China and Tibet

Filmed during a Field Museum of Natural History expedition to China, Tibet, and Vietnam, 1929. This expedition film is a record of a collecting trip organized under the auspices of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The expedition team of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., his brother Kermit, and Charles Suydam Cutting went to China and Tibet in order to collect indigenous animals, in particular, the giant panda. The film, however, is primarily a record of the people, many of whom are not identified, they encountered through the Szechwan Province and in Tibet. The Nashi (i.e. Nakhi) people are shown tending their livestock. Portraits of some of the people reveal their fabric and goatskin clothing and various pieces of jewelry. On the road to Tatsienlo (now K'ang-ting), mountains which form the eastern spur of the Himalayas, valleys, and tributaries of the Yangtse River provide the backdrop for numerous hamlets. In Ningyuan-Fu (now Kuldja or I-ning) the Roosevelt brothers pose for the camera before going on to Yunnan (now K'un-ming) with a protective caravan sent by a local general who was grateful for Cutting's gift of a pistol.