AMERICAN INDIAN FILMS
S. A. Barrett
The very rapid disappearance of the American Indian cultures over the
past half century and more, a heritage rich in the extreme, is a matter of
common knowledge.  What is even more to the point, the almost complete disap-
pearance of these Indian cultures in some regions has been accepted by nearly
everyone as an accomplished fact. That they are irrecoverable is assumed.
Tribute is due to those anthropologists who have written over the years
such a fine record of our aboriginal peoples. However, these writings, even
assisted by their excellent illustrations, often lack details which can be fur-
nished only by direct observation.  Since mst of these arts, crafts or customs
are no longer practiced, and personal observation is therefore impossible,
there is a growing tendency to turn from old time ethnology to other related
fields, such as acculturation.
The writer had accepted as fact this almost total disappearance of abori-
ginal cultural features and the dictum that, at best, only a few vestiges re-
mined here and there. However, late in 1956 he was asked to take several stu-
dents out to see some of his old Indian friends in the region north of San
Francisco Bay. He found that, while the Indians of the younger generation have
so far accepted the white man's way that they know practically nothing of the
ancient customs, there was, here and there, someone who ground acorns, made
beads or caught fish as their forefathers did, perhaps with some modification
to be sure, but still with reasorable attention to the ways of their elders.
The farther we went the more of these vestigial remains came to light.
In the last years of the last century and the early years of the present
one, when the writer was most actively engaged in ethnology here in California,
the motion picture camera had only recently been invented. The 16 mm. camera
with color film came even many years later than that.
However, beginning about 1920 the writer became so interested in the pos-
sibilities of motion pictures that he acquired a 35 mm. Universal and has used
In the field one after another of several other types since. His 16 mm. Cine-
Kodak saw much servrice in the late thirties. Then it was, through necessity,
retired.
Now, here at last loomed the possibility of making a photographic record
in color, accompanied where possible by sound; an actual "living record" of
these vestigial remains of Indian cultures. It was too late to hope to recap-
ture the total culture, but enough could be recorded to give a fair idea of
olden times, before the impact of white contact and the resultant acculturation
had completely changed everything.
Discussion of this idea with Dr. Kroeber produced two enthusiasts and
resulted in a program with dual objectives:
1. The securing of a series of record films and sound recordings to be used for
detailed study and analysis.
2. The production from these of a series of teachin films for use in the class-
room.
The ethnologistts laboratory is (or was) the Indian settlement, out where
customs can be observed at first hand. Year by year the difficulty of contact
between our classes and the Indians has grown more acute. Direct observation by
the student out in the field has become almost impossible.
By means of a series of color motion pictures, with sound, we could bring,
this laboratory into the classroom, where the student could directly observe (on
the screen) the life and customs of the Indians, tribe by tribe, or subject by
subject.
Furthermore, by reconstructing from the memories of the older tribesmen
such arts, crafts and procedures as even they had only seen practiced by their
elders, and by having these specially re-enacted with fidelity by Indians before
the camera, we could project our laboratory at least a generation or two farther
back.
By this means we could bring to the student far more than he could ever
see for himself if he went out to the Indian village. There he would only by
the merest chance see one or two of these vestigial remains of Indian cultures.
By careful re-enactment of these cultural features in full before our cam-
era we could bring to him here in the classroom at the University the full story
of one after another of these cultural features--we could, with good fortune,
relive for him the whole primitive life of an area, as it existed before white
contact--anambitious program to be sure, but one with great possibilities.
In other words, we saw not a system of how to do it films, but a system
of how it was done in olden times films. We could have such invaluable film
demonstrations of arts, crafts, customs, ceremonies and other procedures, not
only for our own classrooms in Anthropology and related disciplines, but these
films could be made available to other universities and educational systems.
They could serve colleges, high schools, grade schools; in fact, any other or-
ganization devoted to the spread of knowledge which did so without charge.
A broad vista unfolded before us, one of almost unlimited scope.
But first we must prove that there was present a sufficient number of
these vestiges of culture, a sufficient quantity of material to give the idea
potential development possibilities.
As above mentioned, the writer owned a CineKodak which had been put away
in mothballs some years before. This was retrieved, dusted off and again put
into commission. He secured some rolls of color film and started off on a
"voyage of discovery"--to see how much he could find and how far back the clock
could be turned. This first voyage yielded results beyond our expectations and
satisfied us that, between cultural res'idues which were still in daily use, and
other features which were yet clear in the minds of the oldsters and could be
re-enacted as demonstrations, we were on the right road. Pay dirt was in sight.
We succeeded in securing small appropriations, first from the Department
of Anthropology Research Fund; then from the University's Institute of Social
Sciences. With these we secured more film and paid necessary field expenses of
transportation, maintenance and the like.
Much of this work is, of necessity, seasonal. Arrangements would be made
with some India-ns to dueonstrate before the camera when something matured (tule
or acorns, for instance). When the word arrived that the corditions were suit-
able and that we could come up for this work, perhaps the funds were exhausted.
The work, however, had to go on. You cannot disappoint one of your Indian
demonstrators who is ready to work or soon all will lose faith in you and; your-
word. You simp-ly keep the appointment, get the picture, and foot the bill out
of your own pocket: costs of f'ilm, processing, transportation, maintenance and
demonstrator's fees. It counts up when repeated often enough.
We worked on in this- manner for about four years. The further we went,
the more we found of these residual cultural features still in usse. For xm-
ple, we suddenly, one day, came upon an Indian fishing with a plunge net,
something we supposed to be only a matter of memory for years past. The most
surprising reconstruction we encountered was that of the sinew-backed bow.
Informant-sts had given us to- understand that in very ancient times the best
bows were- made down on the Lower Kla-math River. However, everyone knows t-hat
no sinew-hacked bow has been made anywhere for 75 or 80 years. Imagine our
surprise when we were told by an acquaintance of Mrs. Meighan that he had seen
only that- verey day an old man making a sinew-backed bow. A visit there the fol-
lowing- day verified the truth of this statement. The circumstances were these:
Homer Cooper is somewhere between 80 and 90 years of age. In his youth his
family lived near the mouth of the Klamath River. Their nearest neighbor was
a very old man, a bowyer. The Yurok Indians practiced professionalism, and
their arts and crafts reached correspondingly high degrees of proficiency. A
ran^ who was a bowyer confined his activities to the- making of bows, which he
sold or traded to others for such commodities as he might need.
Homer lived near thi s bowyer and used to watch him almost constantly,
fascinated by the practice of his craft. He thereby learned all the phases of
bow making and was so interested in bows that he firally begged so hard that
his mother secured one for him and he enjoyed practicing with it. Now, in- his
last years, he- decided to try to recall all the steps in bow making. He has
succeeded admirably, producing, at the time we first visited him, quite a num-
ber of th-ese old-type bows. As abover mentioned, Yurok bows-were-, according to
various of our informants, the finest bows ever made in California, nade right
ki1bht here- at the- mouth of the Klamath and traded out from there as a focal
center to surrounding tribes.
To be sure, we found Homer using glue from a bottle and paints from cans.
W -inquired whether he knew how to make the aboriginal glue and received-the
reply: "Yes, but why should I bother to do so.  I can go down to the store and
for a few cents buy a bottle- of glue which serves my purpose just as well." We
told him that we would like to make a picture of the entire process of bow-
making but that if we did, we wanted to have the bow made in the old-fashioned
way, entirely with old-fashioned materials, just as the Indians did back in the
days when they had no resources like the trading post or the corner store. He
agreed that he could produce "Indian glue," as he called it, if given a little
time. The same was the story with the paints. We arranged with him to procure
all these ancient needfuls, and drop us a note.  We would then come up to make
this picture.
In about a month a letter arrived from Homer. We went up and made the
picture of the bow-making. Later we made a picture showing the making of the
arrow to go along with the bow. Finally, we photographed Homer shooting this
bow and arrow, with the release he had learned as a boy. Thus, diligent inquiry
far and wide finally turned up one man (and only one) who knew this ancient
craft and was able to demonstrate it for us from the depths of his memory.
A number of such instances have been already encountered, where we dealt
with and secured information and demonstrations from the last remaining tribes-
man to profess any knowledge of a certain craft.  Such an instance is that of
our balsa building. Careful search turned up an old man, who, while he had not
actually made one of these boats, had in his boyhood assisted an uncle in doing
so. This was Harry Holmes, an ordained minister, who finally agreed to try his
hand at naking such a craft.  Back in 1916 I had had made, for the Milwaukee
Public Museum, a Pomo tule balsa. Harry and I discussed the whole matter thor-
oughly over a large photograph of this boat. The picture showed all details and
I thought everything about the work was thoroughly understood. However, again
we had to await the ripening of the tule.
When this time came the arrangement was that Harry was to gather the tule
and have it ready on the lakeshore and that I was to come up on a Monday morning
to commence photographing the boat building.   Now, the Pomo Indians in ancient
times made, not only a tule boat which was actually boat-shaped, but also a raft
consisting of several small bundles of tule lashed together. Upon my arrival I
found that Harry's notion of a tule boat was one of these flat rafts, even though
we had already carefully talked over the boat that he had seen in the picture.
A very lengthy discussion followed in which Harry maintained that he simply would
not undertake to make one of the boat-shaped balsas, but was going to make wiat
he called "the flat-bottomed boat, just like the one up in the museum in Lakeport."
This discussion proceeded all morning and at about a quarter of twelve I
looked at my watch and remarked that it was about time for lunch and suggested
that Harry and I go up to Lakeport, have lunch, then go to the museum and see
just what kind of a "flat-bottomed boat" he was talking about. This idea of
having lunch was a very acceptable one to him and away we went.
Inspection of this so-called flat-bottomed boat showed that it was nothing
more than a raft of small bundles of tule. Again we discussed the matter and I
was very insistent that the people that we were making this boat for didn't want
one of these flat-bottomed ones but a real boat-shaped balsa, and I suggested
that we ought to build them what they wanted. This was a new idea to Harry and
he was very agreeable to it. Then he said, "Why didn't you come up here yester-
day?" My reply was that, since yesterday was Sunday and he was a minister, he
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couldn't be expected to work on a boat on Sunday. "Yes, of course, that is
true but we could talk. We could do just like the lawyers do. They get to-
gether and argue and argue and argue. Then they go to court for a few minutes,
and the case is all settled. If you had come up here yesterday we could have
done all this talking, then, and we could have had the boat half done by now."
The construction of this boat led to the making of a total of five of
these canoes and a thorough-going series of pictures of their construction.
However, no more of these canoes are likely to be made for the reason that
this old gentleman passed away a few months ago, and with him went the knowledge
of how such crafts were built. To be sure, all the details of balsa building
are fully recorded and preserved in our film and someone could easily revive
this craft if desired.
It is obviously only among the very old men and women that such knowledge
remains. And it is very necessary that this knowledge and experience of theirs
be recorded just as quickly as possible and before they pass away. In fact, we
have had already a number of instances in which an old man (one 89 years of age,
for example) passed away before he had been able to finish some item which re-
quired a time lapse for curing purposes before the next step could be under-
taken. 'We do not know at present of anyone who can complete this particular
article.
These are examples of the urgency of this work and are cited to show why
it must be done now or never. When these old people pass away the younger gen-
eration has no knowledge of such matters and cares nothing about them. This
condition, combined with the aversion to picture taking on the part of some of
the Indians who do know how to do these various things, makes it very difficult.
We sometimes find someone whom we know definitely is able to make some object
or to perform some procedure but whose aversion to having his picture taken
makes him reluctant to do so.
This aversion stems from one or both of the following causes. Some of
these people, old or young, have a deep-rooted, ratural aversion to having a
picture taken because they do not want their likenesses in the hands of some-
one else. Another group comprises those who are afraid that, if a motion pic-
ture is taken, it is going to get into the hands of someone who will commercial-
ize it and make a real pot of money out of it. It is necessary at all times to
combat both these ideas in different individuals; sometimes in the same one.
No statement is more frequently made to these Indians than that "No one
is making a red cent out of the project, that no one can buy or rent a single
foot of this film, and that none of it will ever be shown on any commercial
screen; that it is made strictly for scientific purposes and will be used only
in educational institutions and by organizations devoting themselves strictly
to educational purposes."
One of the serious difficulties with many of the films which have been
made by field workers who have not been trained in all the ways of film making
is that they come up with a patently unprofessiomal type of film. As above
indicated, we started out to make a series of record films and, before we had
proceeded too far, we realized the importance of professionalization. In
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conJunction, therefore, with the Motion Picture Production Department of Univer-
sity Extension here in Berkeley, we have made a combination of the anthropolo-
gist's scientific accuracy and of the professional film maker's techn ical skill.
Care is required to keep these two in balance.
Calling upon accumulated years of ethnological field experience and all
the data the literature has on record, we choose a subject and a likely group
or groups of Indians. Then we discuss the subject with the older men and women
of the tribe, constantly probing for details of the old way of life--the way of
their grandfathers and grandmothers. 'When we have a relatively clear picture
of the steps involved, we prepare an outline of the procedures. This is merely
an outline, and shows about what can be eepncted to ba     next as the action
progresses.  It is in no sense a shooti   script to be followed to the letter.
The native demonstrator can not be fenced in by such a script if he is really
to demonstrate his ancient craft or procedure uninhibited. He is always told
to do whatever would be done in the old-fashioned  y, just as his grandfather
would have done before the white man cane. He is to-omit nothing, no matter how
trivial it may seem, but is to adhere strictly to all the aboriginal features.
Not infrequently some well-meaning white person may start to offer some
suggestions. He is immediately stopped and reminded that we are recording the
way the Indians did things in olden times. If he persists and tries to argue
the point, he nay even have to be told gently that whenever we want to know how
a white nan would do this particular thing we will ask him to step before the
camera and demonstrate.    In all our pictures the Indian way (the aboriginal
Indian way of the elders) is adhered to throughout. Emphasis is placed upon
this use of the outline in contradistinction to the usual shooting script of
the professional film maker, which usually calls for a detailed layout of each
move and angle in the shooting of the film and which may even prescribe the
dialog that is to be used.
Such controlled action has no more place in the production of an ethno-
logical documentary film than it would have in the making of a film on the
natural life of the giraffe. In each case the film is designed to show what
actually happens in the uninhibited ways of each subject. If the Indian demon-
strator is to be hedged in by a script, then our giraffe should be penned up in
a zoo.
It is very true that now and then a demonstrator will get off the track
and will do something which is not strictly according to the old-fashioned way.
'When this happens he usually calls attention to it himself and stands ready to
make the necessary correction. Otherwise a little judicious questioning brings
out just how the thing should have been done. We then get him to repeat so
that we can make the correction. In 99 percent of the demonstrations, however,
the Indian, when left to his own devices, will follow through when he under-
stands that the real 'fold-fashioned way" is what we want. In fact, that is just
exctly what he wants. Anyone who is interested enough to put on a demonstra-
tion for us of any one of these old procedures wants them correct.
We do have to make some concessions to modernism in the matter of clothing
and various things of that sort. These are not only permissible, but mandatory.
In all this, however, there shines out the "old-fashioned way" and we are able
thereby to get a true record of the habitual, ancient procedure.
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Throughout all of the filming and recording, due regard must be taken of
the technical requirements of the professional film maker. The details of
actually shooting the film are in his hands and every facility is afforded him
to make a full and complete recording of all phases of the action from as many
angles as possible.  In his hands also are the sound recordings, for where
music, speeches or other sound recordings can be obtained, these are secured
in the field.
In addit'ion to the actual shooting out in the open, the film must then
be processed and work-printed. Only then can we see the results we have ob-
tained and know if any phase must be amplif ied or re-shot. The fi lm must be
cut and edited (and sometimes re-edited). When the final assemblage is made
and approved for its factual accuracy and for its filmic virtues, the narra-
tion is prepared. Not only must this narration adhere strictly to scientific,
fact, but it must tell the full story of everything in the film. Furthermore,
it mu'st be tailored very accurately to the film in hand. This may require
shortening a section of film here and there or lengthening some of the narra-
tion in another place. When film and narration are properly tailored to each
other, the two are paced together and then the narrator is called in and the
narration is taped. The laboratory then produces the final answer print, wed-
ding the film to the narration, and with any sound effects which may be re-
quired.  Titles, credit lines and everything else needed is added to produce
the finished film ready to be shown on the screen.
All our films are copyrighted by the Board of Regents of the University.
The use of our films is restricted solely to educational and non-profit insti-
tutions.
As stated at the outset, our project has two main objectives:
1. To secure the fullest possible records of the ancient cultures that can be
made at this late date.
2. To select from these, suitable footages and sound recordings and to make
teaching aids for use in our classrooms here at the University and in other
educational institutions desiring them.
Of these original record films we have already, at the end of the first
year, a considerable number which are completed; various others are largely
done but still require, for seasonal or other reasons, some additions. These
together total about two dozen subjects. All will eventually comprise source
uaterial for research in our Anthropology Museum. Of teaching films we have
about-ready for release several subjects. Others are in various stages of com-
pletion.  Among these is one series on basketry which will comprise five films.
These teaching films vary in length from so-called "shorts" to those occupying
It maximum of thirty, or, at most, forty minutes. All are kept within the time
limit of a regular class period.  When a subject requires more extended treat-
ment, as in the basketry film series above mentioned, it is divided into two
or more units.
'We have had the cooperation of museums and other institutions where re-
pose collections of Indian material. We have had cooperation from many workers
in the field (including Canada and Mexico) and of old residents in-various
161
localities who can point the way to finding some of the older Indians and who
have a knowledge of their wisdom and craftsmnship.   We have also had the co-
operation of many of the Indians in various parts. The list of these coopera-
tors is too long to give in detail here but our sincere thanks are due to all
of them. We are especially appreciative of the cooperation of our co-workers
in the Department of Anthropology and in the University Extension.
A word should be said about the direction of this project. During the
inception of this work and during its formative years I had the invaluable ad-
vice of my lifelong friend, Dr. A. L. Kroeber. From the first he, as principal
investigator, and I, as assistant investigator, were co-directors of this proj-
ect. Everything had been planned by us in unison. Decisions on objectives,
policies and general procedures were all made jointly.   It was our mutual under-
standing that all matters of production, finance and other details were to be
handled by me. These policies had grown up and had been in effect for four
years before the first year's grant by the National Science Foundation placed
our project on a solid footing. They were unaltered in any way after the grant
was received. In fact, only the second day before Dr. Kroeber started for Eur-
ope, we held a long conference and reviewed our project, its history and poli-
cies; also we went over its immediate prospective work.
It is with the deepest regret that it is necessary to record that only
five days after our first field work, as a National Science Foundation project
was started, Dr. Kroeber passed away in Paris, on October 5, 1960.
We were thus confronted with a situation which had far-reaching consequen-
ces; one of these was that our project Was without its principal investigator.
Inasmu.ch as, from the first, I had participated so fully in every phase of the
work of the project, the authorities of the University asked me to become prin-
cipal investigator and to carry on the work of the project as its director.
This was approved by the National Science Foundation and the project has, there-
fore, since continued on this basis. This change was necessary for the handling
of the finances of the project, if for no other reason.
Highly gratifying is the fact that a new grant for this project, continu-
ing it on an amplified basis for the year 1961-62, has been made by the National
Science Foundation.
ENDNOTES
1. The original title of our project on film making is a long and descriptive
one consisting of twenty-five words. When the project, after its approval
by the National Science Foundation, finally went to the business office of
the University, someone looked at this long descriptive name and decided that
it was impractical for use in the accounting office. They shortened it to
simply "American Indian Films."  This all-embracing, simple term has been
accepted- by everyone as a fitting title.
2. This discovery was made by Mrs. J. J. Meighan up at Ishi Pishi Falls on the
Upper Klamath River. Very early in this investigation into the possibilities
of this work Mrs. Meighan volunteered her assistance in this field work. Her
keen interest in Anthropology and in motion picture work made her help most
valuable and contributed greatly to the success of this pilot undertaking.
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