Zanzabuku
Object Details
- Local Number
- HSFA 1985.11.2
- Collection Creator
- Cotlow, Lewis, 1898-1987
- See more items in
- Lewis Cotlow films
- Sponsor
- Cataloging supported by Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee.
- Extent
- Film reels (83 minutes, color sound; 2400 feet, 16mm)
- Date
- 1954
- Archival Repository
- Human Studies Film Archives
- Type
- Archival materials
- Film reels
- Collection Rights
- Contact the repository for terms of use.
- Scope and Contents
- Edited film produced in association with Republic Pictures and made in the course of the Lewis Cotlow Third African Expedition in 1954 to Tanganyika (Tanzania), Uganda, Kenya, and the Belgian Congo (Zaire). The film crew's eight month safari covered over 15,000 miles with the goal of filming a variety of African animals. The expedition visits the animal stockade of Carr Hartley in Rumuruti, Kenya and films the zoo-catching enterprise while they rope and crate animals. The simulated hunt of a leopard by Turkana men and the successful trapping of another leopard by son of Carr Hartley becomes the filmic justification for a fabricated African "celebration" attended by Turkana, Masai, and Kuria peoples. Ethnographic footage includes the music, dances, ostrich plume headdresses, and ivory lip plugs of the Turkana; the attire and jewelry of Masai women; and dances and rituals among the Kuria. Other indigenous people depicted in the film include the Mbuti Pygmies of the Ituri forest who demonstrate the building of a liana bridge across a river and "celebrate" its completion with music and dance. In Tanganyika (Tanzania), the film crew joins another big game hunter, Pellegrini, and films the capture of an elephant, a hippopotamus, and a rhinoceros. Legacy Keywords: Language and culture ; Expeditions ; Safaris ; Animals Africa ; Dance ; Adornment Africa ; Rites and ceremonies
- 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.
- Record ID
- ebl-1633111215902-1633111215916-0
- Metadata Usage
- CC0