Full film record shot of the interior of Malekula, Vanuatu; the "Small Nambas" of the Lendombwey region; and the "Big Nambas" of Amok village.
Small Nambas footage documents various daily and ceremonial aspects of Nambas culture. These include scenes of casual domestic activities around residential hamlet complexes and subsistence practices relating to gardening and food preparation; various "custom" practices including male ritual activities enacted in and around the ceremonial ground or bunsar; nevimbur (funerary rituals to appease and invoke the spirits of the dead which are directed principally by a male gerontocracy) featuring male dancing and drumming, ceremonial display, and exchange of yams, pigs, and lap-lap (taro pudding); and artistic creation of temesnevimbur (funerary sculptures) in a ritually circumscribed area of the male ceremonial ground and the display of these and related rhambarab (life-size effigies) in ritual contexts. Also depicted are ogases (women's grade-taking rituals) including ritual purifications, adornment, dancing, tooth extraction, and pig sacrifices.
Big Nambas footage depicts daily life in the compound of the chief of Amok village and women working in a recently burned swidden garden.
Local Numbers:
HSFA 1975.1.1
Collection Restrictions:
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.
Some of this material contains sensitive content and is not available for access. Please contact the repository for more information.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Kal Muller films and photographs of Vanuatu (New Hebrides), Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Kalman "Kal" Antal Muller is a photographer and author who spent several years during the late 1960s and early 1970s living with and documenting kastom (in Bislama; tradition or custom, in English) communities in Vanuatu, an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The Kal Muller films and photographs of Vanuatu (New Hebrides) consists largely of unedited reels of 16mm film and 35mm photographic slides that Muller shot on multiple trips to the Banks, Malekula, Pentecost, and Tanna islands from 1968-1974. Supplementary textual materials include correspondence, production records, and published articles related to Muller's time in Vanuatu.
Scope and Contents:
The Kal Muller films and photographs of Vanuatu (New Hebrides) contain Muller's extensive visual documentation of traditional Ni-Vanuatu practices, including Small Nambas funerary practices; ceremonial dances and preparation of kava by followers of the John Frum movement on Tanna Island; yam harvest and preparation; and the naghol (land dive) carried out by the Bunlap community on Pentecost Island. The bulk of the collection consists of unedited reels of 16mm film and 35mm photographic slides that Muller shot on multiple trips to the Banks, Malekula, Pentecost, and Tanna islands from 1968-1974 with support from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes, the National Anthropological Film Center, and National Geographic. The collection also contains supplementary textual materials, such as correspondence between Muller and E. Richard Sorenson, production records, and published articles related to Muller's film projects. The collection also includes a small number of photographic slides taken in Hong Kong.
Films and slides are organized in separate series by format, then by geographic region/film project.
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Biographical Note:
Kalman "Kal" Antal Muller is a photographer and author who spent several years during the late 1960s and early 1970s living with and documenting kastom (in Bislama; tradition or custom, in English) communities in Vanuatu, an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Born in Hungary in 1939, Muller moved to the United States at age twelve. He first visited Vanuatu in 1966 following a sailing trip across the Pacific. As he developed ties with Ni-Vanuatu communities, Muller filmed and photographed traditional practices on different islands across the archipelago, including the Banks, Malekula, Pentecost, and Tanna islands. Muller filmed the naghol (land dive) carried out by the Bunlap community on Pentecost Island, resulting in the film Land-Divers of Melanesia, a collaboration with Robert Gardner and the Harvard Film Study Center. Muller also performed the naghol himself and wrote about the experience in a 1970 article for National Geographic, "Land Diving with the Pentecost Islanders," which was illustrated with his photographs. His time in Vanuatu provided Muller with material for other published pieces featuring his photographs, including a second story for National Geographic and several articles in the Journal de la Société des Océanistes. His photographs and films of kastom communities garnered interest and support from several cultural anthropologists at the time, including E. Richard Sorenson and Alan Lomax, as well as from NIH scientist D. Carleton Gajdusek.
From 1973 to 1975, with backing from Sorenson and Gajdusek, Muller also spent time with the Wixárika (Huichol) community in San Andrés Cohamiata, Jalisco, Mexico, and shot extensive film footage focusing on Wixárika religious practices.
Muller completed a PhD in Modern Language and Literature with a Major in French from the University of Arizona in 1973. Since 1976 he has lived in Indonesia, mainly Papua, where he went on to write English-language guides to traveling and diving in the region. He has also worked as an art dealer and promotor of Komoro sculpture, and as an advisor on indigenous history, culture, and social development to Freeport, a mining company operating in Papua.
Sources Consulted
Dalton, Bill. "Dr. Kal Muller: Champion of the Kamoros." 2014. Accessed February 28, 2022, https://web.archive.org/web/20210613082307/https://www.baliadvertiser.biz/kal_muller/.
Jolly, Margaret. Women of the Place: Kastom, colonialism, and gender in Vanuatu. New York: Harwood Academic Publishers, 2002.
Muller, Kal. "Land Diving with the Pentecost Islanders." National Geographic, December 1970.
Muller, Kal. "Taboos and Magic Rule Namba Lives." National Geographic, January 1972.
Tabani, Marc. "The Carnival of Custom: Land Dives, Millenarian Parades and Other Spectacular Ritualizations in Vanuatu." Oceania 80, 3 (November 2010): 309-328. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20877382.
Related Materials:
Kal Muller's film footage and photographs focusing on the Wixárika (Huichol) community in San Andrés Cohamiata, Jalisco, Mexico, are also held by the Human Studies Film Archives (HSFA.1989.03, Kal Muller films of Jalisco).
Separated Materials:
A group of Muller's photographs taken in Mexico was received by the archives with the Vanuatu materials; those photographs were interfiled with HSFA.1989.03, Kal Muller films of Jalisco.
Provenance:
Films and a portion of the slides were received from Kal Muller and the National Institutes of Health in 1974 and 1975. An additional group of slides was received from Kal Muller in 2019 (accession 2019.21).
Restrictions:
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.
Some of this material contains sensitive content and is not available for access. Please contact the repository for more information.
Collection consists of outtakes from an episode of The Tribal Eye, a seven-part BBC documentary series on the subject of tribal art, written and presented by David Attenborough. Man Blong Custom, the sixth episode in the series, was hosted by David Attenborough and filmed in Melanesia on the islands of Aoba, Malekula, Uripir in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) and on Sulufo, Cassi-Cassi, Adigege, Malaita, and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Footage features: hungwe (major pig killing) on Aoba; Small Nambas namal (men's house) on Malekula with display of ritual art including undandadi (shields) and rambaramps (life-sized effigies), used as cavorting puppets in funeral ceremonies; Ambryn slit gong drummers and dancers on Uripir; turtle fishing on Sulufo; "custom" wedding on Cassi-Cassi; funeral on Adigege; Lau men and women engaged in the manufacture of shell money on Malaita; "custom" house of the Moro Cult on Guadalcanal (includes pipe players, speech-making, and various dances); building, decoration, and operation of a Tomako war canoe on Malekula; and sea spirit dances and tower jumping in a lagoon on Malekula. Included are helicopter views over Malekula.
Collection also includes associated texts, sound recordings, production logs, and field notes.
Legacy Keywords: Ceremony feasts ; Dance drumming singing ; Music ; Animal Husbandry ideas about ; Authority bigmanship ; Animal sacrifice pigs ritual ; Music ; Aerial views ; Art effigies ; Money shell money Melanesia ; Funeral rites and ceremonies ; Marriage customs and rites g ; Canoes dugouts outriggers as transportation ; Language and culture ; Melanesia ; New Hebrides ; Malaita (Solomon Islands) ; Lao Lagoon ; Makaruka Island ; Somilita ; Port Adams ; Ambryn New Hebrides ; Small Nambas ; Big Nambas ; Mbotgate
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or Anthropology Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Local Number:
HSFA 1975.5.1
Provenance:
Received from the British Broadbasting Corporation in 1975.
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.
Outtakes from edited film documents a ceremonial pig feast including scenes of a ceremonial compound, "tuskers" (large pigs) being prepared for sacrifice; male dancers perambulating through the compound; oratory by the bigman convening the ceremony; tethering of the tuskers to trees in a small grove of palms, boar skulls wrapped in plaited palm trash affixed to the palms; male participants dancing with spears; shots of the cooking pits which use large heated stones; villagers encircling the compound; narrative by David Attenborough.
Legacy Keywords: Ceremony feasts redistribution ; Animal husbandry pigs ; Cooking fire pits ; Food preparation ceremonial ; Drumming dancing ceremony ; Speech oratory ritual leaders ; Ritual rites of intensification ; Oratory bigmen Melanesia ; Music ceremony ; Language and culture ; Oceania ; New Hebrides ; Malekula (Vanuatu) ; Vanuatu ; Melanesia ; Melanesians
General:
Local Number: HSFA 1975.5.1 - 1
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:
Man Blong Custom (Outtakes), Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Outtakes from edited film includes shots of a ceremonial scene of dancing, singing, and drumming by natives in a ritual enclosure around slit gongs; close up of the drums and drummers shot from a variety of angles; close ups of the dancers adorned with leaves and flowers, facial paint; beachside scene of filmmaker and party embarking in boat with an outboard motor, onlookers gathered on shore.
Legacy Keywords: Ceremony singing dancing ; Music drumming slit gongs ; Adornment facial paint leaves flowers ; Drums slit gongs ; Language and culture ; Oceania ; New Hebrides ; Vanuatu ; Malekula (Vanuatu) ; Melanesians
General:
Local Number: HSFA 1975.5.1 - 10
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:
Man Blong Custom (Outtakes), Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Outtakes from edited film includes closeup and mid-range shots of a site bounded by large upright slit gongs carved in anthropomorphic form; close-up shots of the statuary slit gongs; shots of other anthropomorphic statues incorporating boar's tusks; scenes of men loading turtle net into a canoe, canoes being paddled and poled across a lagoon to deploy the net; swimmers clapping the watter to direct turtles into net.
Legacy Keywords: Drums slit gongs ; Musical instruments slit gongs ; Art statuary anthropomorphic slit gongs ; Canoes use in fishing ; Fishing turtles ; Subsistence fishing use of nets in ; Swimming net fishing Melanesia ; Language and culture ; Oceania ; New Hebrides ; Vanuatu ; Malekula (Vanuatu) ; Melanesians
General:
Local Number: HSFA 1975.5.1 - 11
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:
Man Blong Custom (Outtakes), Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Outtakes from edited film includes scenes of a ceremonial pig feast held on the island of Malekula; drummers seated under a makeshift canopy of palm leaves playing slit gongs; scenes of the compound where "tuskers" (large pigs with curved tusks) are brought to be sacrified; activity around ceremonial arena; men in ritual adornment running back and forth across the dancing area; carrying in pigs for the feast; man shooting boar in the stomach with a bow and arrow; ritual ministrations of the bigman to the pigs; oratory by a bigman; men rolling out long palm mats on the dancing ground; David Attenborough delivering narration to explain the cultural value of a "tusker", how it is grown, and what criteria establishes its ceremonial value.
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:
Man Blong Custom (Outtakes), Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Outtakes from edited film includes scenes of a ceremonial pig feast held on the island of Malekula; ceremonial center and accompanying activities as pigs are being readied for sacrifice; David Attenborough delivering narration on the ritual value of the large boars known as "tuskers" and their significance in a system of ritualized reciprocities among the indigenous people; comments on the role of a bigman in mobilizing this ritual wealth for sacrifice; the big man sacrificing pigs first by symbolically splitting a pig skull wrapped in dried palm leaves and then splitting the skull of the live tusker with an ax; dancing and drumming; perambulations of the dancers around the ceremonial ground.
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:
Man Blong Custom (Outtakes), Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Outtakes from edited film includes shots of a ritual enclosure on the island of Malekula showing a man preparing to carve a standing slit gong; shots of David Attenborough speaking pidgin to a bigman about the pigs he has just killed at a ceremonial feast; open pit of heated stones to be used for cooking the meat; interior scenes in a cult house with close up shots of various anthropomorphic art including masks, staffs, and statuary; Attenborough with two villagers clad in traditional dress eliciting from them the names of the ritual objects.
Legacy Keywords: Art statuary carving ; Carving art ceremonial ; Tools adze carving ; Ritual art mimicry ; Speech pidgin ; Cooking cooking pits ; Food preparation cooking pits ; Houses cult house men's house ; Garb penis sheaths New Hebrides ; Adornment ritual nose bones ; Language and culture ; Oceania ; New Hebrides ; Malekula (Vanuatu) ; Vanuatu ; Melanesians
General:
Local Number: HSFA 1975.5.1 - 4
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:
Man Blong Custom (Outtakes), Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Outtakes from edited film includes scenes along a path outside a men's cult house showing villagers as they carry out and display various pieces of art from within the house; shots of David Attenborough eliciting the pidgin names of various ritual art objects from the natives; interior shots of the cult house featuring art done in anthropomorphic style; close ups of effigies which show how the curved tusks of boars are incorporated into native art.
Legacy Keywords: Houses cult houses men ; Masks art ; Art statuary anthropomorphic ; Cult objects art ; Language and culture ; Oceania ; New Hebrides ; Vanuatu ; Malekula (Vanuatu) ; Melanesians
General:
Local Number: HSFA 1975.5.1 - 5
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:
Man Blong Custom (Outtakes), Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Outtakes from edited film includes shots taken outside a "Yamao" or men's house in highland Malekula showing natives as they carry out and display various carved and painted cult objects that are housed inside; scenes of David Attenborough eliciting the names of these objects; a ritual enclosure which features several standing slit gongs and an adjacent mortuary shrine for a recently deceased elder; shots of Attenborough explaining the significance of the ritual edifice in which the tribal elder is installed and detailing the objects which surmount the funeral site; male drummers playing the slit gongs adjacent to the mortuary structure.
Legacy Keywords: Art statuary anthropomorphic ; Effigies art metenyelli tambuggi ; Masks polychrome ; Smoking tobacco pipes ; Drums slit gongs ; Mortuary practices corpse attitudes toward ; Music slit gongs ; Funerals drumming slit gongs ; Burials scaffolds ; Adornment mortuary rites flowers vegetation ; Ritual structures mortuary scaffold ; Houses men's houses Yamao ; Flowers use in mortuary rites ; Language and culture ; Oceania ; New Hebrides ; Vanuatu ; Malekula (Vanuatu) ; Melanesians
General:
Local Number: HSFA 1975.5.1 - 6
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:
Man Blong Custom (Outtakes), Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
