Northern Peoples and Visual Anthropology, Its Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

What I Learned from Video Acquisition for HMNP

Abstract

The author has been associated in the collection of video films, since the preparatory period for the establishment of the Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples (HMNP) in 1990. In the 1960s, the author studied at the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow. And for a quarter of a century since 1970s, involved in the collection and publication of international scientific films. At that time, scientific filmmaking was so heavily influenced by the concepts and theory proposed by the Institute for Scientific Film, IWF Göttingen in Germany. Meanwhile in his education in Moscow, the author learned themes of films as historical. As for visual anthropology, he has thoroughly memorized the major works from its beginnings to the present and deepened his thinking about each work, and considered its future from them. In that sense, the video collection for the HMNP has been very beneficial to him. In this paper, the author will introduce you about 7 themes as follows; 1) the beginning of scientific film, 2) anthropological films in the early days, 3) the first quarter century of early film, 4) issues with re-enacted ethnographic films, 5) the relationship between the recorder and the subject community, 6) an era in which indigenous people themselves record and speak about themselves, and 7) on going crisis for the survival of the peoples in northern Eurasia.