (a cutting tool), while others tend goat herds, prepare snuff, and braid cord … The film is rich in detail, particularly in the weaving and pottery sequences”.

Texts : Hilton-Simpson 1925, Hilton-Simpson and Haeseler 1925, Griffiths 2002: 301-304.

© 2018 Paul Henley