In Search of the Hamat’Sa: A Tale of Headhunting

Synopsis: Produced in the Program for Culture and Media at New York University, The Hamat’sa (or "Cannibal Dance") is the most important and widely known ceremony of the Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl) people of British Columbia. This film traces the history of anthropological depictions of the dance and, through the return of archival materials to a First Nations community, presents some of the ways in which diverse attitudes toward this history inform current performances of the Hamat’sa. With a secondary focus on the filmmaker’s fieldwork experience, the film also attends specifically to the ethics of ethnographic representation and to the renegotiation of relationships between anthropologists and their research subjects.
Language: English
Country: United States
Year of release: 2006
Year of production: 2004
Subjects: Anthropology; Dance
Keywords: British Columbia; ceremonies; ethnography; Indians of North & South America; dance - ceremonial

Name: Royal Anthropological Institute
Contact: Susanne Hammacher (Film Officer)
Email: film@therai.org.uk
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Notes: The Institute sells more than 250 anthropology and ethnology titles on video and DVD, including some produced by students and staff of the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology. There is also a large library of internationally produced film and video productions from which items may be borrowed within the UK.

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