By Pat Aufderheide
Vincent Carelli is one of our family’s
more extraordinary Brazilian friends and colleagues — a photographic artist, an
activist for Indian rights, a teacher of video skills to Amazonian Indians.
When Video DataBank (VDB) decided to distribute his videos in the United States
in the mid-1990s, the distributor wanted to provide some context. VDB’s Kate
Horsfield asked me to explain, in an essay included with the tapes, what
exactly Carelli intended and achieved with these videos, and Visual
Anthropology Review agreed to publish a version of the article as well.
Video is a highly prized tool for cultural
renewal and communication among Brazil’s indigenous groups. About 250,000
Indians — 0.2 percent of Brazil’s population — live dispersed among 200 societies,
in which 170 languages are represented. They are scattered across vast regions
of a country the size of the continental United States. They face daily
challenges to physical and cultural survival and are constantly confronted — in
the media as elsewhere — with images of their technological inferiority and their
relative powerlessness in the society (Ricardo 1992).
The Video in the Villages project of the
Centro de Trabalho Indigenista (CTI) is the major organization working with
Brazilian Indians to register their image and culture on videotape. Because the
project both makes videotapes and provides technical assistance to Indians to
make their own, the work demonstrates the different challenges of making video
about and with indigenous peoples who see an instrumental and political utility
in it. This article first describes the differences between work by and about
indigenous groups for three Video in the Villages videos and then discusses,
with the help of an extended interview with project director Vincent Carelli
(Carelli 1993), issues of power and representation that he sees arising from
his work.
Three of the project’s tapes — Festa da Moça
(Girl’s puberty ritual), O Espirito da TV (Spirit of TV), and Pemp (Male
initiation rite) — offer useful platforms for discussion of the function of video
by and about indigenous groups (Centro Ecumênico de Documentação e Informação,
1992). These particular tapes are not, and do not claim to be, films by
Brazilian Indians, or even, in the first instance, for Brazilian Indians. The
bulk of the organization’s work is assisting Indians to produce videos that
they conceive jointly with the organization, and in which they dictate the
thematic and compositional choices. Video in the Villages also exhibits tapes,
particularly in an extended project circulating videotapes among different
groups and, now, in organizing meetings between groups that have
"met" already by video. It helps build archives and videotheques and
replaces moldy or damaged tapes. Its choices for video work are driven by ways
in which video can foment the larger project of cultural integrity and
reconstruction.
As a result of this work, Video in the
Villages has extensive experience with the experimentation with video by
indigenous groups. The tapes discussed here are documents recording the
process. They were made by Video in the Villages members, virtually all
non-Indian, principally Vincent Carelli.
They are not ethnographic videos, either.
Although anthropologists have an active role in working with Indians who
document their experience on video, there is no pretense of ethnographic or
social scientific method. At times, the makers of these videos were excluded
from discussions of the meanings of the events they filmed, and sometimes they
filmed discussions in languages they did not understand. These videos have an
activist, political rationale, and a familiar, didactic documentary format.
They are intended to explain to as large as possible, often non-Indian
audiences why video is a useful tool for Indian cultural survival. The
immediate, core audience is funders, activists, and where useful, other Indian
groups that want an introduction either to use of video or to the culture
featured in the video. Beyond that audience is the lay public.
Perhaps this kind of work, and enthusiasm
for it among anthropologists, is a mark of the continuing erosion of
ethnographic film’s boundary lines (Nichols 1991). It is certainly evidence of
the incorporation of video into social change agendas nationally and
internationally (Dowmunt 1993; LaSpada 1992; Thede and Ambrosi 1992). And it
reflects a tendency in indigenous media production generally toward the use of
video to reinforce or even reconstitute traditional culture in the face of a
dominant, mass-mediated culture (Ginsburg 1991). In any case, the clear
distinction made within the project between indigenous-directed video and
promotional video by the project obviates some of the conceptual problems
commonly associated with ethnographic films today (Ruby 1991).
The videos for outsiders take on a
straightforward advocacy role, calculatedly deploying the images. The very
otherness of much of the imagery — the dances, the feathers, the beads, the
hortatory rhetoric by chiefs armed with ceremonial weapons — tends to lend the
subject’s credibility to the advocate. The palpable authenticity of the
material easily erodes a viewer’s skepticism about the videomaker’s role and
perspective. This is a gambit that works generally; it is equally true, for
example, of a video news release featuring angry mothers in a Chicago housing
project, created by the community organizing group ACORN.
It is easy to see the difference between the
process of recording and making video and the tapes distributed
internationally — which are only one kind of product in the process — by putting
the titles in context.
Festa da Moça
Festa da Moça (1987, 18 min.) was the first
video made by Video in the Villages (Carelli 1988), as a result of a project
with the Nambiquara of northern Mato Grosso. The Nambiquara are the remnants of
a once-large group, who twenty-five years ago were nearly exterminated by the
opening of a road through their land, were in some instances forcibly
relocated, and whose lands were invaded and in part seized by ranchers.
Nambiquara leader Captain Pedro eagerly
welcomed the Video in the Villages team and directed the filming of a puberty
ritual attended by related groups. Video in the Villages staff encouraged the
Nambiquara to explain on tape what they had filmed, in order to be able to show
it to other groups. This process involved close analysis of the video material
and discussion of traditional practice. It triggered a decision to revive a
nose-piercing ritual that had been in abeyance virtually since contact; that
decision-making process was also filmed and discussed. A month later, videotape
of the girl’s puberty ritual was shown to a different group of Nambiquara,
which also discussed it extensively and critiqued it for being conducted in
Brazilian clothing; the ritual was performed again, this time in a more
traditional manner (Carelli 1988).
Captain Pedro has continued to work with
Video in the Villages, documenting Nambiquara culture while continuing to
search out pockets of uncontacted Nambiquara. He initiated and made a video
about his own group’s reconquest of traditional lands, which he used as an
impetus to organize a meeting of Nambiquara from other villages about recovery
of lost lands (Carelli 1988, 11). He has gone on to make an investigative piece
of political journalism, about a massacre of an Indian group that had been
covered up (Carelli 1988, 13). Video in the Villages has also traveled to
several Nambiquara villages with a taped oral history of an owner of a rubber
tapping operation who exploited the rivalry between the Nambiquara and a nearby
group to drive Indians off the land. Villagers, both Nambiquara groups and
their one-time rivals, have recalled their own version of this history and this
too has been taped and discussed (Carelli 1988, 13).
Festa da Moça synopsizes the story of the
initial ritual quickly. The tale unites Captain Pedro’s concerns — publicity
about Nambiquara fierceness and ability to hold on to (or even re-create)
traditional culture — with Video in the Villages’ objective, which is
demonstrating the power of video to affect the self-image and behavior of
indigenous groups. It does not pretend to explain or give all the pieces of the
rituals it alludes to. It does not probe for opinions other than those of the
leadership. It does not attempt to mimic the pace or the focus of the tapes
documenting the rituals, made with Captain Pedro for the Nambiquara and other
groups. It does claim the approval and participation of Captain Pedro as
"codirector," somewhat in the style of ethnographic films made in a
collaborative "third voice" (Ruby 1993, 6), although it is clear from
both narration and editing structure that the Brazilian director is firmly in
charge of ultimate design; and it incorporates scenes of his directing the
camera. The message is clear: video can level the symbolic playing field. By
making social behavior self-conscious, it can help reinvent traditional
practice.
The Nambiquara experience with video was so
intense that Carelli describes himself dismayed by Festa da Moça: "The
encounter was so rich and profound and their understanding of what was possible
with video was so instant; the video by contrast leaves such a pale reflection
of the madness that was going on. They were moving so much faster than we ever
expected."
Pemp
Pemp (1988, 27 min.) was the next video, the
by-product of work with the Gavião (Paracetejê). The Gavião group had been
contacted in 1957 and within days began suffering from contact diseases so
massively that the group was decimated and social ties broke down. The
remaining members of the group were moved to a reservation under the care of
the Indian agency, which proceeded to spirit away the income from the group’s
Brazil nut collection. Since their revolt in 1975, they have handled their own
business.
The group today lives near Marabá, at the
heart of industrial development (hydroelectric power, iron mining,
charcoal-fired pig iron production) in the eastern Amazon. Its lands have been
affected by both the dam and an industrial railroad. In both cases the group
has managed to extract significant indemnification; the proceeds have gone to
build a permanent village with Brazilian-style houses in a traditional circular
village plan. In this process, younger generations in the fragmented community
adopted many Brazilian cultural elements — soccer, television, Portuguese.
The group’s leader, Kokrenum, also the last
person who still knows the ancient chants, has long waged a campaign to
reconstitute traditional culture. He understands commercial television well; in
fact, he is a great fan of Ramboesque action dramas and even complains that
U.S. films are not dubbed, since he cannot read subtitles (CTI 1993).
He instantly grasped the possibilities when,
in an initial meeting with Video in the Villages, he viewed tapes of
Kayapo-Xikrin rituals. Already the possessor of a video camera (but not the needed
editing equipment), he seized on the chance to work in production and chose as
the group’s first project a male initiation rite — a choice that reflects his
central concerns for cultural revitalization. He eventually convinced TV owners
in the village to turn them into monitors for his cultural projects, once the
group bought a VCR. The group now regularly has showings at night of its own
rituals and forbids outsiders (including Video in the Villages) to record them
independently. In their evening television viewing, the Gavião watch not only
their own ceremonies but tapes of other groups, and showings, with help from
Video in the Villages, of tapes from other groups have resulted in vigorous
discussion of comparative ritual practice. Indeed, they resumed the custom of
lip piercing, after watching the Nambiquaras’ ritual tape, and recorded that
event without CTI’s help (CTI 1993, 4).
Filming the rituals created internal tension
in the group, as Kokrenum debated with two other elders (all of them holding
partial knowledge) how the rituals should be conducted. These debates also
involved young people curious to learn. For most of such filming, Carelli and
others were largely in the dark about the meaning of the rituals, or indeed the
actual words of the chants, and understood Kokrenum’s reluctance to share with
them their meaning (Carelli 1988, 16–17).
Pemp uses the log-racing ritual called Pemp,
a male initiation rite, as a set piece around which to demonstrate the larger
Gavião project of cultural reconstitution and the utility of video in achieving
that goal. Laying out Gavião history with the help of a map and historical
footage, it introduces a much younger Kokrenum arguing fiercely with Indian
agency FUNAI (Fundaçáo Nacional do Índia, or National Indian Foundation)
representatives about its Brazil nut payments, establishing him as a political
leader. Kokrenum then explains the value of video to record for posterity,
saying that young people "will watch and say, ‘I know how to do it.’"
We see young kids watching action dramas on Brazilian TV, and we watch them
being lectured on how to speak their own language while in school. The story of
the Gavião struggle for indemnification is summarized, with help from Gavião
and Brazilian TV images, and the recording of the Pemp ritual is alluded to.
The traditional ritual is thus placed in the
context of a struggle for political, economic, and cultural space. The
recording of ritual is an act that, as Kokrenum makes explicit, fosters his
cultural recovery program. The tape does not delve into internal differences
over interpretation of the ritual, or invidious Gavião judgments on other
Indian cultures; nor does it explore reactions of other villagers. It tells a
story congruent with Kokrenum’s revitalization mission.
O Espirito da TV
O Espirito da TV (1990, 18 min.) results
from work with the Waiãpi Indians in the state of Amapá. The Waiãpi, who in
Brazil number only a few hundred (more live in French Guiana), are an almost
exclusively monolingual group in the Tupi linguistic family. They have resisted
threats to their land from the military (to establish a national forest) and
from mining interests. Their leaders have actively sought relief in state
capitals and in Brasília. Their activism has given them a leadership position
among Indian groups in the area (Gallois 1992; Gallois and Carelli n.d.).
The Waiãpi had had bitter experience with
commercial and ethnographic film projects, which they had never seen after
letting strangers into their villages. They wanted to use video as a means to
assert their own version of their culture to outsiders, although their first
notion of this was to make a film in which a white person would present this
culture to other whites (Gallois and Carelli n.d.).
This work began with filming the Waiãpi
chief Wai Wai in Brasília, on a trip to demarcate his group’s land. He wanted
to take the resulting videotape to each Waiãpi village to demonstrate his
leadership. Video in the Villages people went along to document his use of the
video, accompanied by an anthropologist who speaks the Waiãpi language,
Dominique Gallois. Video in the Villages also brought along tapes and footage
from other groups and TV news broadcasts about Indian issues; these tapes were
shown as well. The team left a generator, recorder, TV, and blank cassettes
with the Waiãpi; Chief Wai Wai built a special house near his for the
equipment, where public screenings now take place, including materials Video in
the Villages sends.
Growing experience with video has, according
to Gallois and Carelli, enriched their political style. Their leaders have
clearly borrowed some of the aggressive media strategy, sometimes playing on
the exotic stereotypes of Indians and of other groups, especially the Kayapo.
They have also deployed new information to political ends. Upon capturing two
goldminers who had invaded the area with others, they refrained from simply
killing them. Instead, they made the miners aware that they knew what had
happened to Yanomami (Indians whose territory had been devastated) as a result
of such invasions; they knew the standard tricks miners used to deceive Indians
and apparently managed to convince them to leave the area (Gallois and Carelli
n.d., 6–8). Videotaping political interventions of the chiefs has become
standard practice, resulting in public analysis and discussion of issues and
the chiefs’ handling of them (13). Video is seen as a powerful tool to speak to
whites — in specific groups and settings, for instance, the Indian agency,
goldminers, the national government. It has also become part of Waiãpi
strategizing in intertribal diplomacy (16). Recently, with the help of Video in
the Villages, Waiãpi leader Wai Wai and a small group met face-to-face with
members of the Zo’é group of Guarani speakers whose language is similar enough
for mutual understanding and whom they first "met" on video. The
encounter was documented in Meeting Ancestors: The Zo’é (1993, 21 min.).
O Espirito da TV charts the beginning of the
Waiãpi contact with video, showing reactions to screenings of other groups’
videos, chiefly presentations in Brasília and testimony. Chief Wai Wai promptly
sets forth two related points of the videotape: "After I’ve died," he
says, "my grandchildren can still see me on television. . . . Now the
young can see their elders and learn from them. . . . It’s good to meet others
through TV." Excerpts from videotapes of other Indians’ work, including
the Gavião and Nambiquara, shown to the Waiãpi are matched with shots of the
Waiãpi reacting (Wai Wai says of Kokrenum’s denouncing of FUNAI, "They did
the same thing to us!"). When the Waiãpi watch southern Guarani speakers
(separated by thousands of miles) talk in a language very close to theirs,
Chief Wai Wai marvels, "After a little while, we can understand
them!"
The video also follows a Waiãpi event in
which young men get drunk. Chief Wai Wai worries openly to the camera about the
reputation of the group, and particularly about letting potential enemies know
that there are moments of weakness. "When you show these pictures, tell
people, ‘These people are killers when they’re drunk,’" he says.
Thus the tape demonstrates three related
political roles for indigenous video: fostering indigenous traditions;
fostering communication among Indian groups; and providing publicity to the
outside world. Virtually erased from the story is Gallois, who had worked with
this group for twelve years and who refused despite the urging of Carelli to
appear on camera, in favor of making a video in which the only voices would be
those of the Indians themselves.
The Uses of Video
Perhaps because the work is so explicitly
political and the goals instrumental, Carelli is highly articulate about the
utility of video and the implications of Video in the Villages’ role in shaping
these ideas. Some of these ideas are addressed here.
The Video Option
Why should indigenous groups use video at
all? The equipment is expensive and subject to breakage, it requires bulky
monitors to be seen, and the tapes easily break or decay. Carelli argues that
the costs involved are far outweighed by the gains, which he measures by the
group’s ability to define and defend itself culturally and politically before
the national society. He argues that seeing both oneself and related groups’
culture on video has a power unique to the form and only recently accessible in
terms of technology.
Video in the Villages, begun in 1987,
originally posited two objectives: to "make accessible to Indians the
vision, the production and the manipulation of their own image, and at the same
time to see to it that these extremely isolated communities could get to know
other groups, fostering comparisons of their traditions and experiences of
contact with national society" (CTI 1993, 1).
Carelli himself began working with Indians
in 1969 and worked within and outside of FUNAI. He entered the field with a
fascination for photography, which was fueled in his position as archivist for
the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil historical photographic collection at one of
Brazil’s largest nongovernmental organizations, the Centro Ecuménico de
Documentação e Informação. He recalled being moved by the reaction of Indians
when he could locate a historical photo containing pictures of their ancestors,
the contact situation, or documentation of rites.
For Carelli, video’s utility is measured
against only one standard: whether it becomes part of the process of cultural
survival. For him this is "the process of realizing the projects of the
leadership for the survival of the groups, control of their territory; the
process of affirmation, so young people can resolve the question of identity in
a satisfactory, integrated way; the process of getting territory demarcated
[legally recognizing Indian land rights]." He professes himself constantly
astonished at the power of the image to communicate and inspire: "The
image is beautiful, it’s synoptic, it unites different aspects of life; it’s
not ‘blah blah blah.’"
This locating of video production within a
larger project of cultural revitalization is similar to use of grassroots video
in other contexts, both within Brazil and elsewhere (see "Grassroots Video
in Latin America"). For instance, grassroots activists in the United
States claim, "The creation of video ‘documents’ is only part of the
projects that we are discussing. . . . group empowerment is primary,
superseding any notion that this is a reflection of a group of ‘others’ to the
‘world,’ although this may be a secondary and quite important result"
(Halleck and Magnan 1993, 157).
Next Page
HOME
