The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-11-26
INDIAN LIFE
IN MOTION
Pictures to Show
the Aboriginal
Customs.

A brand-new enterprise of Uncle
Sans is the application of the motion
picture machine for the analysis of the
| hitherto mysterious and inexpIainable
doings Of primitive man. Never before
this year was this attempted Prof.
o. P. Phillips of the University of
Pennsylvania. commissioned a few
months ago by the governments bu-
reau Of ethnology TO initiate this work
in the far west. has just returned from
the field.
This year I conceived the idea of
analysing the customs of primitive man
by means of the cineametograph
camera" said Prof. Phillips yesterday
to our correspondent. The American
Indian is fast passing away as child
OF nature, and many of his aboriginal
practices have gone out of existence
within the past few years. Ethnolo-
gists can obtain a more accurate con-
ception of Indian customs from ten
minutes study by aid of moving life
pictures than from a days observation
by the unaided eye.
With the best equipment to be had
in the world I started for the field last
July and have since spent my time
photographing all of the Pueblo In
dams, Zunis and Moquis of Arizona and
New Mexico. also the Diggers of the
high Sierras From Canon Diablo, a
small station on the Santa Fe railroad,
we first +nurneyed north in a covered
70 cF
discovered by the Spanish under Coro-
rado $50 years ago.
I'VE slept each night rolled UP in
blankets upon the bare earth, and al
though we encountered the rainy sea-
son had no shelter whatever. We ate
Off our blapkets-indeed roughed it in
every sense of the word.
Generous tipping is essential to sue
cessful photography such as I carried
on in the Indian country. / soon dis
covered this Each primitive red man
or woman demanded a fee anywhere
from % cents to 81 before cOnsenting to
pose. Even when 1 snapped them
clandestinely they made me pay up as
soon as realizing that they had been
taken. In addition to distributing
lucre in generous quantities I had to
keep stocked with an abundance of
calico, yeast cakes, candy, matches
and tobacco. The yeast cakes went far
to persuade the women. who mauufac-
ture their native leaven by chewing up
meal and allowing it to ferment in the
moistened state.
1.-The common camera has ever ex-
cited Indian superstition. The cineame-
tograph camera. by reason of the rum
bling of It's films, has an even more
formidable effect Within twenty-five
feet this noise was audible When
heard it in most cases excited fear.
Next summer, when 1 return to the
field. shall take with me a parlor in
strument, in which 1 can exhibit the
motion pictures and explain the pur
poses of my work. AS it was, l could
not by any extravaganza of language
explain through my interpreter the in
tricacies of my apparatus.
Il reached Tusayan, Arizona. in time
to photograph the Moqui snake dance.
both at Mishonginovi. on Middle Mesa,
and Walpi. on East Mesa. Early in
August the sun priest of each village.
seeing the sun set in a certain niche in
the mountains. scheduled the festivities
two weeks later.
II succeeded this year in something
never before done with the snake dan
early. This was essential to the sue
cess of my photographs, for the dance
has hitherto begun always at sunset.
4 fund was raised among other
photogra piers and the spectators. With
this as an incentive, even Moqui con-
servatism was overthrow. We prOmis-
ed the snake priests that S25 would be
placed upon their altar if they would
commence the dance at 4:30 in the aft
ernoon, but that So would be subtracted
for each fifteen minutes they were be-
hind time. At Mishonginovi the dan
GERS were a quarter hour late, and
hence got only $50; but at Walpi they
showed up in due time. At the latter
pueblo the Indians had arranged that
no white man could go into their kiva'-
the subterranean chamber where the
snakes are kept--for less than $50, nor on
the mesa itself for less than 81. But gov
eminent credentials admitted me to the
lIiva for So When we tried to get down
into the AIishonginovi kiva before the
dance we were admitted only on the pro-
viso that we would ask the gods of the
white man for rain. the snake dance be-
ing q supplication 10 the Moqui rain
gods. We consented, and a missionary in
our party conducted an eloquent rellgl-
Gus service in the dark kiya- Efforts
were made to have some pauses made in
the dance TO offer better facilities for
photograph But from this the AIoquis
dissented This is a prayer for rain,
said a snake priest to my interpreter
We must feed our children. After they
are fed, if there is anything left over the
white man is welcome to 1t
II posted my instrument upon one OF
the native huts overlooking the dance
plaza. l focused upon the entire field OF
action. averaging thirty feet distant, The
dancers, moving over the plaza, with
lunches of rattlesnakes clutched in
their teeth and darting at their faces,
afforded a revolving spectacle 1t looked
very much to me as IL several dancers
felt the fangs of the serpents.
Il photographed the finish Of the Mo
cui antelope race which annually &C
ours the day prior to the snake dance.
II IS so called because the antelope
priests OF the tribe preside over it. Four