In Papua New Guinea, status is earned by giving things away rather than acquiring them. Explores the Moka, a ceremony in which people give gifts to members of other tribes. The larger the gift, the greater the victory over the recipient. Originally produced as a television documentary in 1974.
N!ai : the story of a !Kung woman by N!ai; Letta Mbulu; John Marshall; Sue Marshall-Cabezas; Adrienne Miesmer
Call Number: DVD Document 5157
Publication Date: 1980
A compilation of footage of the !Kung people of Namibia from 1951 through 1978. Focuses on the changes in the life of these people as seen through the reflections of one woman, N!ai.
First contact
Call Number: DVD Documentary 5162
Publication Date: 2007
Recounts the discovery of a flourishing native population in the interior highlands of New Guinea in 1930 in what had been thought to be an uninhabited area. Inhabitants of the region and surviving members of the Leahy brothers' gold prospecting party recount their astonishment at this unforeseen meeting. Originally produced in 1983.
J. Stephen Lansing: perfect order: a thousand years in Bali
Call Number: DVD Documentary 5550
Anthropologist Stephen Lansing exposes the hidden structure and profound health of the traditional Balinese rice growing practices, and goes on to show how much modern agriculture has to learn from Balinese rice production.
Ancient ink
Call Number: DVD Documentary 4387
Publication Date: 2010
Explores the ancient art of tattooing in places as diverse as New Zealand, Japan, Hawaii, New York, and Los Angeles, and features footage and expert interviews.
Neanderthals on trial
Call Number: VHS Documentary 1465
Publication Date: 2002
Were Neanderthals human like us, or were they sub-human brutes? Since the discovery of the first Neanderthal skeleton in 1856, scientists have battled over exactly how we're related to these prehistoric cave-dwellers.
Mystery of the first Americans
Call Number: VHS Documentary 1485
Publication Date: 2000
In 1996, near Kennewick, Washington, a suspected murder victim is identified by forensic anthropologists as Caucasian - but turns out to be almost 10,000 years old.
A Man called Bee: studying the Yanomamö
Call Number: VHS Documentary 679
Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon collects anthropological field data among the Yanomamö Indians of southern Venezuela.
Rouch in reverse
Call Number: VHS Documentary 729
The first film to look at European anthropology from the perspective of its subjects. Malian filmmaker and New York University professor, Manthia Diawara, examines the anthropological enterprise through the work of distinguished ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch.