Extracted from: Disability and society (Abingdon, Oxfordshire) 13 (5) 1998, pages 709-724.
Abstract, page 709.
Pitaniko, the film of Cyrene is a unique short film, created in 1946 in part to popularize the work of Cyrene and its founder, the Reverend Edward George (Ned) Paterson. The film is the story of the mission, told through the transformation of the life of a disabled young man, Samuel Songo, who portrays Pitaniko, first through his experience of rejection at his village and then at the Cyrene mission. In Pitaniko, physical disability is viewed in two worlds, one African, the other the world of the Cyrene mission, befitting the colonial contrasts of the primitive and the civilized. The meaning of rehabilitation is derived from the transformation from the African world into the world of the Cyrene mission through the medium of art, and ultimately, through conversion into Christianity. Disability is first an opportunity and later a symbol that illustrates and enhances the mission of Cyrene. -- original abstract.
