Comparative Analysis: Warfare & Violence in Papuan Films 'Dead Birds' & 'Mama Tineke', Schemes and Mind Maps of Social Anthropology

Download Comparative Analysis: Warfare & Violence in Papuan Films 'Dead Birds' & 'Mama Tineke' and more Schemes and Mind Maps Social Anthropology in PDF only on Docsity! University of Bern, Institute of Social Anthropology FS2017 Papua – Local Dynamics, Global Connections Essay Prof. Dr. Heinzpeter Znoj, Cyprianus Dale, M.A. Elisa Gaia 1 The Papuan Warfare in Anthropological Representations Introduction An anthropological document (documentary, text or interview) has as first aim, in my opinion, to represent a culture or a specific aspect of a culture in a “sincere” and “true” way. It might be curious the use of the adjectives “sincere” and “true”, but I think that it is important to distinguish truth from objectivity. A fact can be true, just because it happened, it is a concrete fact, but there can be many subjective ways to describe it and interpret it. A long debate about the impossibility of objectivity in an anthropological representation shows us how difficult it is to illustrate an aspect of a culture without interpreting it or depicting it in a subjective way. Every anthropologist introduces in his research a part of himself, his culture and his background, which interferes unavoidably with the objectivity of his research. I also wonder whether the anthropologist (probably unconsciously) shapes his film or his research report in a way that validates his theories or what he decides to “believe” and show. Probably when an anthropologist (or a film director) decides to study, to investigate and to represent a culture or a specific aspect of a society, he has a motivation or an original stimulus for the research, which could unawares distort the objectivity of the investigation. In this Essay, I will focus on a specific example of anthropological documenting: the representation of warfare and violence in Papuan population in two particular films: Dead Birds (1963) by Robert Gardner and Mama Tineke Returns Home (2015) by Wensislaus Fatubun. They are very different movies, and a deep comparison would need a very long analysis. My aim is not to develop a cinematographic analysis, rather to use these ethnological representations to highlight the differences in the representation of one single aspect in the same population: the warfare among the Papuans. I chose these among the numerous Papuan films because I think that the representation of warfare in these movies is extremely significant. Dead Birds, that I will discuss in the first part, is a famous movie for the history of Papua because it is the first documentary about Papua, and represents the “first contact” of the indigenous population with a cinematographic crew. It is a controversial movie and had many consequences for the representation of Papuans, because it created a specific image of indigenous people, which is still actual in the common imagination today. I will compare it with Mama Tineke Returns Home, a modern Papuan activist movie that I will analyse in the second part, with the aim to illustrate the main differences in the representation of violence and Papuan warfare, and to reflect about the consequences and the effects of this powerful “tool” of representation. Dead Birds In this first part, I am going to reflect about Dead Birds, a 1963 documentary by Robert Gardner about the Dani of New Guinea. The film is the result of a three-year anthropological expedition University of Bern, Institute of Social Anthropology FS2017 Papua – Local Dynamics, Global Connections Essay Prof. Dr. Heinzpeter Znoj, Cyprianus Dale, M.A. Elisa Gaia 2 sponsored by the Peabody Museum of Harvard University (Grant 2009, 46). Before the arrival of Gardner and his crew, Dani had already had few contacts with outsiders, but they had never seen a camera or a film crew. Gardner was accompanied by the anthropologist Karl Heider and the writer Peter Matthiessen (Otterbein 2009, 5). The purpose of the film is to represent Dani culture, with a special focus on warfare, violence and death. The images and the voice-over describe a society completely shaped by war, revenge and violence.1 If we try to analyse the film with a focus on the representation of Dani warfare, we can realize how massive this dimension is in the film. The voice- over of the narrator opens the film with a fable of the mountain people living in the ancient highlands of New Guinea about a fight between a bird and a snake. The aim of this fight was to decide whether men would be like birds and die, or like snakes, which have eternal life because of the regeneration of their skin. The victory of the bird implies that men, like birds, will die. These opening words are significant because they create a context in which fight and death are central and very ancient. Gardner shoots birds many times in the movie in death scenes, as if he wanted to associate further birds and man with death. This is one other clue of the non-authenticity of the movie sequences and of the editing, finalized to the establishment of a specific image of Dani, immortalized as violent and uncivilized. The introduction in the Dani people’s life continues with the description of one central figure in the film: Weyak is a man, described first as a warrior and as the leader of the band of men who guards the most dangerous sector of a frontier between his people and the enemies. It is interesting to notice the words used to describe him (warrior, leader, dangerous, frontier, enemies), all belonging to the violence field. The narrator explains2 that the reason for a continual warfare between Dani and other tribes in the Baliem Valley is that in their culture, when a person is killed, the death must be avenged, so that the soul can be at peace. These continued battles yield neither territory nor plunder, but they fulfil the obligation toward the soul of the killed person. Every killed human being must be avenged, because unavenged souls are very dangerous: they wander in the darkness and they can bring sickness, unhappiness and misfortune; for this reason, they continually fight. Dani are described as obsessed by the ghosts and the revenge of their people, by the thoughts about how to defeat the enemies and how to give peace to their dead fellows. Even the territory and the activities of everyday life are concerned with warfare. Besides agriculture, the works in the fields and the care of the domestic sphere, Dani spend a lot of their time at the defence of their territory. During the description of Weyak’s village, a great importance is given by the narrator to the high towers put up by each side of the village. Every day, tell us the narrator, Weyak takes his spear or his bow and arrows and starts for his tower, from where he can have a better view of the no man’s land between a village and one other. The narrator explain us that the activity of control of the territory is essential in these villages, because the battles are continued and because to be successful, raids must 1 Dead Birds has a fundamental role for many aspects in anthropological analysis: as anthropological film was largely criticized because of the lack of authenticity (what in the introduction I called “truth”). Gardner edited many shots and organized them in the best way to legitimize his opinion about Dani. Other important aspects are that the Papuan never talk, they don’t tell their stories, and all their images and sounds are edited and “manipulated” by Gardner. 2 The narrator provides explanations and interpretations of all what we can see in the film, but it is not clear how he collected all the information he gives us and whether he actually collected them or he just interpreted Dani’s life.