Life In a Haitian Valley Film Study
odd: label: Local Number
content: HSFA 1977.1.2
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Herskovits, Melville J. (Melville Jean), 1895-1963
setName: label: See more items in
content: Melville Herskovits films
physdesc: label: Extent
content: Film reels (52 minutes, black-and-white silent; 1400 feet)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1934
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Human Studies Film Archives
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Film reels
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Footage shot during a three-month field study in the valley and village of Mirebalais, central Haiti. Documentation of Haitian culture includes various subsistence and craft activities (hoeing, planting, marketing, and rope making); a combite or communal work group (known elsewhere in Haiti as the Société Congo) clearing a field; the heading, "dressing," and consecration of an ensemble of rada drums by a pret savanne (bush priest); sequences from a Vodun ceremony including a rada altar with chromolithographs and the action de grace (preliminary segment) of the ritual; and short sequences of social dance styles, including a banda, Congo, and Martinique, performed for the camera.

Marketing market women transportation of produce to market (38-107, 127-200 roll 1) ; Marketing mode of produce transportation donkey baskets, loads on head (38-200 roll 1) ; Markets peasants market women selling makeshift enclosures (227-330 roll 1) ; Dwellings field shelters thatch wattle and daub (1-33 roll 2) ; Agriculture tillage men hoeing fields women planting seed(40-121 roll 2) ; Agriculture tillage use of hoe on tropical soils African retention ; Cooking yard context fire hearths utensils woman tending pots (122-144 roll 2) ; Agriculture tillage communal labor for clearing field "combite" (149-243 roll 2) ; Drumming tillage, rhythmic accompaniment to "combite" (157-243 roll 2) ; Music palliative to work "combite" (157-243 roll 2) ; Cordage braiding fiber cordage lashings for drumheads (301-385 roll 2) ; Musical instruments drummaking three-part vodum drum ensemble(1-72 roll 3) ; Ritual libations drums baptising the vodun drums (64-80, 185-199 roll 3) ; Ritual religious practices drawing "veve" around tree (201-225 roll 3) ; Ritual pictures of saints (233-240 roll 3) religious practices vodun altar candles ; Ritual religious practices vodun altar flagwaving dancing prostration houngan twirling woman (241-301 roll 3) ; Dancing demonstration man illustrating dance steps kinesics (1-80 roll 4) ; Communication gestures two men talking (81-121 roll 4) ; Games gambling men playing "wari" streetside African retentions (122-201 roll 4) ; Music drumming vodun ; Musical instruments snare and drum (211-216 roll 4) ; Musical instruments hoe blade and metal snare accompaniment to drums (249-52 roll 4) ; Communication gestures kinesics two elite males (283-322 roll 4)