Navajo Filmmakers

SOL WORTH
Annenberg School of Communications
University of Pennsylvania
JOHN ADAIR
San Francisco State College
This paper is a report of research in visual (fiim) communication investigating ques-
tions in anthropology and communication. Six Navajos, aged 17-25, and one mono-
lingual, aged 55, living on the reservation were taught only the technology of a 16mm
movie camera and splicer and were asked to make films about “anything you want to.”
We review the theoretical questions underlying the research, describe our method of
teaching, and analyze the films they made and their verbalizations about them, relating
their cultural, verbal grammar, and narrative style to their methods and social organiza-
tion of learning filmmaking, choice of subjects and actors for their films, and their
methods, both syntactic and semantic, of structuring the image events they photographed.
[Navajo, Communicaiion, Language, Cognition, Visual Arts]

N THE SUMMER of 1966 we began briefly, to grasp the native’s point of view,
1 a study’ to determine whether it is pos- his relation to life, to realize his vision of his
sible to teach people with a technically sim- world.” This clearly formulated objective
ple culture to make motion pictures depict- has created a methodological problem that
ing their culture and themselves as they see has been partially solved by collecting life
fit. We assumed that if we could teach such histories with nondirective techniques. These
people to use motion pictures they would materials not only reveal things about the
use it in a patterned, rather than a random dynamics of personality but also help us un-
fashion, and that the particular patterns derstand how the individual relates himself
used would reflect their culture and their to the outer world in terms provided for by
cognition. his particular language. Myths and linguistic
We wish now to report on three areas of texts have likewise given us extensive verbal
this research: first, to describe some of the records for analysis.
problems underlying our work; second, to Collier ( 1967), Goldschmidt and Edger-
describe briefly some of the methods we ton (1961), and others (see Bouman 1954)
used, both to teach the Navajo to make have done some significant work, taking
films and to collect our data on the filmmak- photographs of their informants’ environ-
ing process; and third, to describe briefly ment and using them to elicit responses that
some of the films that were made and some have produced data often missed by other
of our early observations and analyses of methods. Still others have used drawings of
them. the environment made by native artists to
stimulate a verbal flow from informants
about their environment, values, etc. But to
PROBLEMS IN ANTHROPOLOGY our knowledge no one to date has overcome
AND COMMUNICATION
the difficulties inherent in eliciting a visual
Malinowski (1922:25) wrote many years flow that can be analyzed in terms of the
ago that: “the final goal, of which an Eth- structure of images and the principles used
. .
nographer should never lose sight . is, in making those images.
Anthropologists have, of course, used vi-
Accepted for publication 20 May 1969. sual means of communication, but they have
9
10 American Anthropologist
not used them to determine cognitive usage
in the societies under study. They have used
them for illustration and visual recordkeep-
ing in order to help their own analyses and
in order to communicate things about the
society.
Birdwhistell ( 1952), Ekman ( 1965), Os-
good ( 1966), Harrison ( 1964), Sorenson
(1966), and other psychologists, anthropol-
ogists, sociologists, and communications re-
searchers have also used film to study ges-
tures, facial expressions, and the coding sys-
tems of visual modes of communication.
Making such films required the coopera-
tion of the subjects being photographed. But
the subject’s eye was not at the eye piece,
his hand was not manipulating the lens, nor
was his mind doing the editing, and seldom
did he see the finished product. Anthropolo-
gists have recently considered inviting their
informants to view finished films or selected
film sequences made by the researcher, ask-
ing them to comment upon the “rightness”
of the presentation or to make suggestions
for the sound track. No one, so far as we
know, has taught the “native” to use the
camera and to do his own editing of the
material he gathered.
We reasoned that if a person who was
previously the subject of such films could be
trained to use the medium so that, with his
hand at the lens and his eye at the camera,
he chose what was of interest to him and
subsequently edited the film, then we would
be able to come closer to capturing his vi-
sion of his world.
With this in mind, we formulated some
research questions. They were global ques-
tions, but they still served to circumscribe
the general area of interest that led to the
work we are reporting. How do the things
one makes-the paintings, the photographs,
the films-work? What processes occur in
human beings that allow them to communi-
cate visually? How is it that one can look at
a film and know what the maker meant?
What happens to the strip of film itself? Are
the structures of pictures, such as paintings
or photographs, comparable to the struc-
tures of verbal events, such as words, sen-
[72, 1970
tences, or stories? Can we learn something
about how we know the world we live in by
studying how we know things that others
communicate to us in the visual mode?
We are referring to two things. One is the
way the human mind deals with images. The
other is the images themselves, whose study
under a variety of conditions and manipula-
tions might help us to know how we deal
with them.
We are not so much concerned at this
point with exploring the aesthetic or norma-
tive question of how “good” a film is, but,
rather, with the substantive one of what
does it mean and how do we know it.
To find out how the process worked,
Worth started teaching young people to
communicate through film. He reasoned by
analogy with speech that if he could observe
the process of learning to use a film “lan-
guage”--of becoming, as it were, a “speak-
er”-he might learn something about what
takes place when one is being a speaker.
It might be reasonable to assume for film
what some researchers have assumed for ver-
bal language: that there is for each language
a specific theory, such as is represented by
the rules for the use of English, and that
there is also a general theory representing
the rules that are basic to all verbal lan-
guage. Further, Chomsky (1965: 16) and
the researchers who follow his lead hy-
pothesize that the learner of a language
doesn’t learn the general theory of language
(deep structure) when he learns to speak
English (surface structure), but that he
learns to make transformations between the
deep structure, which is innate, and the sur-
face structure, which is learned. In a similar
fashion, we are exploring the possibility that
there is a pattern for organizing visual
events and that filmmakers in different cul-
tures learn to make transformations between
these common perceptual and cognitive pat-
terns or rules and a conventionalized set of
regularities, patterns, or rules detemined by
their specific cultural, social, and linguistic
milieu.
We saw that we had a three-part process
to study (Worth 1966:327-330), covering
WORTH & ADAIR] Navajo Filmmakers
first, the filmmaker; second, the film itself;
and third, the viewer. Depending on the
model and the discipline one prefers, these
three parts can be called sender, message,
and receiver; or speaker, utterance, and lis-
tener; or creator, work of art, and recreator.
Research, we saw, had to be concerned with
all parts of the process, and with the social,
cultural, and institutional contexts surround-
ing them. Some parts of the process have of
course been considered in the past (Worth
1968: 127-132). There is a fairly extensive
literature on film and film analysis, and
there has been a fairly large body of research
on the effects of specific films on audiences.
But there has been very little attention paid to
the process of constructing (organizing, pat-
terning, coding) visual communications.
Contrary to his expectations, Worth
found that all his students could make mov-
ies, that this mode of communication
seemed to bypass the need for the hand-eye
coordinating skills of the graphic artist and
to allow “ordinary” people to express their
feelings in visual forms.
If, then, people can communicate through
film-if people with varying cultures can
use it widely as both makers and viewers-it
becomes necessary to find, or formulate, the
patterns, codes, rules, conventions, or even
laws that make such communication possi-
ble.
Through most of the literature on the vi-
sual arts, and particularly in film, we find
one notion repeating itself in different
..
guises. “Film language . is commonly as-
sociated with my works . . . montage is a
syntax for the correct construction of each
particle of a film fragment” said Eisenstein
(1949: 108-1 11). Among other film theorists
there is frequent mention of the “syntax of
film,” the “grammar of film,” the “structure
of pictures,” and the “language” of art.
We became intrigued by the sheer multi-
tude of allusion to language, all unsupported
by reference to notions or theories of lan-
guage. Although pictures and film as “lan-
guage” had not been studied extensively or
productively, verbal language and the visual
arts as aspects of culture had been. These
11
studies seemed to offer a fruitful paradigm
for examining an alien culture through the
films people with that culture themselves
produced.
Once one begins to look at a film as if it
were a linguistic communication-and here
we would like to emphasize the “as if” and
not prejudge whether film is or is not really
a form of language-a host of intriguing
questions arise. If film is a “language,” are
there different ‘‘languages’’ of film? Are
there native speakers of film? And if so, do
they correspond to those who speak the dif-
ferent “languages” of film? If languages
have lexicons that order words as synonyms
and order utterances as paraphrases, can w e
find evidence of such units in film communi-
cation?
Answers clearly depend upon research
done with “native speakers” of different cul-
tures. We would first need to know who
“spoke” film, or who could speak film. It
would be only after we learned who could
produce film utterances that we could begin
to compare them. It would be only after we
had (in a film can) a variety of utterances
produced under known circumstances that
we could begin to deal with some of these
questions. We could then analyze the corpus
of utterances as a patterned “output” so as
to abstract from it an “input” of rules or
principles governing communicative acts
within the communicative mode. These rules
or principles accounting for the observed
pattern would represent a part of the cogni-
tive order within the culture under study.
Such, then, were the considerations that
led us to the specific research we shall now
discuss.
First, we proposed to determine the feasi-
bility of teaching the use of film to people
with another culture. Worth had already
shown that this could be done with eleven-
to fourteen-year-old Negro dropouts in Phil-
adelphia and with college students in a
school of communications. Since then many
others have worked with a variety of cul-
tural groups, such as Puerto Ricans, Mexi-
cans, and Negroes, ranging in age down to 8
 12 American Anthropologist
years. Although methods and aims varied,
almost everyone could be taught to use mo-
tion picture cameras,
We have found that with limited instruc-
tion Navajos can be taught to conceive,
photograph, and edit 16 mm silent films.
Secondly, we proposed to find out if it
was possible to systematize the process of
teaching; to observe it with reference to the
maker, the film itself, and the viewer; and to
collect data about it so as to assist other on-
going research exploring the inference of
meaning from film as a communicative “lan-
guage.” Recent years have produced a small
but significant body of researchers who are
exploring what Sebeok has called the semi-
otics of film, what Worth has called Vi-
distics (1968:132), and who are interested
in developing the rules, codes, and patterns
of film communication.
We wish to emphasize, then, that the pur-
pose of our work was not only to find out
about Navajos. We chose Navajos precisely
because much is known about them, and we
could check our inferences from their visual
mode of communication with other data.
A working hypothesis was that motion
picture film, conceived, photographed, and
sequentially arranged by a people such as
the Navajo, would reveal something of their
cognition and values that may be inhibited,
not observable, or not analyzable when
investigation is totally dependent on verbal
exchange-especially when it must be donc
in the language of the investigator. We were
searching for pattern, code, or even rules for
visual communication within a cultural COD-
text.
Further, we felt that our research might
create new perspectives on the Whorfian hy-
pothesis. Through cross-cultural compara-
tive studies using film as a mode of visual
communication, relationships between lin-
guistic, cognitive, cultural, and visual phe-
nomena might be clarified. We also reasoned
that the selection of subjects, themes, and
organizing methods used by the Navajo film-
makers would reveal aspects of their value
orientation.
Of additional interest was the innovation
[72, 1970
process, or what happens when that process
is guided by the investigators themselves.
While researchers had observed and ana-
lyzed the process of technologic innovation,
little was known about how a new mode of
communication would be patterned by the
culture to which it was introduced. We con-
sidered observation of this process to be an
important aspect of the feasibility study
(Adair and Worth 1967).
We would also like to emphasize that one
of our cardinal interests was to see what
other peoples had to say about themselves
through film. Our theoretical speculations
may or may not be verified by further anal-
ysis, but we now have shown that this new
form of expression produced by people in
other cultures is possible. These films, and a
description of the methods by which they
were achieved, are now available for study
and replication.
METHOD
In analyzing the Navajo films it would be
impossible to determine what came from us,
and what came from the Navajo, without
knowing what we included in our instruc-
tion.
There are several important methodologi-
cal issues involved in the study of a corpus
of expression derived from actual users. Sev-
eral of our colleagues have pointed out the
difficulty of deriving a unique pattern from
what is essentially a learning or possibly an
imitation phenomenon.
In many ways this is similar to the criti-
cisms directed at the work of the develop-
mental linguists (Brown and Bellugi 1964;
McNeill 1966) when they first began study-
ing the development of speech in infants
and children. It had been supposed that in-
fants learned their language essentially
through imitation of adult speech in a com-
plex, operant conditioning situation, and
that patterns of speech in infants, much less
protogrammatical o r grammatical rules,
could not be found. Such patterns as were
noticed in early studies were dismissed as
bad imitations or mistakes learned from
WORTH & ADAIR] Navajo Filmmakers 13
adults. It now seems clear that when chil- community structure and organization, and
dren learn a new language they follow a pat- had the added advantage of being only an
tern based on some set of rules, which ac- hour by car from the Gallup airport.
cording to McNeill and others seems to be Aside from these factors, the matter of
an innate neurological process. rapport had to be carefully considered. We
Although we are not sure that anything had only two months at our disposal. An
like linguistic rules influence the production important factor in our choice of Pine
of film “utterances,” it seems reasonable to Springs was that Adair had worked in that
assume that the manipulation of image community twenty-eight years before and
events necessary to the construction of a had remained in contact with his old
film utterance, whether one second long or friends. Adair had also made a film there
twenty minutes long, is not random. We as- previously, and we felt it might be possible
sumed that something already known by the to compare his film to the films the Navajos
Navajo would influence not only their se- might make.
mantic and thematic choices but also the
way in which they structured their films. During a preliminary trip to Pine Springs
We started at an early stage in the genesis Adair introduced Worth to Sam Yazzie,
of communication. Our observations and who was the oldest medicine man in the
analysis were akin to studying both the pro- community and an old friend of Adair.
cess of development and the structure by After Adair and Sam had caught up on
which a learner goes about organizing a events that had occurred in the community
communication. since they had last seen each other, Adair
introduced the subject of teaching young
In selecting a fieldwork area, we wanted a Navajos to make movies. Sam was very in-
place that had a sense of community, that is, terested and Adair explained exactly what
a set of boundaries, so that we could see if we intended to do. After some thought, Sam
filmmakers would go outside their commu- turned to Worth and through the interpreter
nity to make films. For example, we found asked, “Will making movies do the sheep
that black slum children did not like making any harm?”
films on their own block. Would Navajos Worth was happy to explain that as far as
want to film in their own community? he knew no harm would befall the sheep if
We made a brief survey of the reserva- movies were made in the community. Sam
tion in March 1966 preliminary to the selec- thought for a few seconds, and looking
tion of the community where we would straight at Worth asked, “Will it do them
work. We visited several highly acculturated any good?” Worth was forced to reply that
areas (Window Rock and Chinle, both ten- as far as he knew it wouldn’t do the sheep
ters of federal and tribal government) and any good. Sam looked at us both and said,
several more traditional communities (Many “Then why make movies?”
Farms, Pinon, and Pine Springs). It was our We realized then that in our optimism we
feeling that work in the former would be had no idea whether Navajos would or
difficult, because they were large and amor- could make movies. As a hedge against total
phous. Although Many Farms and Pinon failure, and also because we wanted to com-
were much more traditional, they presented pare how an “outsider” made films, we de-
logistic problems in transporting film in and cided to include A1 Clah, a young Navajo
out of the community. It was important to artist who lived in a community about fifty
hold the delay in feedback to a minimum. miles away from Pine Springs and who had
Pine Springs, Arizona, was chosen.2 It attended the Institute of American Indian
was much less acculturated than either Win- Art at Santa Fe, New Mexico. We felt that
dow Rock or Chinle, was sufficiently small as a painter and sculptor he would be accus-
(around six hundred) to give us a feel for tomed to manipulating visual forms, and we
 14 American Anthropologist
also reasoned that there would be close rap-
port between him and Worth, who had him-
self been trained as an artist and who felt
confident he could teach A1 Clah the tech-
nology of filmmaking.
In the analysis section of this report we
will compare the choice of subject matter,
style of working, and structure of A1 Clah’s
film with that of the other Navajo films. A1
was both artist and outsider, and although
his film is “Navajo” in several important re-
spects, it is quite different from those of the
others.
It was decided that it would be best for
the subjects to be selected by the community
itself, or at least by someone within the
community who was well placed in the
power structure. Adair consulted an old ac-
quaintance, Johnny Nelson, who, although
under thirty and without elected position in
the community, had achieved a large mea-
sure of political stature.
We wanted to have at least one girl; one
craftsman who would be, as it were, a step
down in the artistic (in the western cultural
sense) hierarchy; one person with political
ambitions who might see this new way of
communicating as a means to enhance his
power over the community; and one who
had no craft, artistic, political, or personal
interest or aptitude in filmmaking.
We had planned on enough cameras, edit-
ing equipment, and film for only four stu-
dents. One reason for the limitation on the
number of students was that we had no idea
how far away from the community they
would want to go for their filming, and since
we wanted to observe them while filming,
we were constrained by the number of ob-
servers we could use. There were only three
of us. Fortunately, Johnny Nelson, whom
Adair asked for help in finding students, de-
cided that he himself would quit his job at
the trading post and become a student. We
now had our politician and our artist. In
consultation with us Nelson then chose a
young woman, Susie Bennally. She was an
expert weaver and a neighbor of his, and
her husband was away from the reservation
in military service. He also chose a younger
[72, 1970
man, Mike Anderson, who was home for
the summer (he had worked in a potato
chip factory in San Francisco) and was a
member of Johnny’s father’s clan.
Although Worth thought the selection
process was finished, he was unaware of one
of the principles basic to the Navajo value
system, that of balance or equality, and it
came to light when Johnny pointed out to us
the advantage of having an equal number of
men and women in the classroom: “If I was
the only man in the class, I wouldn’t ever
feel like speaking out. The same goes for the
woman who is the only one. That’s the way
it is for us Navajos.”
Johnny then introduced us to Mary Jane
and Maxine, sisters, about 17 and 19, and
daughters of the political leader of the com-
munity. This was self-selection with a ven-
geance: Johnny had covered himself by in-
cluding the daughters of the one man with
more political power than he.
We then ended up with 3 men and 3
women. All spoke Navajo and English with
varying degrees of fluency in both. All had
seen some films before-A1 about one hun-
dred (by his estimate), some of them “docu-
mentaries,” and Susie about ten (by her esti-
mate), none of them “documentaries.”
In the initial planning we were not cer-
tain that our subjects would have the moti-
vation essential to learning enough about the
camera and editing to give us significant re-
sults, even though we planned to pay them a
modest wage. Unlike being a subject in the
Rorschach, Thematic Apperception, or
Draw-a-Man tests, participation in this
would necessitate sustaining motivation over
several months. It had been noted that polar-
oid photography had become attractive to
the Navajo, and this suggested to us that
their motivation would be strengthened by
quick feedback of the footage they would
shoot. We therefore arranged to have the
film exposed on one day, developed, printed,
and returned within the following two days.
We had originally explained that Worth
was a teacher of film in an Eastern univer-
sity and that he wanted to teach some Na-
vajo people to make movies. For the first
WORTH & ADAIR] Navajo Filmmakers
week the students had us repeat this expla-
nation quite often, and also asked why we
wanted to do this. Worth explained that he
only taught college students and “wanted to
learn more about how to teach all kinds of
students.” He said that he would teach them
and ask them questions, emphasizing each
time that they could make a film about any-
thing they liked, in any way they wanted.
We had previously made arrangements
with the teacher in the Bureau of Indian Af-
fairs school at Pine Springs (a boarding
school for grades 1 and 2) for us to use the
boys’ dormitory wing as classroom, editing
room, and living space for our research
team and for A1 Clah. This wing was
roughly fifty feet long and twenty feet wide,
having a four-foot aisle down the center,
with four compartments on each side hous-
ing two double bunk beds in each compart-
ment. There were eight cubbies in all. We
used four compartments for sleeping, two
compartments for editing, one as a class-
room, one for storing equipment, and the
aisle for projection. We did most of our
teaching either in the dormitory or sitting
just outside it under the piiion trees.
We brought with us, in four portable
cases easily carried by two people, all the
equipment we needed: four Bell and Howell
70 DH 3-lens turret, 16 mm cameras; four
Zeiss Movieskop viewers; four sets of re-
winds and related equipment; and about
10,000 feet of 16 mm negative film. We also
had four exposure meters and two tripods.
The first day was spent moving bunk beds
and improvising editing tables, giving us all
a chance to get to know one another, and
giving the Navajos a chance to see and to
touch everything. Worth named every piece
of equipment and had the students suggest
places for storage.
The same day, before Worth said any-
thing about movies, we interviewed each of
the six Navajo in a small office we had set
up in back of the trading post. We intro-
duced the tape recorder to them, explaining
that we would operate it to begin with, but
that later we would teach them to use it and
they could, if they wished, work it for our
15
interviews or for any purpose of their choos-
ing. There was no objection to being inter-
viewed, both the boys and the girls watching
avidly as Worth loaded tape and tested the
machine.
In the initial interviews (so arranged that
the students could not talk with one another
before Worth spoke with them) we asked
each of them individually what they ex-
pected of the summer’s activity. We con-
stantly used such phrases as “You can make
any kind of movie you want to”; “You can
make it about anything you want”; and “I
won’t tell you what to do.”
We had decided that when Worth began
instruction he would stick as closely as pos-
sible to the technology, trying to avoid any
conceptualizing about what a film is or how
one edits. On the second day he started talk-
ing to the students about making pictures,
touching on the fact that peoples across time
and cultures had all made pictures, and that
movies were just another kind of picture.
He mentioned Greeks, Egyptians, Euro-
peans, Americans, Indian sand painting,
drawing, sculpture, and weaving, generally
trying to make the point that people always
had special and diflerent reasons for making
pictures and that the students could decide
what they wanted to show in this new way.
After an hour Worth asked for questions.
Mike was the only one who had a question.
He wanted to know if “there was any people
who didn’t like to have their pictures taken.”
Neither artist nor craftsman nor politician,
Mike was worried about the sanctions that
might be applied against him if he took pic-
tures of people “who didn’t want you to” or
“who might not like it afterwards.” Al-
though he made a film, he was the only one
who showed discomfort about the process
all the way through. He was also the only
one who later questioned whether we should
show the finished films to the community.
When Mike asked his question about people
who didn’t want their picture taken, Worth
replied that he knew of several such cases.
He told of trying to take pictures in a syna-
gogue and having the Rabbi ask him to stop
because his religion didn’t allow picture tak-
16 American Anthropologist
ing. Worth explained that in that situation
he immediately withdrew. Adair mentioned
that when we had come to Pine Springs two
months before we had been invited to a
Sing, and Worth, who carried a still camera
hanging from a strap around his neck, had
been asked not to take pictures. Mike
seemed satisfied that he would not have to
take pictures when people didn’t want him
to.
Not all our students, however, felt this
way. Johnny created an incident that almost
caused the community to ask us to leave, by
taking movies during an Enemy Way
(Squaw Dance) ceremony. The ceremony
didn’t go well-some of the ritual behavior
was not carried out correctly (the drum
stick broke)-and the ceremony had to be
repeated, at great cost to the community.
This was a traumatic, expensive, and un-
healthy situation for the community, and
Johnny’s movie-making was used as an ex-
cuse for things having gone badly. Eventu-
ally, a delegation arrived at the schoolhouse
and asked Johnny either to give up the film
footage taken during the ceremony or pay
$100 and six sheep. Johnny decided to give
up the footage, but this did not make him
fearful about continuing; as a matter of fact,
he was so enthusiastic that he subsequently
made two films.
At about eleven o’clock of the second
day, Worth began to explain the actual
workings of a movie camera. He did this in
much the same way that he had taught his
graduate students at the University of Penn-
sylvania-that is, by explaining the princi-
ples of photography, touching upon how
lenses worked, how silver salts on film
reacted to light in much the same way that
the silver which the Navajo knew and
worked with tarnished when exposed to
light, and how an image was fixed by hypo
salts so it wouldn’t continue reacting to light.
Then, by using drawings and diagrams on
an improvised blackboard as much as possi-
ble, he explained how a movie camera
worked. He described briefly the notion that
a movie was a series of still photographs
made in rapid sequence and projected back
[72, 1970
at the same rate of speed. This led to a dis-
cussion of the mechanisms by which the film
was transported from one roll to another,
passing bzhind the lens, stopping for the
correct exposure, and then moving on so
that the next still picture could be made. He
pointed out the camera gate, shutter, and
claw for advancing the film, and the neces-
sity for film loops so as to allow smooth and
even passage of film across the lens. He ex-
plained briefly about the ways in which ex-
posure was controlled (F-stop and shutter)
but told the students that the exposure meter
would be described the next day.
This preliminary talk took about an hour.
We noticed then that there seemed very lit-
tle tension on the part of the Navajo in this
strange learning situation. They were quite
relaxed, very attentive, and seemed to be ab-
sorbing all that Worth was saying, although
some of the words must have been quite
strange to them. Although Worth tried not
to use technical or jargon words, a check of
the tapes of this session showed that a great
many such words (“gamma,” “diaphragm,”
“variable,” and so on) did creep in. It be-
came evident in later sessions that learning
the use of and acquiring the ability to ma-
nipulate the materials was not dependent on
knowing the names of specific parts but
rather on understanding their function. It
took most of the students all summer to
learn the names of the parts of the cameras,
projectors, and editing equipment, but they
constantly referred to them by paraphrases
describing their function. The diaphragm
ring on a lens, for example, which set the
correct exposure, was commonly called “the
thing you turn for exposure” or, shorter,
“the exposure turner,” much as we fre-
quently refer to a thing as “the gizmo
.
that. . .”
After lunch Worth demonstrated, rather
than explained, the workings of a 16 mm
Bell and Howell triple-lens turret camera,
pointing out how exposure settings and
focus settings were made on the lens, how
the viewing system worked, and how the
camera was loaded. It had been his experi-
ence with graduate students that four or five
WORTH & ADAIR] Navajo Filmmakers
hours of both explanation and practice were
needed before the camera could be loaded
and used properly.
As soon as Worth finished his first load-
ing run-through, he passed the camera
around so that each of the students could
examine it. He thought they would then re-
quire individual instruction before they
themselves could load and be ready to use
it. To his surprise, Johnny asked if he could
load the camera. Worth gave him a scrap
piece of film and said “Sure.” Johnny
showed no fear of the new experience and
in two tries was able to load the camera per-
fectly.
Within the hour all students had shown
they could load the camera. This requires a
fair amount of finger dexterity in order to
get into tiny spaces, an ability to manipulate
several parts of small size in a definite se-
quence, and the ability to understand the
notion of film loop size, claw engagement,
and accurate windup procedures. Although
the Navajo are known for their willingness
to participate in innovative situations, we
were still somewhat surprised at the rapidity
and ease with which they mastered this and
most other mechanical and conceptual tasks
related to filmmaking.
After the students had practiced loading
for about half an hour we went outside,
where Worth showed them how to look
through the viewfinder and hold the camera.
He explained that he wanted to shoot one
hundred feet of film so that the roll could be
sent to the laboratory for developing that
day. He took about ten shots of the students
standing around. He said nothing to explain
what he was doing or why he was shooting
with any particular lens. What they certainly
observed was taking an exposure reading,
winding the camera spring, focusing, and
changing lenses.
He then asked each student to take some
pictures of “anything you want.” Most spent
some time exploring the different images
available through the various focal length
viewfinders and practiced holding the cam-
era up to their eyes. Some made shots of
children in the school playground, others of
17
the buildings, and some chose natural ob-
jects (rocks, trees, and so on).
We finished shooting at about five
o’clock, and Richard Chalfen (our graduate
assistant) drove off to Gallup to put the film
on the plane to the processing lab. By this,
time, the second day of the project but actu-
ally the first day of instruction, we had been
able to teach our students enough to load and
use a motion picture camera and actually to
shoot their first footage.
As a guide to how and what we would
teach we had begun, among ourselves, to
use a speculative analogy. Suppose we could
find a group of humans who were very
much like us in most ways, except that they
didn’t have the little machine in their throats
that enabled them to make the sounds that
would eventually become verbal communi-
cation in the form of language. Suppose we
brought them a “box” that could make for
them all the varieties of sound that the
human voice can. Suppose further that we
merely taught them how the box worked
and observed (1) whether they used it, (2)
whether they used all the sounds, and (3)
whether they organized their selected units
of sound in such a way that we could ob-
serve a “pattern.”
Our rule of thumb was to teach our Na-
vajo students the “machine” (film and cam-
era) and its mechanical works only, and to
observe what set of images they produced
and what system they imposed upon them,
when and if they organized the images then
produced. By the end of the first week, they
had been taught to use the exposure meter,
the camera, the viewer, rewinds, splicer, and
Bell and Howell projector. It was the intro-
duction of editing that posed the greatest
problem for us. We decided that we would
introduce a splicer and show them how it
worked, hoping that they would discover or
develop principles of film organization by
themselves. Worth explained that a splicer
was a machine for pasting pieces of film to-
gether. It could be used to repair film that
tore or to put together lengths of film for
any other purpose. We were aware that the
very notion of putting lengths of film to-
18 American Anthropologist [72, 1970
gether was a basic step in the development 134). The cademe is the unit that results
of any structure. from the pushing of the start button of the
The literature in developmental linguistics camera to its release, producing one contin-
usually refers to the break between the one- uous image event. One cademe, limited only
word utterance and the child’s use of a by the length of film in the camera, can be a
structured utterance consisting of a modi- “film.” This was precisely what the first
fier plus noun (McNeill 1966:20). What we movies made in 1895 were. On the other
were primarily interested in were the succes- hand, a film can be composed of thousands
sive steps in the differentiation of units and of edemes, cademes cut up and sequenced in
the development of rules for privileges of an infinite number of ways. Edemes can be
occurrence, or display rules for visual com- parts of cademes, or several edemes may be
municative events. We felt that giving the made from one cademe.
students the notion that pieces of film can Historically and developmentally, the pro-
be put together would not hinder us in our cess might be something like this. First, the
attempts to determine rules of sequence or communicator has at his command one unit
rules and patterns of use. just as it comes out of the camera. He con-
During this first week we suggested that trols the subject matter to the extent that he
each student make a movie using one roll points the camera and controls the length by
(100 feet) of film. We had explained that a his decision to start or stop the camera. This
movie could be of any length and of any is his film.
subject. We also explained that they didn’t At a later stage, he realizes that he can
have to use the whole roll but that they join cademes by merely pressing the button
were limited to one in this first try. Our rea- and allowing the camera to start again, put-
son for this limitation was that we didn’t ting the next set of images on the same strip
want to provide the students with an experi- of film contiguously. He does this until his
ence which could, too early, become a con- film runs out. He now shows the length (as
straint on the final film organization that distinguished from true sequence) of several
they were planning and discussing with us in cademes as it comes out of the camera, and
the taped interviews. We wanted, first, to that is his film. This stage might correspond
allow at least two weeks for the formation to the “invention” by Porter in 1893 in
of ideas about the film each of them was to which he placed three cademes together to
make and, second, to provide them with a show a fire truck leaving the firehouse, fol-
quick opportunity for exploring the medium lowed by a cademe of the truck racing along
and their own intuitive ways of organizing a street, followed by a cademe of the fire-
it. man putting out a fire. A further stage
It might be of some interest at this point comes with the realization that everything
to describe what Worth has termed the de- one shoots (all cademes) are not needed in
velopmental structure of film organization. a film. Some may be thrown away as being
This structural heuristic will help clarify not no good or not needed.
only how, but how far, each filmmaker pro- Next, one would expect that the cademe
gressed in the developmental process of film itself would become divisible-and the
communication. It will also be used as one edeme is developed. The filmmaker realizes
of the basic dimensions in our analysis of that just as every cademe is not necessary,
the films. so all of each cademe is not always neces-
Let us first make a distinction between sary. He now makes edemes out of cademes.
the “shot” as it comes out of the camera, He has still not learned that the original
which we will call the cademe, and the shot order in which the cademe is made can be
as it is actually used in the utterance-the changed.
“editing shot,” or edeme (Worth 1968:133- One would expect the next step to be the
WORTH & ADAIR] Navajo Filmmakers
development of some primitive “syntactic
sense.” Worth does not have any evidence to
show that any of the following steps must
follow one another in a specific order, but
the general notion of sequence contains sev-
eral distinct concepts: first, that cademes
themselves can be placed in sequences other
than that in which they were shot; and sec-
ond, that several edemes from any single ca-
deme may be used as modifiers for other
edemes. For example, a cademe of a close-
up of a man walking can be cut up and
made into two or more edemes. The cut-up
cademe-now two edemes-of a man walk-
ing can be inserted before and after a long
shot of the same man walking. We would
tend to see edemes 1 and 3 (the close-up of
a man walking) and edeme 2 (the long
shot) as belonging to a structure signifying
object and modifier.
The next steps focus on the dimensions
along which cademes and edemes attain
“meaning”-their length, their time of oc-
currence, their spatial dimension (long shot,
close-up, etc.) and their semantic content.
Here too, in terms of semantic usage, there
might be a developmental sequence in which
one joins cademes according to some rules
of occurrence, causal or associational.
Analyzing precisely what rules the Na-
vajo followed in this scheme and how far
along they would go in the developmental
process was the purpose for which much of
our data was gathered. That is, at what
point did they break cademes into edemes?
What edemes served as modifiers for other
edemes? What cademes were extensively
used and which were discarded? How com-
plex a structure, and how predictable a
structure, did each Navajo develop individu-
ally, and what rules did all of them seem to
follow? Did they correspond to “our” rules,
or were they different?
It might be useful to describe some of the
first one-minute films made by the Navajo
students. Mike said he wanted to make a
movie of a piiion tree. He wanted to show
“how it grow.” He set about finding a piiion
seedling and making a shot of it. Then he
19
photographed a little taller tree, and so on,
until he had photographed a series of seven
cademes ending with a full-grown tree.
Worth thought he was finished, but he con-
tinued with a dead piiion tree that still had
some growth on it, then a tree that had
fallen to the ground, then some dead
branches, then a piiion nut, ending with a
shot of the same piiion bush he started with.
When the film was returned from the lab-
oratory and shown to the group, we detected
some puzzled looks. The film consisted of
twelve cademes, as described above. Al-
though Mike and the others couldn’t then
make clear the reasons for their surprise at
the result of their first shooting experience,
Mike later was able to articulate his diffi-
culty. He had photographed a sequence of
trees in a particular order, a cademe se-
quence. Its sequence and semantic content,
he felt, should imply the meaning “how a
piiion tree grows.” Instead, all the images
had the same spatial relation to the size of
the screen; that is, because he shot all the
trees, both small and large, as close-ups
(filling the full frame), he failed to commu-
nicate the process of growth which can be
shown when something little becomes big.
Because all the images-those that repre-
sented “in reality” big things and those that
represented small ones-were made to ap-
pear the same size in relation to the size of
the screen, their representative or iconic
qualities of “bigness” and “littleness,” which
were the relevant semantic dimensions of
the cademes, were lost.
In another case, that of Johnny, we have
evidence of the independent discovery of
what might be called the modifier-object re-
lationship. Johnny said he wanted to make a
movie about a horse. After getting permis-
sion from its owner to use a horse that was
tethered near the trading post, Johnny
started shooting. First he proceeded to ex-
amine the horse through the various focal-
length viewfinders on the camera. He re-
mained in the same spatial relation to the
horse but tried “seeing” the horse from the
different “distances” that various focal-
20 American Anthropologist [72, 1970
length lenses allow. He finally told Worth film that would have “lots of symbols,” that
that he was going to make pictures of would be about “the world,” and that we
“pieces of the horse” so you (meaning would understand “later.” Mary Jane and
Worth) would get to know a Navajo horse Maxine decided that they wanted to work
when “you see my film.” together and that they wanted to make a
He shot about ten close-ups, of the head, film about the old ways, “about our grandfa-
the eyes, the tail, the penis, the legs, and so ther, who is a very important medicine
on. He took perhaps two minutes of thought man.”
to determine each shot. He worked quietly, By the second week, when they started
asking few questions, setting exposuure and working on their “real” films, we stopped
distance with care. After about twenty min- any formal instruction. We would answer
utes he started looking at Worth frequently, questions, and we drove them to whatever
not turning his head all the way, but with sites they wanted to go to for their photo-
that quick sideways movement of the pupil graphing. This, of course, gave us a natural
characteristic of the Navajo. Then he said, excuse to hang around as observers. Our ob-
“Mr. Worth, if I show pieces of this horse, servations were quite extensive and on many
and then tomorrow take a picture of a com- levels. Adair obtained life histories on each
plete horse at the Squaw Dance-or lots of student and his place and position in the
horses, can I paste them together and will community, and on his relations with Worth
people think that I’m showing pieces of all and Chalfen as teachers. He kept a running
the horses?” record of the community’s reactions to the
Worth managed to restrain himself and filmmaking project. We all kept extensive
said merely, “What do you think?” Johnny notes and tapes of how the students con-
thought a bit and said, “I’d have to think ceived, photographed, and edited their films.
about it more but I think this is so with On their conceptualizations of their films
movies.” Worth asked, “What is so?” And in progress we obtained frequent taped inter-
Johnny replied, “That when you paste pieces views, asking such questions as “What do you
of a horse in between pictures of a whole want to make your film about?” “Why?”
horse people will think it’s part of the same “Who is it for?” “What will happen when
horse.” people see it? and so on. As work continued
During the rest of that week the students we asked what they wanted to shoot tomor-
worked on their 100-foot films, and we in- row: “Where d o s it fit into the film? “Why do
terviewed them about the “real” (as they you need that?” “How will you do it?” As
called them) films that they were to start the film came back from the lab we viewed
the following week. All the students now it and asked our students how they liked
knew very clearly just what they wanted to what they had done. As the editing pro-
do. This is in contrast to Worth’s graduate gressed we asked “Why does this shot go
students, who frequently are not certain of with that one?” “Why did you leave that
their subject matter for several months and out?’ “What’s the purpose of that?’ “Why
often for as long as six months. Susie did you splice here instead of here?“ When
wanted to make a film about her mother the films were finished we asked each one in
weaving a rug. She wanted to “show how an extended interview why he had chosen
hard it is, how good my mother is, and why each shot and what it meant in the film.
Navajo rugs must be so expensive.” Johnny These tapes are all transcribed now and are
was going to make a film about a silver- part of the material we are analyzing.
smith. It also “should show how good Nava- Other kinds of data were provided by our
jos are with silver,” and “how hard it is to observations of how the students were pho-
make good jewelry.” Mike wanted to make tographing and editing. Our daily field notes
a film about a lake, “just to show all things are full of remarks such as “They are doing
there are there.” A1 kept talking about a it all wrong,” “They don’t start at the begin-
WORTH & ADAIR] Navajo Filmmakers
ning,” “They have no idea of how an event
is structured,” and “They don’t know how
to spot the important things.”
While Susie Bennally was working on her
film, we observed how smoothly the film-
making procedure became integrated into
the daily life of Susie and her mother and
father. People wandering by would stop and
look through the viewfinder. Susie’s mother,
Alta Kahn, was quietly curious and asked
several times if she could look through the
camera, which Susie let her do. The evident
satisfaction that her mother showed pro-
vided us with the opportunity to see if it
would be possible to pass on to a non-En-
glish speaker the same technology we had
taught the bilingual. We asked Susie if she
would be willing to teach her mother to
make movies. AIthough Susie was extremely
shy, she responded to this in a more overtly
positive way than to almost anything else we
had asked her to do. In agreeing to teach
her mother, however, Susie laid down the
rules of the game. She must be alone with
her mother at first, and then Worth might
observe her and record on tape what was
said. (Worth was not allowed to come be-
tween mother and daughter.) Also, the
mother must be able to see the film as it
was returned from the laboratory, in pri-
vacy, and no other Navajo was to be
around during the editing.
That the mother was readily able to learn
to shoot and edit is an indication of the abil-
ity of a monolingual Navajo to learn new
technology quickly, but, more importantly,
it is corroboration of the method of letting
the participants in the transfer of the tech-
nology structure situations that are compati-
ble with traditional role enactment.
Johnny Nelson, in an interview, brought
out his feeling that Worth could teach a Na-
vajo medicine man to make film depicting
ritual performances, providing he worked
with an intermediary, like himself, in the
role of interpreter. He was also of the opin-
ion that the medicine men would be inter-
ested in this means of preserving ceremonies
for future generations.
The fieldwork was completed in two
21
months, during June and July of 1966. The
Navajo students made seven twenty-minute
films and five smaller one- and two-minute
films.
By July 24 all the films were finished in
rough cut except the one being made by Su-
sie’s mother. On the afternoon of the 2Sth,
we showed the films to the community. At
the suggestion of the Tsosie sisters, notices
had been placed in the trading post and else-
where with the wording “World Premiere
Navajo Films.” Approximately 60 Navajo
showed up, including children. After the
showing Adair interviewed nine of the
adults, five of whom were women and four
men. We were especially interested in what
the films “said” to the interviewees and how
they evaluated them.
Generally speaking, the films were liked
because they conveyed information. Some
typical responses were: “Yes, that certainly
teaches a lot of good things about weaving,”
“I think they all bring out good points as far
as learning is concerned,” and “there is a lot
of teaching behind this work.” The films
concerned with crafts were highly valued
because they were related to the economic
welfare of the community. One of the re-
spondents said she liked the films because
they taught
how to do these things. I think that is what
the film is intended for. The same is true of
the silversmithing. This should also be taught
to the children.
Others responded:
This is the type of work that some of the
.
people are supporting their families . . so
it is good and a good thing to know.
Perhaps the Navajo rugs would bring a little
more money from now o n . . . White people
never give much money for anything. Maybe
this is why they want to show them and how
the rugs are made,
It was showing how to make silver crafts
which will bring more money and will be
on demand.
Johnny’s film showing how a shallow well
is made was liked because it “teaches how to
fix water so you can always have clean
water to use,” and the Tsosie sisters’ The
22 American Anthropologist
Spirit of the Navajo was liked because “He
[the medicine man] did not make any mis-
take. He performed the ceremony like he
should.”
In these nine interviews we had two in-
stances in which the Navajos made some
rather interesting remarks about their rea-
sons for not understanding certain films (In-
trepid Shadows and Shallow Well). Both
these films were somewhat outside the
framework of Navajo cognition: Intrepid
Shadows because of its complex form, and
Shallow Well because of its nontraditional
subject matter.
When asked, “Does that film tell you any-
thing?” one respondent, a woman aged 44
with one year of schooling, who stated in
the same interview “I never been to a movie
before,” replied,
I cannot understand English. It was telling
all about it in English which I couldn’t
understand.
Another response was,
That picture was also being explained in
English. The reason I didn’t get the meaning
is because I can’t understand English.
None of the films, of course, had any
sound at all. Since these interviews were
conducted in Navajo, we didn’t see the
translated tapes until we left the reservation,
and have not been able to question our in-
formants further along these lines. We can
only speculate that when someone in a situa-
tion such as we are describing sees a film
they don’t understand, it seems reasonable
(not only to the subject in this case but also
to the Navajo interpreter) to assume it is in
a language different from theirs. In this case,
since we spoke English and she didn’t, and
she couldn’t understand the film, she as-
sumed that the film, in effect, spoke in En-
glish even though the film was silent.
While these interviews were all too brief
and sampled too small a group from the
community, they did tend to indicate that
the camera in the hands of the Navajo
would in fact serve to reveal their value sys-
tem, since the values of the individual film-
makers were, with the exceptions noted,
[72, 1970
communicated to these nine viewers. Ethel
Albert’s statement (1956:232) about the
Navajo value system-( it is) “empirically
based, pragmatically phrased, and geared to
consequences”-characterizes the films as
well as the values of the viewers who judged
them.
Since that time we have been engaged not
only in transcribing and studying the verbal
material but also in devising methods for de-
scribing and organizing what might be con-
sidered the first corpus of film utterances by
another culture gathered under systematic
conditions.
ANALYSIS
We would like now to develop some of
our preliminary analyses. From this point on
we are reporting work in progress rather
than a finished analysis of work completed.
Unfortunately, we are not ready to propose
a theory of codes in context that would be
integral to a complete analysis of our data.
The corpus of the material we have col-
lected is too diverse, and the possible levels
of analysis too heterogeneous, to allow us at
this point to attempt formal theory building.
However, we have had to keep some possi-
ble theoretical structure in mind, if only as
an organizing principle for this preliminary
analysis. We are asking the following ques-
tions: Who, in what culture, with what in-
structions, can produce communications, o r
discourse, by the use of movies? Second,
how do those who can discourse in this
movie mode organize their communication?
Do they code it at all, and if so, d o they
code it in a manner that enables others to
understand it or to infer meaning from it?
Third, if humans can use this mode, and
code it so that it becomes communicative,
what is the relation between the code and
the culture in which it is produced and un-
derstood?
Although generalizations beyond the Na-
vajo, and beyond several groups of Negro
teenagers in the Philadelphia area (with
whom some of Worth’s students have
worked in the same way), can only be pure
WORTH & ADAIR] Navajo Filmmakers
speculation at present, it is now possible to
see whether the coding and patterning of
such films follow cultural or linguistic pat-
terns, or both. That is, will similar cultures
make films similarly, and will members of
these cultures “understand” each others’
movie discourse in the same way?
We can report that teaching filmmaking
to the Navajo, and members of other groups
in our society, was easy. The Navajo seemed
to know what films were-even those who
said they had never seen one-and they
learned to make them quickly and easily.
Why should people of a culture so differ-
ent from ours learn a new and seemingly
complex mode of communication so
quickly?
The notion of a common usage of a
mode of communication corresponds in
some way to what might be called the uni-
versals of a “language.” The Navajo learned
to put together discrete records of image
events in a sequence that they assumed
would be meaningful to someone looking at
the movie that they made. It is as if in some
sense they were programmed to accept the
notion that visual events in sequence have
meaning. The fact that the specific way in
which they strung these image events to-
gether showed differences from the way we
sequence events seems to us much less im-
portant than the fact that they strung them
together assuming that someone else would
understand.
Another striking thing we observed was
the fact that, although we found it compara-
tively easy to teach people with another cul-
ture to make a movie, this did not mean
that they used it in the same way that we
did, were interested in it in the same way, or
would continue to use it and find a place in
their culture for it.
Let us now attempt to delineate some of
the differences we noted. In order to do this,
however, we will need to know certain ele-
ments of the context, as well as of the code,
for later comparative analysis.
There are basically two areas with which
we will deal. The first might be said to be
those dimensions that represent the cultural
23
context. These are (1) the learning situa-
tion, comprising the students’ previous level
of learning, as well as what we taught them,
and including the specific arrangements and
methods under which they learned; (2) the
choice of students, including how they were
chosen (or how they chose themselves), as
well as how they chose the actors for their
films; (3) the choice of film “subjects” or
“themes”; (4) their method of working,
both technical and perceptual; and ( 5 ) the
interrelation of the community and the film-
making and teaching process, comprising a
description of the social controls and free-
doms available within this culture to its film-
makers.
The second area of analysis might be
thought to be composed of those elements
which relate to the code itself, its descrip-
tion and, at a final stage, the rules by which
a Navajo film can be generated. Here a
rather difficult problem is posed: to describe
adequately the parameters and units we are
dealing with, on both micro and macro lev-
els, without being able to define clearly
where one ends and the other begins.
Roughly the areas under consideration
here will be (1) the narrative “style” of the
films, related to mythic forms and symbols
of the culture; (2) the syntactic organiza-
tion and sequencing of events and units of
“eventing”; (3) the cultural, perceptual, and
cognitive taboos influencing either semantic
or syntactic organization and structure; and
(4) the relation between verbal language
structure and visual “language” structure.
First let us consider that dimension of the
code we are calling narrative style. One ele-
ment of this might be thought of as those
events in daily life “important” enough to
show in a film about any subject. Or con-
versely, those events-irrespective of subject
-that are always part of film utterances or
discourse by the Navajo.
Almost all the Navajo films portray what
to us seems an inordinate amount of walk-
ing. As we observed the films being made,
excessive cademes of walking seemed clearly
“wrong” filmmaking. In Nelson’s film on sil-
24 American Anthropologist
versmithing, for example, most of the film is
composed of edemes of the silversmith
walking to get his materials. In this fifteen
minute film, almost ten minutes are spent as
the silversmith walks to the “old mine,”
walks to find his silver nuggets, walks
around looking, walks back to his hogan,
walks again to find sandstone for the mold,
walks back to the hogan again, and so on.
As the Navajo were making the films and
telling us about them, they repeatedly said:
“My mother, o r my brother, goes looking
for . . ., then she goes to get . . ., then she
.
goes . . ., then my brother goes. . .” We
didn’t notice this repeated emphasis of the
verb “to go” at the time of the interviews; in
a sense, we screened it out, paying attention
to what was important to us. It wasn’t until
we saw the edited film that we realized that
walking was an event in and of itself, not
just a way of getting somewhere. We ex-
pected the filmmakers to cut out most of the
walking-but they didn’t. This was the least
discarded footage. In questioning them, it
became clear that although they didn’t
verbalize it directly, walking was necessary
to tell a story about something Navajo.
Johnny Nelson said to us on June 13:
“Then the way the film is going to open-
it’s going to be John Baloo, he’s going to be
walking and wandering around those holes
in the ground-we’re going to have the feel-
ing that he’s alone, and it‘s very hard to find
what he’s going to find.” He mentioned
again in this interview that we “don’t see the
face-we’ll see him walking.”
In Susie Bennally’s film about a Navajo
weaver the same proportion of time is spent
in walking. In a twenty-minute film, Susie’s
mother spends fifteen minutes walking to
gather vegetables for dye, walking to collect
roots for soap, walking to shear the wool,
and walking to and from the hogan in be-
tween all activities. Her son walks with the
sheep and in one spot rides his horse away
from and then to the hogan to indicate the
passage of time.
I n reading Navajo myths and stories we
were struck by the fact that in many Navajo
narratives the narrator spends much of his
[72, 1970
time describing the walking, the landscape,
and the places he passes, and dwells only
briefly on what to us are the plot lines, as in
“The Killing of Tracking Bear” (Sapir
1942:137):
Then he again started off to the east. He
went there and back in vain. There were no
monsters. He also went to the south and
back. There were again no monsters. He also
went to the west and back. There were no
monsters. He also went to the north and
back. There were no monsters. He again
went back to his home. Truly there were no
more monsters. Now here the story stops. Now
I have nothing more to tell.
Or, in the “Night Chant” (Matthews
1910:54-55):
Happily I go forth
My interior feeling cold, may I walk.
No longer sore, may I walk.
Impervious to pain, may I walk.
With lively feelings may I walk.
As it used to be long ago, may I walk.
Happily may I walk.
Happily with abundant dark clouds, may I
walk.
Happily with abundant showers, may I walk.
Happily with abundant plants, may I walk.
Happily on a trail of pollen, may I walk.
Happily may I walk.
Being as it used to be long ago, may I walk.
All the films but one (which we shall
note later) display this unusual use of walk-
ing, not only as an intrinsic part of the
“eventing” in the film, as can be seen in the
quotes above, but as a kind of punctuation
that separates activities. The mother and
the silversmith, for example, are always
shown walking toward or away from the
hogan to indicate a structural break some-
what akin to phrase, paragraph, o r chapter
structure. Compare Tracking Bear with Alta
Kahn and John Baloo (in the weaving and
silversmith films), who go to get roots and
back again, or go to get silver and back
again, or go to light the fire and back again.
Throughout the films the actor goes and re-
turns, and as in “Tracking Bear,” when the
going stops, “Now here the story stops.” In
Susie’s film of her mother, the film ends
abruptly (for us) when her mother holds up
the finished rug. We haven’t been shown
WORTH & ADAIR] Navajo Filmmakers
much of her mother weaving the rug; it has
been a film of coming and going. The actual
weaving is only barely started. But the walk-
ing parts, of mother and family, are fin-
ished. One can almost hear Susie saying,
“Now that you’ve seen how I go and come
back in making my mg, I have nothing
more to tell. After the going and coming
you see the rug.” In the concluding words of
the “Night Chant,” “In beauty it is fin-
ished.” (Matthews 1910:55).
Several people who have seen these films
have commented that it doesn’t seem sur-
prising to have first films composed chiefly
of walking. “After all,” they say, “what do
other beginning filmmakers do? They always
show people walking.” Also, they argue,
walking is used in such avant-garde films as
those by Antonioni to show upset, lassitude,
o r general qualities such as the passage of
time. Several facts, however, tend to
strengthen our argument that walking in Na-
vajo films is used uniquely. First, when
walking is used in “our” films it is hardly, if
ever, seen as an event in and of itself. It is
used in most cases as a bridge between ac-
tivities, a structural device used to get peo-
ple from one place to another, similar to the
familiar shots of a railroad train speeding
along the tracks, or of an airplane taking
off, followed by a shot of the main character
relaxing in his seat, followed by a shot of
the airplane landing. When used as an event,
as in an Antonioni film, it is seen as a some-
what unusual event. It is hardly the kind of
thing we see in all movies, and certainly we
cannot remember films in which the major
action is composed of the main character
“merely” walking. It has been suggested that
the reason for so much walking is not that
the Navajo were following a particular pat-
tern derived from the structure of their nar-
rative, but rather that they were “imitating
life.” That is, that of Navajo, being a “prim-
itive” people, walk a great deal and there-
fore show walking in their films in imitation
of their actual daily activity. The striking
observation in this regard is that the Navajo
dislike walking. They will go to great
lengths to ride, and will at every opportunity
25
use some means other than walking to get
someplace. Hardly ever did we observe our
filmmakers walking to where they were pho-
tographing. They always insisted on driving,
and almost all the members of the Pine
Springs community owned pick-up trucks
and often used them for journeys as short as
one hundred yards. We observed scores of
instances where Navajos waited patiently for
hours at the side of a road for a “ride.”
Another striking example to support our
claim for difference in the use of walking as
event is our analysis of two films on Navajo
life made almost twenty-five years ago by
Adair on his first visit to Pine Springs. We
have therefore been able to compare his
films with those made by the Navajo. One is
a “finished” film, photographed by Adair
but edited by Mitchell Wilder, then at the
Taylor Museum in Colorado, and the other
is a film that is unedited and contains all the
footage shot by Adair showing some of the
daily activities surrounding weaving and sil-
vermaking. This was Adair’s first attempt at
filmmaking, and although made by a young
anthropologist, these films can still be said
to reflect his way of structuring events, in
contrast to the ways of our Navajo students.
What is most notable is that Adair does two
things that are different from the Navajo
and are quite consistent with what “we” do
in filmmaking today. Both his films (the ca-
deme version and the edeme version) show
almost no walking. People just are in the
places they are supposed to be. Nobody
“searches for silver that is hard to find” or
walks to get roots and plants for dye. Sec-
ond, his footage is full of face close-ups
showing the expressions of the Navajo as
they go about their activities.
This leads us to another difference, that
of ( 3 ) , the cultural, perceptual, and cogni-
tive taboos influencing semantic or syntactic
organization and structure of an utterance.
The Navajo do not use face close-ups, ex-
cept in very limited circumstances. Most
shots are either cut off at the head or show
the head turned away from the camera. In
all the films there are no more than five face
26 American Anthropologist
close-ups, and these, as far as we can deter-
mine, are in two specific situations.
The first is most common, showing a full
front view of the face with the eyes looking
slightly upward-a sort of inward staring.
When questioning the meaning of these
shots, we were told by several of the stu-
dents “that this shows my mother (or my
brother) thinking about the design.” They
occur in those places in the film in which
the subject is about to embark on the actual
work of weaving or making a piece of jew-
elry. The second kind of close-up is in the
form of an “in” joke. The Navajo stares at
the camera and makes a funny face.
One speculation as to the reasons for this
is that the Navajo generally avoid eye-to-eye
contact. Staring at someone, or looking him
“straight in the eye,” is a form of insult, un-
less done for clearly humorous purposes.
This relates to values of privacy in Navajo
culture, where close living and modesty ta-
boos must be reconciled by some form of
perceptual avoidance behavior. It seems pos-
sible to conclude that this has been carried
over into film discourse.
After more than a month of observations
it became clear that although close-ups were
used frequently, face close-ups were hardly
ever taken or used. During the shooting of a
sequence for the Tsosie sisters’ film about a
medicine man, the girls were photographing
their grandfather making a sandpainting.
Worth was observing this sequence, and he
became increasingly upset as he noted how
“badly” the girls were photographing it.
They weren’t showing the “important” parts
of the action. They didn’t photograph any of
the preliminary steps: bringing the sand into
the hogan, placing it in the right place,
smoothing it with a smoothing stick, finding
the center, preparing the colored sands, and
so on. His restiveness and upset became ap-
parent to the girls, who finally asked, “Are
we doing it right?” Without thinking, Worth
began suggesting that they shoot more foot-
age of these important steps that “are hap-
pening right now.” Once he had intruded
into their way of seeing and recording the
event, Worth decided to try directing them
[72, 1970
to make shots that they had never made by
themselves. He suggested that the girls try to
take some face close-ups of their grandfa-
ther. Mary Jane refused. She said she didn’t
know how. Maxine reluctantly took the
camera from her and started looking
through the viewfinder with the 3-inch (tele-
photo) lens. Finally she said that she
couldn’t see through it and handed it back
to her sister. Mary Jane finally stood over
her grandfather, pointed the camera at the
top and back of his head and pushed the
button. Worth asked her if she were getting
a shot of his face, and she looked surprised
and said, “NO, I can’t see it from here-you
do it-I don’t know how.”
The only way to get the face was to lie
down on the floor shooting from low, which
Worth then did and made one shot. He
handed the camera back to Mary Jane and
said, “See, it’s easy; now you do it.” Mary
Jane said she couldn’t and handed the cam-
era (as it it were a hot potato) to her youn-
ger sister, saying, “You do it.” Maxine
looked at Worth, lay down on a sheepskin,
and put the camera to her eye. She soon
looked up and said to him, “I can’t see.”
“Why?’ Worth asked. “My eyelashes get in
my way,” she replied. Worth acted as if this
were not a good reason, and she got up and
said, “My hands are too weak-see, they are
shaking.” She held one hand before her, and
Worth couldn’t see a single sign of tremoi
or shake. He said, “I don’t see you shaking.”
She replied, “But I am,” and that was the
end of any attempt at face close-ups.
To return to the walking. We mentioned
earlier that one film did not show an inordi-
nate amount of walking. It is an interesting
deviation in support of our original observa-
tion.
Johnny Nelson made two films. The first
was about a silversmith, in which walking
occurred a great deal. The second was about
the building of a shallow well. In this film
no walking occurs at all. In style it is similar
to Adair’s early films of Navajo activity.
Our explanation for this dramatic shift in
style is that in the silversmith film Johnny
WORTH Br ADAIR] Navajo Filmmakers 27
was telling a traditional story, and thereforenization and sequencing of events and units
“naturally” told it in the old Navajo way. In of eventing-we shall be dealing with the
the shallow-well film he was telling about way pieces or units of film were used.
non-Navajo ways, and in effect told it in Here, as with verbal analysis, it is extremely
“English,” not Navajo, difficult to separate the semantic from the
It might be thought that a better explana-syntactic, but by syntactic we shall mean
tion for this change in style is the fact thatthose rules primarily governing the way
no walking occurred in the making of a events are structured by editing-how and
shallow well, while walking naturally occurs at what point cademes are cut apart; what is
in making silver jewelry. The reverse is ac- “allowed” to follow what; and where the
tually the case. Adair was quite stunned filmmaker needs “something in between.” In
when he noted that Johnny was asking his a rough way, we shall be dealing with no-
“actor” to go to the mine to look for silver. tions similar to, but much more primitively
The fact of the matter is that silver was understood than, what linguists call privi-
never mined by the Navajo. This event in leges of occurrence.
the film derived from necessities imposed on On this level we found that in general the
the narrative style by other factors in the Navajo were joining elements under what
contextual situation. On the other hand, in seemed like quite different rules from ours.
the building of the well, much walking ac- Here are two (out of many) rules for “our”
tually occurs in order to get the materials, films:
and much coming and going of the trucks Rule 1. The major purpose of editing and
carrying the materials was observed by us. sequencing units is to make it appear that
None of this motion and activity is in either no join exists, so that the viewer sees one
the finished film or the cademe footage. continuous piece of action.
What we are suggesting here is that peo- Rule 2. Things that are not joined on ac-
ple within the context of their culture have tion and that appear suddenly on the screen
different codes for “saying” different things, (such as a glass suddenly appearing in a
that one’s cognitive system might well em- person’s hand) are a form of magic, are
ploy a metacode or program that would re- funny, and are not the way things happen.
late the rules for one mode of communica- It is interesting to note that the French
tion to rules for the other. If one has a set and other avant-garde filmmakers deliber-
of rules for talking about certain things, or ately break these rules occasionally. They
telling certain stories, he might reasonably use the so-called jump cut for some of the
be expected to apply those rules to structur- same reasons that painters began using “prim-
ing a movie about these subjects. In the itive” art forms; or, what is more to the
above observations we seem to have some point, for the same reasons that poets will say
evidence that the rules of Navajo myth and “the achieve of the thing,” knowing that the
storytelhg are more relevant to how events “wrong” grammar will add power to the
like weaving a rug, making silver jewelry, or phrase, and further, knowing that we know
building a shallow well are shown than to the rule and know that the poet knows it and
the “real” events that take place when these is breaking it deliberately.
activities are actually performed. When The Negro teenagers with whom we
Adair questioned Johnny, after the films worked followed the Hollywood-TV rule
were made, about the fact that the Navajo (rule l ) , They weren’t deliberately taught
never mined silver on the reservation, this rule but had learned it (although they
Johnny answered (without definitely deny- couldn’t verbalize it), perhaps by watching
ing Adair’s statement) that “that’s the way movies and television or by being members
to make a film about it.” of our society and sharing with us the same
culture and cognitive style.
In going now to (2)-the syntactic orga- The Navajo didn’t follow this rule at all.
28 American Anthropologist
I
I - 1 I
I I
FIGURE
1.
The notion of smoothness of action or non-
noticeability of a connective didn’t occur to
them. There are numerous examples in their
films of people suddenly appearing on the
screen or “jumping” from one place to an-
other, or “magically” going from a kneeling
to a walking or standing position. When we
questioned them about this, we had great
difficulty even getting them to see what we
were asking about. Finally, after asking
“Isn’t it strange that Sam suddenly is seen
walking when he was in a kneeling posi-
tion?” or “Isn’t it strange that the boy seems
as if by magic to jump across the landscape,
never going behind the tree at all?’ we were
answered, with a condescending smile, “Oh,
everyone knows that if he’s walking he must
have got up,” or “Why show him behind the
tree-you can’t see him.”
There is one point in Mike’s finished film
(Antelope Lake) where the actor is walking
across a field. The scene is a long shot of a
bare plain with one tree approximately in
the middle of the shot. The actor is walking
across the field, going from left to right. In
actuality he passes for a moment behind the
tree. When Mike shot this scene he did it in
two cademes. The first had the actor walk
into the frame, walk across the field, go be-
hind the tree, reappear on the other side,
walk a bit more-and then the camera
stopped. The second cademe starts at a
point before the actor goes behind the tree
and continues having him walk behind the
tree and continue out of the frame on the
right side. Since the two cademes overlap in
action, Mike had a great choice of points at
which he could cut both pieces of film and
172, 1970
I
join them to get the actor across the field. In
a small study done by Worth, he asked
twenty students and faculty at Penn to indi-
cate on the diagram reproduced in Figure 1
at what point they would cut the film to
achieve the effect of having the actor get
from the left side of the screen to the right
side. The subjects chosen were faculty mem-
bers in communication, anthropology, and
psychology, with varying degrees of “knowl-
edge” about editing, and students at the An-
nenberg School. Eighteen of the twenty indi-
cated that they would combine the film in
parallel fashion; that is, no matter where
they would cut the first cademe, they would
“match” that point on the second cademe.
The dotted lines on the drawing represent
some of the places where they indicated
they would cut. The subjects more sophisti-
cated in film marked the cut as occurring
when the actor was behind the tree. This
would make the cut least noticeable. The
others varied as shown.
Mike, on the other hand, cut the se-
quence as shown by the heavy line in the
diagram. He had the actor walking up to the
tree and then appearing as if by magic on
the other side. When asked why he did this,
he said, “Oh, nothing happens when he’s be-
hind the tree so I cut it out.”
Two of Worth’s students, however,
marked the diagram in such a way as to
achieve a “jump cut,” that is, so as not to
achieve continuous action. But what is most
striking is the fact that both (they did this at
different times and had not spoken to each
other) immediately looked at Worth after
marking the diagram and said, with smiles
WORTH & ADAIR] Navajo Filmmakers
on their faces, “Fooled you, didn’t I?” and
“That screws up your experiment, doesn’t
it?”
Both students knew of our work with the
Navajo and were clever enough to see the
point of the study without being told. They
made the necessary connections and de-
duced what it was that Worth was attempt-
ing to demonstrate. Apparently, they knew
the rule of continuous action so well that
they deliberately broke it, but couldn’t re-
sist telling Worth about it. When he pointed
out that they were confirming the hypothesis
that continuity of action was a rule for “us,”
they sheepishly agreed.
There are several other areas of differ-
ence that we observed, but we shall indicate
them only briefly.
The Navajo choice of “actors” for their
films, and the restrictions of locale, were dif-
ferent from those of people living in our
culture. While graduate students at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania and at schools
throughout the country can make films
about “anybody” living “anywhere”-even
about the Navajo-the Navajo limited them-
selves to a choice of actors and locales that
might be categorized as kin or kinsmen’s
property. The Navajo were extremely loath
to photograph nonrelatives, and always
sought the closest kin as their subjects and
showed the greatest ease and ability with the
camera in that situation. They felt extremely
uncomfortable photographing someone else’s
land, sheep, hogans, or horses. If the situa-
tion was such that they had no alternative
that fit their plan for their film, they always
asked elaborate permission or tried to “bor-
row” the person or object from someone re-
lated to them. Apparently, the use of an
image was closely tied to their feelings about
the use of the actual person or thing the
image referred to.
To illustrate this: Mike was editing his
film of Antelope Lake. At one point there
was a sequence in which he had juxtaposed
some shots of what we took to be mud with
a shot of a horse and a shot of some sheep.
In interviews with Mike when his film was
finished, we asked, “Why does the shot of
29
the horse going into the lake come after the
shot of the mud?” and later, “Why does the
shot of the sheep come after this shot?” He
explained that the first “mud” shot showed
horse’s hooves going into the water and so
therefore the next shot must be of a horse.
When we asked whose horse it was, he an-
swered, ‘‘I borrowed it from my brother.”
The next “mud” shot was, as he ex-
plained it, “a shot of sheep going away from
the lake,” and so it was reasonable that it
should be followed by a shot of sheep.
Worth didn’t ask him whose sheep they
were, assuming they were his or some rela-
tives’. It was only later, during our analysis
of the footage shot by all the students, that
we learned that this shot had been “bor-
rowed” from Susie. Neither Mike nor his
family owned sheep, and rather than photo-
graph someone else’s sheep, belonging to an-
other family, he borrowed a piece of film of
a sheep sequence from Susie, who had pho-
tographed her mother’s sheep. It must be
pointed out that there were innumerable o p
portunities for Mike to take shots of sheep.
They were everywhere, grazing freely all
over the landscape. He chose to borrow a
shot of them from a fellow student rather
than to photograph a “stranger’s” sheep
himself.
There was a marked difference on almost
all levels of observation between Al, the art-
ist, and the other Navajo. As A1 put it,
“They [the other Navajo] want to make
things about outside. I want to make things
about inside.” His method of work, his no-
tion of what he wanted to make a film
about, and his behavior seemed much more
like that of graduate students-introspec-
tive, somewhat hostile and neurotic, and
slightly competitive. None of these qualities
were displayed by the other Navajo. Yet
Al’s film is also intensely Navajo, particu-
larly in his use of motion as a form to con-
vey meaning and in his intense feeling for,
and ability to portray, the animism of his
world. While all the Navajo made more use
of movement than we do, his was, we think,
especially complex and self-conscious.
There was also a remarkable difference in
30 American Anthropologist
the way all the Navajo students edited their
film from the way we do. They worked
faster, with such certainty that at one point
Worth was convinced that they must be cut-
ting the film at random. If not, they were
able to perceive and remember individual
shots and single frames of event in what to
Worth was an impossible way. At one point
Johnny set up two viewers on two tables,
running film through both, jumping from
one side of the room to the other and splic-
ing sequences for different sections of his
film at the same time.
In order to determine whether they really
knew the points at which they were cutting
the film, Worth several times grabbed the
end of a piece of film as it was cut and asked
both Johnny and Susie to describe the exact
point of the cut. In all cases they were able
-easily-to describe the point in the image
event that they were cutting. It is not that
their perception of individual frames was
better, but rather that their ability to per-
ceive a single “frame” in a motion sequence
and to remember it for both short and long
periods of time was better than ours. In dis-
cussing this with Johnny Nelson, he ex-
plained that perhaps ‘‘it’s because we always
have to have the design in our heads.” He
told us that “you have to use your knowl-
edge and the machine is there but you have
to use your head and what’s up there to
make a good movie. This, I think, is the
same way with the weavers, that if they
want to make a good rug for themselves,
they have to concentrate there, very hard on
what designs would impress the buyers . . .
it’s the same way with the silversmith.”
We started with the notion that if the
Whorfian hypothesis had any value in this
study we would be able to find that the Na-
vajo use motion in some different and signif-
icant way. By a tentative and incomplete
analysis this seems to be the case. They
seem to move the camera more, move it in a
more controlled fashion, and move it in a
circular rather than linear fashion.
Years ago Margot Astrov (1950:45)
pointed out:
[72, 1970
The concept of motion in all its possible
variations is the perennial current on which
Navaho culture is carried along and from
which it receives its unfailing stimulus.
Motion pervades the Navajo’s universe; it
permeates his mythology, his habit systems,
and his language.
Harry Hoijer has written (1951:115-
117) :
It would appear that Navaho verb categories
center very largely about the reporting of
events, or better, ‘eventings.’ These eventings
are divided into neuters, eventings solidified,
as it were, into states of being by virtue of the
withdrawal of motion, and actives, eventings
in motion.
But this is not all. A careful analysis of
the meanings of Navaho verb bases, neuter
and active, reveals that eventings themselves
are conceived, not abstractly for the most
part, but concretely in terms of the move-
ments of corporeal bodies. . . . Movement it-
self is reported in painstaking detail, even to
the extent of classifying as semantically dif-
ferent the movements of one, two, or several
bodies, and sometimes distinguishing as well
between movements of bodies differentiated
by their shape and distribution in space.
But this high degree of specificity in the
reporting of movement is not confined in
Navaho to verbs having particular reference
to motion of one sort or another. On the
contrary, it permeates the Navaho lexicon
in the sense that many verbs, not at first
sight expressive of movement, prove to be
so on more detailed analysis. . . .
To summarize: in three broad speech pat-
terns, illustrated by the conjugation of active
verbs, the reporting of actions and events,
and the framing of substantive concepts, Na-
vaho emphasizes movement and specifies the
nature, direction, and status of such move-
ment in considerable detail. Even the neuter
category is relatable to the dominant concep-
tion of a universe in motion; for, just as
someone is reported to have described archi-
tecture as frozen music, so the Navaho define
position as a resultant of the withdrawal of
motion.
In the Navajo films, we can best under-
stand the long sequences of walking in the
context of the above. The walking provides
a means of depicting eventing, (the search-
ing for and finding of the mine, the rock for
casting, the dyes for weaving, and so on).
WORTH & ADAIR] Navajo Filmmakers
As an example of how one Navajo ex-
pressed the importance of motion in his
scheme of things we quote Johnny Nelson,
when asked to compare writing about how
to make a shallow well with making a film
about the same subject:
You make a movie about it and then it’s
moving around where you actually see what
is being done, how it moves. See, in a letter,
you can read it over and over but you can’t
express exactly what, how the shallow well
was, unless you want to write a whole book
about it. But . . . if you write a whole book
about it, then it’s still. You try to give it to
somebody and he reads it through and he
does not really get the picture in his mind.
You cannot express just exactly how a shal-
low well was erected.
At another point Johnny said, “What I
really want to see is something that can
move in front of my eyes, that I took my-
self.”
We have compared the films as originally
shot with the films as presented by the film-
makers after considerable editing. We find
that the two filmmakers whose films have
been analyzed so far, Johnny Nelson and
Susie Bennally, have included virtually all
the scenes depicting their subjects walking
but have edited out many sequences of the
actual fabrication of the jewelry and the
rug. We have discussed other aspects of
walking earlier.
Turning from linguistic form3 back to my-
thology, and particularly to myth style, it is
to be noted that the long journey provides
the central theme for many of the origin
myths. Navajo myths tell of the culture hero
who “travels freely among the gods collect-
ing ritual information as he goes, . . .”
(Spencer 1957:19). From this series of su-
pernatural contacts his own fund of power
is increased. The structure and narrative
style of the silversmith film, the Antelope
Lake film, Zntrepid Shadows, and the weaver
film resemble the chantway myths. Johnny
Nelson, for example, shows the craftsman at
work, but has his craftsman set out on a
journey for an ancient silver mine. The fact
that silver was never mined on the reserva-
tion is inconsequential; the origin of silver
31
and travel to that “origin,” like the origin of
the horse, is depicted in his film.
As in the myths, power accruing from
motion and especially from travel is not
only a feature depicted in the film but may
also explain the behavior of the filmmaker.
Perhaps following his actor in his search for
the mine gave him a sense of assurance in
an unfamiliar situation. Certainly this is
characteristic of Navajo psychology: if you
are uncertain of yourself in a particular situ-
ation, don’t remain still-travel.
We now turn to Zntrepid shadow^.^ It will
be remembered that A1 Clah, the artist, was
a stranger to the community. He had no
kinsman there, was never invited to any of
the hogans, and stayed close to us and the
other students during the whole two months.
Indeed, he was not only lonely but was re-
jected and resented by the community of
Pine Springs. I n interviews with Worth, A1
told how he wanted to make a film not
about “those things out there,” referring to
Navajo crafts, but “what’s in my head.”
Further, in talking with Worth, he said
I can’t get in the film when I’m taking
.
the pictures . . this I felt was me on the
inside and I have to choose someone to be
in the film.
So Johnny Nelson was chosen to play the
role of A1 Clah, the intruder.
The shadow mentioned in the title is sym-
bolic of one of the Navajo concepts of the
soul, that “which is lying in,” as they say.
This soul can only be killed by the sun and
so we find in this film a play between man
and nature and a balance between the two.
At the beginning of the film the sun is
strong and the shadows short and weak; and
man, too, is fallible when he interferes with
nature. The first dramatic act of the film oc-
curs when the “intruder” happens upon a
spider web, and while examining it pokes a
stick into it and destroys it (taboo behav-
ior).
Poking the spider web set the stage for
the start of his journey. Immediately a roll-
ing hoop (an old tire rim) is seen moving
mysteriously across the landscape. The in-
truder looks around but finds no explana-
32 American Anthropologist [72, 1970
tion. Soon a Yeibechai mask appears, look- the spinning shadow shown on the screen,
ing in all directions for the cause of the dis- slowly, almost lazily making its effortless
turbance. The intruder has been replaced by (and for most audiences, calm) circles
the Yeibechai. across the earth. Then almost imperceptibly
During the course of the film the intruder the actual wheel comes into the frame,
gains power by contact with the Yeibechai never interfering with the shadow but grad-
in his wanderings. At the end of the film Al ually becoming part of the same universe.
himself is intrepid, to match his shadow At almost the moment when an audience is
(which has also joined the search), and the able to perceive this, the film ends.
sun is weak. We have a sense of Al with his The question may be asked, was Al Clah
camera merging his shadow into nature. consciously using traditional Navajo sym-
The hoop seen intermittently rolling bols? Or was this symbolism and the narra-
through the landscape may be best inter- tive style in which it was expressed uncon-
preted in the light of the following quotation scious? Or is the resemblance between the
(Reichard 1950:89) : abstract forms and Navajo ritual stylization
fortuitous?
Closed circles made of meal or pollen or It must be remembered that A1 Clah had
perhaps merely described on the ground,
hoops, and rings are frequently encountered spent seven years away from home attend-
in ritual. They represent a space so narrowed ing art school in Santa Fe, and although his
down that it is under control, an area from home was nearby, he was a stranger to the
which evil has been driven and within which Pine Springs community. The intruder, for
power has been concentrated.
the reason given earlier, is played by Johnny
At the end of the film evil has been driven Nelson. However, as soon as Johnny saw
out, and beauty and balance restored. the rushes of the footage Al had shot, in
I n an interview with Worth, Clah ex- which Johnny was made to poke a stick into
pressed (in answer to the question “What do a spider web, a tension developed between
you want people to feel after they’ve seen them. It was not (as far as we could tell)
the film?’) some of these ideas in the fol- that Johnny immediately refused to act in
lowing way: “First I want people to feel the film, but rather that Johnny became less
tense-then to feel, what is the word-gro- friendly and found that he never had the
tesque, ugly-then at the end, they will feel time to be in subsequent shots.
calm.” It was at this point that A1 started making
The “tense” section of his film, he later the Yeibechai mask out of cardboard. It was
explained, occurred at the point that the “in- this mask that became the symbol of the
truder” poked a stick into the spider web long searches. Al had originally intended to
and the hoop started rolling. The “gro- have the intruder (Johnny) search for “the
tesque” section occurs during the constant thing (the rolling hoop) that started when
movement of the camera as the Yeibechai is he poked into the spider web.”
looking for the “cause” of the disturbance Several brief references to standard
caused by the rolling hoop set loose by the themes in Navajo mythology will give the
intruder’s poking into the spider web. The reader an idea of the strong ties (deliberate
“calm” comes when we see the hoop and or not) that exist between the “real” prob-
its shadow merging into one entity. This lems of the filmmaker, the problems of the
shot is inordinately long and well planned. It a m , and the problems of the Navajo as ex-
is the longest shot in the film, and as Al ex- pressed in his mythology.
plained before he shot it, “This part will be Navajo mythology helps us understand
so hard because the shadow must combine what on the surface seems to be a jumble of
with the wheel and this might take a long abstract “art” learned in school. Katherine
time to happen.” The shot opens with only Spencer (1957:19), in an analysis of the
WORTH & ADAIR] Navajo Filmmakers
plot construction of Navajo myths, has
written: “Rejection by his family or ridicule
and scorn on the part of associates may
set the stage for the hero’s reckless brha-
vior.”
Just as motion and travel and the m a n i p
ulation of the environment to put people
and things in motion give power, so does the
manipulation of the environment in other
ways-through film-give power and posi-
tive satisfaction to the Navajo.
Mike and also Johnny were able to give
their relatives sheep by borrowing “film of
sheep” from Susie and inserting them in a
sequence depicting their own relatives.
Susie, on the other hand, could be generous
by giving away “film sheep” and still retain-
ing her “real sheep.”
Susie was able to show that her mother
was a superior weaver, and her mother
could in return show that Susie was a supe-
rior weaver. The films thus gave the family
added prestige.
Mike was able to make a “haunted”
hogan beautiful by manipulating the envi-
ronment through editing to make it look as
if the haunted hogan was indeed still inhab-
ited. He showed first the outside of the
hogan, which everyone knew could not be
lived in, and then cut to a shot of someone
else’s hogan, which was clearly lived in.
Johnny was able to control the making of
the shallow well through film, while actually
refusing the job of construction foreman.
Through film he acquired the power to have
his cake and eat it. Perhaps Johnny ex-
pressed it best when he said, “What I really
want to see is something that I can move in
front of my own eyes, that I took myself-
that I made.”
The question of the consciousness or de-
liberateness with which traditional narrative
forms are transferred to new modes of
expression is one that estheticians, anthro-
pologists, and art historians, among others,
have asked many times. The important thing
is to note that the Navajo on first using film,
in an endeavor to communicate their view
of their world, chose to create forms that
33
were fulfilling, and possibly even therapeu-
tic, to them in traditional Navajo style.
NOTES
This research was supported by the Annen-
berg School of Communications, and by grants
#lo38 and #1759 from the National Science
Foundation. She1 Feldman of the Annenberg
School acted as research associate during the
planning period of the research, and Richard
Chalfen was research assistant in the field.
Robert Waterhouse and Grant McCall worked
as research assistants during the period of an-
alysis.
Pine Springs is situated in the southwestern
tip of Arizona about forty miles west of Gallup,
New Mexico on Route 66, and fifteen miles
north into the hill country of the Navajo Re-
servation.
’For a fuller analysis of this point see Worth
and Adair (in press).
‘All the films discussed here may be rented
or purchased for viewing and classroom study
from the Center for Mass Communication,
Columbia University Press, 440 W. 110th St.,
New York, N.Y. 10025.
REFERENCES CITED
ADAIR, JOHN, and SOL WORTH
1967 The Navajo as filmmaker: a brief re-
port of research in the cross-cultural as-
pects of film communication. American
Anthropologist 69:76-78.
ALBERT, ETHELM.
1956 The classification of values: a method
and illustration. American Anthropologist
58: 221-248.
ASTROV,MARGOT
1950 The concept of motion as the psycho-
logical leitmotif of Navaho life and litera-
ture. Journal of American Folklore 63:
45-56.
BIRDWHISTELL, RAYL.
1952 Introduction to kinesics. Louisville:
University of Kentucky Press.
BOUMAN, JANC.
1954 Bibliography on filmology as related
to the social sciences. Reports and Papers
on Mass Communication, No. 9. UNESCO
BROWN,ROGER,and URSULA BELLUGI
1964 Three processes in the child’s acquisi-
tion of syntax. Harvard Educational Re-
view 34:133-151.
CHOMSKY, NOAM
1965 Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cam-
bridge: The M.I.T. Press.
34 American Anthropologist [72, 19701
COLLIER, JOHN,JR. MCNEILL,DAVID
1967 Visual anthropology: photography as 1966 Developmental psycholinguistics. I n
a research method. New York: Holt, Rine- The genesis of language. F. Smith and G.
hart & Winston, Inc. A. Miller, eds. Cambridge, Mass. & Lon-
EISENSTEIN, SERGEI don: The M.I.T. Press.
1949 Film form: essays in film theory. J . OSGOOD, CHARLES E.
Leyda, ed. and trans. New York: Har- 1966 Dimensionality for the semantic space
court, Brace & Co. for communication via facial expressions.
EKMAN,PAUL Paper presented at Michigan State Univer-
sity, first of a three-part series on the
1965 Communication through nonverbal be- semantics of facial expressions.
havior. In Affect, cognition and personal- REICHARD, GLADYS
ity. s. s. Tomkins and C. E. Izard, eds. 1950 Navaho religion: a study of symbol-
New York: Springer Publishing Co. ism. Bollingen Series XVIII. New York:
GOLDSCHMIDT, WALTER,AND RORERTB. EDGER- Pantheon Books, Inc.
TON SAPIR,EDWARD
1961 A picture technique for the study of 1942 Navaho texts. (Supplementary texts
values. American Anthropologist 63:26-47. by Harry Hoijer). H. Hoijer, ed. Linguistic
HARRISON, RANDALL P. Society of America. Iowa City: University
1964 Pictic analysis: toward a vocabulary of Iowa Press.
and syntax for the pictorial code; with SORENSON, E. R., AND D. C. GAJDUSEK
research on facial communication. Unpub- 1966 The study of child behavior and de-
lished Ph.D. thesis. Department of Com- velopment in primitive cultures. Pediatrics
munication, Michigan State University. 37 (1, pt. 2 ) .
HOIJER, HARRY SPENCER, KATHERINE
1951 Cultural implications of some Navaho 1957 Mythology and values; an analysis of
linguistic categories. Language 27: 11 1-120. Navaho chantway myths. Memoirs of the
American Folklore Society, 48. Philadel-
MALINOWSKI, BRONISLAW phia: American Folklore Society.
1922 Argonauts of the western Pacific. Lon- WORTH, SOL
don: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd.; New 1966 Film as a non-art; an approach to the
York: E. P. Dutton & Co. study of film. The American Scholar 35:
MATTHEWS, WASHINGTON 322-334.
1910 Navaho myths, prayers, and songs; 1968 Cognitive aspects of sequence in visual
with texts and translations. P. E. Goddard, communication. AV Communication Re-
ed. California University Publications in view 16: 121-145.
American Archeology and Ethnology 5 WORTH,SOL, and JOHN ADAIR
( 2 ) , 1907-1910. F. W. Putnam and A. L. in press The Navajo make movies: the peo-
Kroeber, eds. Berkeley: The University ple depict themselves. New York: Holt.
Press. Rinehart & Winston.