Читать книгу Celluloid Subjects to Digital Directors - Jennifer Debenham - Страница 22

One of the first films depicting Aboriginal people, Aboriginal Life in Central Australia (1901) was made by Walter Baldwin Spencer, who held the first Chair of Biology at the University of Melbourne (1887–1919) and Frank Gillen, a telegraph officer (1892–1899) and Protector of Aborigines, in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. They were the ←19 | 20→first Australian based practitioners of ethnographic filmmaking¹ and provide one of the earliest examples of ethnographic films viewed by a large public audience. The friendship between Spencer and Gillen began during the Horn Expedition in 1894. Named after its financial backer, William Austin Horn, mining and pastoral magnate eager for a knighthood, the expedition surveyed a vast tract of country from Oodnadatta northward to the MacDonnell Ranges in the Northern Territory. In fourteen weeks the members of the expedition made comprehensive findings and in particular, Spencer was able to record 398 genera and 171 new species of mainly insects and beetles, spiders, reptiles and molluscs as well as eight new botanical species, sixteen unknown and sixteen other species previously unknown in arid Australia.² Members of the expedition included Charles Winnecke (1857–1902), “an explorer, surveyor and entrepreneur who acted as both agent and manager in assembling stores and transport”.³ Professor Edward Sterling (1848–1919), was the medical doctor and anthropologist. An anatomist and director of the South Australian Museum, Stirling plays a significant role in developing the academic culture at that institution and its associate South Australian Board for Anthropological Research (SABAR), the body responsible for the films discussed in the following chapter. The expedition’s botanist and palaeontologist, Professor Ralph Tate (1840–1901) from the University of Adelaide was then the current chairman of biology at the Australian Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS). He was assisted by ←20 | 21→J. A. Watt, a University of Sydney mineralogy graduate. Two naturalists and taxidermists were F. W. Belt, an Adelaide solicitor and G. A. Keartland, a Melbourne ornithologist, along with two prospectors, a camp cook and four camel drivers employed to tend the twenty-five camels.⁴ As well as meeting Gillen, Spencer also formed lasting friendships with mounted police officer C. E. Cowle⁵ and naturalist P. M. Bryne.⁶ With the help of a network of Aboriginal people, both contributed large numbers of zoological specimens and Aboriginal artefacts for Spencer’s research. Appointed to the expedition as the biologist and photographer, Spencer also developed a keen interest in researching Aboriginal material culture and social customs.⁷ Gillen’s occupation allowed him to develop friendly relations with the local Arrernte communities and the opportunity to accumulate more than a superficial knowledge of their culture and habits. He claimed knowledge of the Arrernte language but according to his biographer, John Mulvaney, the extent of his mastery must be considered within the context of his flamboyant personality.⁸ The fractious interpersonal relations between some members of the Horn expedition encouraged Spencer and Gillen to organise an expedition of their own. They decided to concentrate their efforts on more specific anthropological data gathering and began planning for an expedition to be undertaken in 1901.