In memory of Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf. Himalaya 17(2).
Available here
Macfarlane, Alan (2010)
Early ethnographic film in Britain: a reflection on the work of Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf. Visual Anthropology 23: 1-23.
Trading Societies of Western Nepal (1976) – dir. Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf
55 mins, colour, voice-over in English with some post-synchronised sounds. Production: School of Oriental and African Studies in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute.
Source: viewable on-line in a poor copy here.
The last major film made by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, based on footage that he shot during an expedition made in 1972 to the then-remote Humla District, northwest Nepal. The film, which is structured by a continuous commentary by Haimendorf, proceeds up the valley of the Karmali river connecting this part of Nepal with the Tibetan market town of Taklakot. Traditionally, and still at the time that this film was made, despite the Chinese presence in Tibet, this served as an important local trade route, through which salt produced in Tibet was traded against cereals and rice cultivated lower down in the valley. However, at the end of the film, it is suggested that even then, the viability of this exchange was threatened by the importation of cheap rice from India.
Although trading serves as its general narrative focus, the film is also about a great deal more than this. Through Haimendorf’s commentary, we learn about the history of the region, still present in the form of stone monuments, the significance of which is unknown to the present inhabitants of the Karmali valley, as well as about the relations between the upper caste Hindu communities living in the lower part of the valley, and the Buddhist Bhotiya communities, of Tibetan cultural origin, who live in the upper part.
In passing, there is a great deal of commentary on subsistence practices, crafts, house-building and kinship organisation. A particularly memorable sequence concerns a ceremony in which Untouchables living in the Hindu community become possessed by spirits and while in this condition, diagnose the cause of illnesses. Another striking sequence concerns the ritual restitution of an abandoned Bhuddist temple by a Bhotiya community.
Text: Macfarlane 2010
Hill Tribes of the Deccan (1960) – Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf
29 mins, b&w, voice-over in English, some post-synchronised sounds. Production: BBC Television
Source : this film may be viewed on-line here
This is a television programme based on footage shot by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, “presented” by Brian Branston – that is, organised editorially – and fronted, as well as voiced-over by a youthful David Attenborough. The programme begins with a sequence in which Attenborough interviews Haimendorf and his wife, Betty, in a studio and, in general, this film emphasises the Haimendorfs’ expedition much more than both Land of the Gurkhas (broadcast earlier in 1960), and also the later film Land of Dolpo (broadcast 1965), even though all three films were screened as part of the the same BBC television series, Travellers’ Tales. An archival version of the BBC television schedule for 1960, available here, indicates that Hill Tribes of the Deccan was broadcast in August of that year.
This film chronicles what appears to be a series of very brief visits to the Chenchu, the Reddi and ‘the following year’ to the Koya, the Bondo and Gadaba. Haimendorf carried out extensive fieldwork in the Deccan over the period 1940-48, but it is not made clear exactly when these visits shown in the film took place. Although the voice-over commentary suggests at some points that the visits were recent, at other points, it is said that material being presented was shot ‘twenty years ago’.
There are quite a number of clearly posed shots of both Christoph and Betty conducting the expedition, indicating that at some point, there was certainly a cameraperson with them. This raises the possibility that the film may consist of footage shot in the 1940s by Haimendorf combined with more recent footage shot specifically for the television programme in which old and new material are presented together as if they were recorded around the same time.
The voice-over is very dated, emphasising the primitiveness of the various groups, at one point even comparing the Chenchu to monkeys. But the film also contains some interesting sequences of cultural traditions that are no longer practiced.
Some of the rushes on which this film is based are available in the playlist of Haimendorf’s films on Alan Macfarlane’s ayabaya website accessible here. See particularly nos. 3-5, 15, 22.
Text : Macfarlane 2010.
Land of Dolpo, The (1965) – Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf
24 mins., b&w, some post-synchronised sounds and English voice-over.
Source: this film may be viewed here.
This is a television film based on footage that Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf shot during an expedition that he made in 1962 with this wife Elisabeth (‘Betty’) to a then-remote high altitude district of central Nepal, known as ‘Dolpo’, close to the border with Tibet. It was “presented” – i.e. the editing was overseen – by Joan Duff for the BBC series, Travellers Tales, while the series editor was Brian Branston, who worked with Haimendorf on a number of BBC television projects. An archival version of the BBC television schedule for 1965, available here, indicates that The Land of the Dolpo was broadcast in September of that year.
The voice-over commentary may now seem very dated, but this film includes some remarkable footage of the distinctive Bon Buddhist practices of the region, as well as of horse-racing at a traditional fair in the Muktinath valley. It is also of particular historical interest as it includes footage of a group of refugees recently arrived from Tibet following the imposition of Chinese direct rule.
The original rushes are also available, in rather better quality, via the Haimendorf playlist on Alan MacFarlane’s ayabaya website here. See, among possible others, films nos. 1, 60, 70, 72-74, 80-83, 86-87.
Men Who Hunted Heads, The (1972) – Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf
48 mins, colour, voice-over in English, with some post-synchronised sound.
Source : this film can be downloaded from the Digital Himalayas website here
This is a BBC television programme, jointly co-produced with the Bavarian television station, Bayarischer Rundfunk, that is extensively based on footage shot by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf among the Konyak and Wanchu Naga of North East India (the former head hunters of the title) as well as among the Apa Tani of the same region (who did not hunt heads). It was “presented” for television – in effect, the editing of the footage was overseen – by Anne Winder, who would later become a leading BBC producer. An archival version of the BBC television schedule for 1972, available here, indicates that it was broadcast as part of The World About Us series in January of that year.
The film is structured around Haimendorf’s return visit in 1971 to a region that he had first visited in the 1930s and he provides a framing voice-over in his aristocratic Germanic accent. The film exudes the same general ethos as the early Disappearing World films that were being broadcast by Granada Television around the same time, though Haimendorf’s archival footage marks it out as distinctive.
Notwithstanding the prioritising of the Naga in the general story-line of the film as well as the title, the Apa Tani archival material is equally interesting, particularly the footage of the traditional aerial acrobatics performed on the occasion of the Spring Festival. Some of the Naga footage had previously appeared in Wanchu Nagas (1962).
Text : Macfarlane 2010
Branston, Brian (1914-1993)*
Brian Branston was a BBC producer who in the early days of anthropology on British television collaborated with anthropologists on a number of occasions in preparing their footage for broadcast.
From the late 1950s, he “presented” – i.e. supervised the editing of – footage shot by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf for the BBC television films, Land of the Gurkhas (1959) and Hill Tribes of the Deccan (1960). He later acted as the series producer of The Land of Dolpo (1965) and the executive producer of The Men Who Hunted Heads (1972), both also extensively based on Haimendorf’s footage.
Similarly, in a programme broadcast in January 1967, as indicated here, Branston acted as the producer of a television version of The Hadza (1966), directed by Sean Hudson and the anthropologist James Woodburn.
Branston also produced his own television programmes combining natural history with scenes of local life in Oceania, Amazonia and among the Inuit of Pelly Bay (Nunavut). He was also a writer of popular books about pagan religious beliefs in Saxon England and among the Vikings.
Land of the Gurkhas (1959) – Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf
30 mins., b&w, voice-over in English. Production: BBC Television.
Source : this film can be viewed here
This is a television film based on footage shot by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf in the course of a lengthy expedition during which, accompanied by his wife, Elisabeth (‘Betty’), and a team of porters, he travelled overland from Gorkha in western Nepal, through Katmandu, right across to the eastern frontier with the Darjeeling District of India. The title is somewhat misleading in that the film includes scenes not only of the life of the Gurkhas, but also of other groups that the expedition visited along the way, including the Gurung, the Tamang, the Sherpa and the Rai. The material was “presented” – that is, ordered and edited – by the BBC producer, Brian Branston, who worked on several programmes with Haimendorf, while the voice-over, which was scripted by Haimendorf himself, was performed by the then 33-year-old David Attenborough. An archival copy of the BBC television schedules, available here, indicates that this programme was first broadcast in August 1959.
At least part of the footage on which the Sherpa sequences in the film are based is available independently on the web, under the title Among the Sherpas of Nepal, here. Probably on account of the fact that it is in colour, this footage is sometimes erroneously dated to the 1970s, but as it appears in Land of the Gurkhas, it must have shot before 1959. Interestingly, when incorporated into this film, the Sherpa footage was not only transferred to black and white stock (as colour television did not exist in the UK at that time), but was also horizontally “flipped”, so that the right hand part of the image appears on the left and vice versa. The reason why this was done is unclear, but it may have been a by-product of copying from the original colour stock to monochrome stock.
Text: Macfarlane 2010
Wanchu Nagas (1962) – dir. Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf
16 mins., colour, silent
Source: viewable on-line here
An ethnographic expedition film shot by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, who studied the Naga over many years. However, it is clear that Haimendorf did not know the subjects of this film at all well: in the opening sequence, some older women hide from the camera, and there are a number of shots of villages and groups of people taken at considerable distance. In another sequence, Fürer-Haimendorf hands out small gifts to the subjects from behind the camera. The film ends with a sequence of an aeroplane dropping supplies.
Although the film has clearly been edited, beginning and ending with general shots of the mountain environment, there is no systematically developed narrative. Instead, the film offers a series of sequences, showing traditional house styles, some craft activity or simply groups of people standing in front of the camera. Towards the end of the film, the subjects perform a mock assault on an enemy, apparently in some government post, since they creep along a neatly defined stone-lined path.
However, within these limitations, this film offers some remarkable images of traditional Naga dress and architecture. There is also a very interesting sequence of a group of men striking a vast slit gong.
Texts: see Fürer-Haimendorf 1969, and also the website, The Nagas: Hill Peoples of Northeast India which may be accessed here.
Fürer-Haimendorf, Christoph von (1909-1995)*
An Austrian anthropologist and from 1951 to 1976, Chair of Asian Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf shot some 50-60 hours of silent 16mm footage, mostly in India and Nepal, at various points between 1940 and 1973.
The early footage is in black and white, but already by the 1950s, he was also using colour film. In addition to the films that he made in South Asia, Fürer-Haimendorf also shot footage during visits in the 1960s to the Philippines, New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Egypt and Mexico. He also made many hours of audio recordings to accompany his films.
Between 1959 and 1972, Fürer-Haimendorf collaborated with the BBC producer Brian Branston to make four films for broadcast based primarily on the material that he himself had filmed on various expeditions in India and Nepal, almost invariably accompanied by his wife Betty, who appears in most of these films. He also edited two free-standing films of his own. All these films are listed on the South Asia page here. However, the great majority of his footage was shot for research purposes and/or to support teaching and seminars, and was rarely, if ever, shown to wider audiences. Much of it was edited in no more than a preliminary fashion.
Among leading anthropologists of his generation in the English-speaking world, Fürer-Haimendorf was by far the most prolific maker of ethnographic films, though this is not widely recognised since so little of his work was distributed. This situation has been to some extent remedied by Alan Macfarlane, one of Fürer-Haimendorf’s last doctoral students, who has put up a large selection of his films as a YouTube playlist. This can be accessed via Macfarlane’s ayabaya website here.
A filmic tribute to Christoph and Betty Fürer-Haimendorf by Mark Turin can be seen here
Texts : Turin 1997, Macfarlane 2010
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