To Lhasa and Shigatse

Filmed during the Vernay-Cutting Expedition to Tibet, 1935. The Vernay-Cutting expedition to Tibet was co-led by Charles Suydam Cutting and Arthur Stannard Vernay, another AMNH trustee. Its purpose was to collect ethnological objects for the AMNH and botanical specimens for the Kew Gardens in England. At first, a map of the expedition route and a diagram of the elevations of the Himalayas are shown. The film starts in the area surrounding Gyantse, Tibet, and the town itself, with its stone and plaster houses. Lhasa women's headdresses, as well as an elaborate wooden bow-like construction that is attached permanently to the hair, are shown. The following scenes depict spinning on a spindle and sewing, mules and yaks as pack animals in caravans, and people carrying supplies in baskets on their backs. The main interest of this film is the footage of the forbidden cities of Shigatse and Lhasa, including the Tibetan monastery at Gyantse, with their chortens and prayer wheels. There is also a scene at a gompa of a self-incarcerated monk reaching out through the small opening of his miniscule cell with a gloved hand to receive his buttered tea. At Shigatse, 3,500 red lamas congregate in the courtyard of the Teshi Lumpo Monastery. In the park near the summer palace of Teshi Lama, the expedition members enjoy tea and archery competitions are staged for them. En route to Lhasa, the beauty of the Himalayas and their valleys is recorded, as well as various inns visited and traveling caravan scenes. A long shot of the Potala Monastery in Lhasa is taken, then the city itself is seen. Professional dancers, some of whom wear large tooled metal masks, others winged headdresses, are seen performing. Inside a Lhasa gompa an artist paints a tanka, a painting illustrating an aspect of Buddhist theology. There is a sequence of His Excellency Si-lṉ Yab-shi Lang-Dün, Prime Minister of Tibet, in his garden. The Fort of Penadzong on the road to Lhasa is filmed as are the coracles, circular skin boats that can only navigate down stream and must be portaged upstream. The expedition had to travel in coracles down the Tsangpo River. This film is rich in exotic images made by Cutting, a man exulting in his special permission to visit the once forbidden cities of Tibet.