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Cameroun

 Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 21

Scope and Contents

This film, made by the French government while Cameroon was still under French trusteeship, shows the dances of people of the southern provinces of Akonolinga, Yaounde, Doume, and Batouri. Details of clothing, ornaments, hair styles, and the xylophone that provides the music for the dances are shown. The first dance, in Akonolinga, features young girls in what is possibly an initiation dance. They wear vegetable fiber skirts, silver arm and leg ornaments and European elfin stocking caps. In Yaounde the dancers wear feather headdresses, clumps of sound-producing reeds around their necks and their bodies are painted. The women dancers in Doume beat long stick rattles on the ground as they move rhythmically. The teeth of one woman are filed into points. In Batouri the dancers wear cloth and leaf loin cloths. One woman is streaked with chalk of ritual significance and the extensive cicatrices on her torso can still be seen beneath the chalk.

Dates

  • between 1920 and 1939

Creator

Language of Materials

English

Extent

1 Film Reel (13 minutes) : sound, black and white ; 16 mm.

1 Videocassette (U-Matic (13 minutes)) : sound, black and white ; 3/4 in.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

3/4 in., U-Matic, viewing copy

General

Original format: 16 mm. print.

General

France. Ministère des Colonies, producer; R. Bugniet, director.

Creator

Title
Cameroun, between 1920 and 1939
Author
Iris Lee
Date
2018
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Language of description note
English

Repository Details

Part of the Museum Archives at the Gottesman Research Library Repository

Contact:
American Museum of Natural History
200 Central Park West
New York NY 10024 USA
(212) 769-5420