Title: Dead birds /
Authors: Gardner, Robert, 1925-2014,; Rockefeller, Michael Clark; Chopra, Joyce; Harvard University.; Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.; Studio 7 Arts (Firm).
Publisher: The Film Study Center,
Year: 1965
Subjects: Harvard University.; Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts.; Anthropology Research; Manners and customs.; Documentary films.; Dani (New Guinean people) Social life and customs.; Dani (New Guinean people) Rites and ceremonies.; Ethnology New Guinea; Ethnographic informants.; Papua (Indonesia) Social life and customs.; Netherlands New Guinea; Irian Jaya (Indonesia); Papua (Indonesia) Social life and customs.
Abstract: A remarkable documentary and one of the most important anthropological film studies ever made. From February 1961 to November 1963, an expedition sponsored by the Peabody Museum carried out a photographic and ethnographic study of the DugumDani (Dani), a people living in the Kurelu area of the Baliem Valley, Dutch New Guinea (now Irian Jaya, Indonesia). The film was made by Robert Gardner in 1961, before the Baliem Valley was pacified by the Dutch government and before the valley's stone age society was irrevocably changed. Dead Birds is a meditation on the neolithic culture of the Dani, who lived according to an elaborate system of inter-tribal warfare and revenge.The film focuses on Weyak, a farmer and warrior, and Pua, a young swineherd, and follows them through the events of Dani life: agriculture, salt collection, ritualized warfare, raids, and funeral ceremonies. "Dead Birds has a meaning which is both immediate and allegorical. In the Dani language it refers to the weapons and ornaments recovered in battle. Its other more poetic meaning comes from the Dani belief that people, because they are like birds, must die." Robert Gardner