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Life In a Haitian Valley Film Study

Collection Creator:
Herskovits, Melville J. (Melville Jean), 1895-1963  Search this
Extent:
Film reels (52 minutes, black-and-white silent; 1400 feet)
Type:
Archival materials
Film reels
Date:
1934
Scope and Contents:
Footage shot during a three-month field study in the valley and village of Mirebalais, central Haiti. Documentation of Haitian culture includes various subsistence and craft activities (hoeing, planting, marketing, and rope making); a combite or communal work group (known elsewhere in Haiti as the Société Congo) clearing a field; the heading, "dressing," and consecration of an ensemble of rada drums by a pret savanne (bush priest); sequences from a Vodun ceremony including a rada altar with chromolithographs and the action de grace (preliminary segment) of the ritual; and short sequences of social dance styles, including a banda, Congo, and Martinique, performed for the camera.

Marketing market women transportation of produce to market (38-107, 127-200 roll 1) ; Marketing mode of produce transportation donkey baskets, loads on head (38-200 roll 1) ; Markets peasants market women selling makeshift enclosures (227-330 roll 1) ; Dwellings field shelters thatch wattle and daub (1-33 roll 2) ; Agriculture tillage men hoeing fields women planting seed(40-121 roll 2) ; Agriculture tillage use of hoe on tropical soils African retention ; Cooking yard context fire hearths utensils woman tending pots (122-144 roll 2) ; Agriculture tillage communal labor for clearing field "combite" (149-243 roll 2) ; Drumming tillage, rhythmic accompaniment to "combite" (157-243 roll 2) ; Music palliative to work "combite" (157-243 roll 2) ; Cordage braiding fiber cordage lashings for drumheads (301-385 roll 2) ; Musical instruments drummaking three-part vodum drum ensemble(1-72 roll 3) ; Ritual libations drums baptising the vodun drums (64-80, 185-199 roll 3) ; Ritual religious practices drawing "veve" around tree (201-225 roll 3) ; Ritual pictures of saints (233-240 roll 3) religious practices vodun altar candles ; Ritual religious practices vodun altar flagwaving dancing prostration houngan twirling woman (241-301 roll 3) ; Dancing demonstration man illustrating dance steps kinesics (1-80 roll 4) ; Communication gestures two men talking (81-121 roll 4) ; Games gambling men playing "wari" streetside African retentions (122-201 roll 4) ; Music drumming vodun ; Musical instruments snare and drum (211-216 roll 4) ; Musical instruments hoe blade and metal snare accompaniment to drums (249-52 roll 4) ; Communication gestures kinesics two elite males (283-322 roll 4)
Local Number:
HSFA 1977.1.2
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Melville Herskovits films, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
See more items in:
Melville Herskovits films
Archival Repository:
Human Studies Film Archives
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/pc9746ce505-0ad7-444b-9fce-8c8c4a91c5bc
EDAN-URL:
ead_component:sova-hsfa-1977-01-ref2

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