H. J. Wilkinson [anatomist, camera operator], Dr R. H. Pulleine [physician of ear, nose and throat], Dr H. K. Fry, [physician of neurology], Dr R. F. Matters [physiologist], Mr H. M. Hale (Director of the South Australian Museum), Mr N. Tindale (Ethnologist to the South Australian Museum), Mr H. Gray (student of medicine), and Sydney ←39 | 40→businessman Mr E. O. Stocker [camera operator] as well as the assistant taxidermist from the Museum, Mr A. Rau.13
In addition to this group was Charles Mountford whose contributions will be discussed later in this part. Then 41 years old, he worked under the supervision of Norman Tindale, then aged 31, employed as the ethnologist at the South Australian Museum. Mountford collected crayon drawings made by some of the Warlpiri, Ngarti and Anmatjere men, women and children.14 Another person was Ernest Kramer, from the Aborigines’ Friends’ Association who acted as liaison between the scientists and the Warlpiri, Ngarti and Anmatjere people. And finally, Mr F. Colson acted as guide, cook and insect collector.15
The film’s second stage of 00:02:16 minutes begins at Alice Springs where the scientists and their helpers load pack horses and lorries with equipment and supplies for the journey to an outlying pastoral station. The final stage of 00:01:14 minutes shows the group travelling by camel for the rough journey to Cockatoo Creek. The long visual narrative to reach the destination helps reinforce the remoteness, isolation and the harsh terrain that the scientists had to overcome in their quest to meet up with the Warlpiri, Ngarti and Anmatjere people. It also implies that by its very remote location these people must be very primitive.
The next stage of the film of 00:28:10 minutes depicts Warlpiri men in classic anthropological poses, such as throwing spears, hunting kangaroo, and cooking their catch on the fire. It also shows one of the men using a metal axe to prepare a kangaroo for the fire. Collectively, these images reinforce the visual cues of primitiveness associated with Aboriginal people.
The focus of the film is to record the scientists collecting data. For example, Cleland and Dr Thomas Harvey Johnston take blood from an Aboriginal man’s earlobe using a haematology pipette, a now largely disused ←40 | 41→method for obtaining blood samples.16 At two moments, slow-motion shots make an examination of spear throwing and walking, indicating the influence of Professor Wilkinson, an anatomist interested in studying the muscle connections with the skeletal frame who also assisted in filmmaking. Further footage shows how members of the SABAR group interacted with the Warlpiri, Ngarti and Anmatjere people in the area. The cinematographer, E. O. Stocker is shown with an Aboriginal man who looks through the lens of the camera. This still photograph, inserted at the editing stage, is interesting in that it appears to be the first image made of an Aboriginal person looking through the lens of a cinematic camera from the operating side. Scenes of one of the scientists talking to a group of children, implies a cordial relationship between the scientists and the Warlpiri, Ngarti and Anmatjere people.
The film appears to conclude with the return of the expedition party to Adelaide. The film footage shot on 35 mm nitrate stock was not incorporated into the main six-reel narrative shot on the 35 mm and 16 mm safety film footage but is included in what could best be described as an extended visual appendix of 00:17:01 minutes showing how the party collected data in the field and is identified as NFSA Title No. 335556. There is also evidence that a colour film was produced in this expedition. At the time it was technologically impossible to copy colour film and as a result this sequence of film was screened only on rare occasions. The film has now deteriorated so extensively it cannot be viewed at all.17
Although the visual appendix shows the Aboriginal subjects with numbers painted on their bodies, many are afforded recognition of their traditional names. For example, the test subject G57 is also recorded and ←41 | 42→referred to as Kakuta, a Warlpiri man.18 This is only apparent in the curator’s notes that accompany the film and Tindale’s field notes held by the South Australian Museum (SAM); the film shows the test subjects moving around the campsite with the numbers painted on their bodies, usually on the back of their shoulders. Images of Tindale and Draper Campbell sitting with members of the Warlpiri group collecting information and using an Edison phonograph to record their voices are full of laughter. They appear to be enjoying hearing their voices played back. Other footage show groups of people gathered around Norman Tindale who is writing down what appears to be words for different parts of the body, such as the ear. The groups are seen laughing at his attempts.
Included in the appendix is a record of the basal metabolic tests being conducted on a group of Aboriginal men. Believed at the time to determine the efficiency of body temperature control, they tested the efficiency of Aboriginal bodies to adapt to the environment and were carried out by physiologists Cedric Stanton Hicks and R. F. Matters. The cumbersome and elaborate equipment together with the clutter of an outdoor laboratory and camp kitchen contrasts markedly with the handful of spears, boomerangs and pitchies (wooden bowls) that the Warlpiri, Ngarti and Anmatjere people brought when they gathered at Cockatoo Creek.
Other activities recorded on the film include Herbert Mathew Hale, director of the South Australian Museum, and Tindale making plaster face moulds, in what appears to be a gruelling experience for the Aboriginal test subject. Herbert John Wilkinson collects dermagraphs (hand prints) whilst Henry Kenneth Fry and Robert Henry Pulleine conduct sense and intelligence tests. Grey, the medical student, washes some children’s hair so that he can examine hair track patterns. Film footage shows Wilkinson taking still photographs of some Warlpiri, Ngarti and Anmatjere women. The photographs showing body profiles; frontal, and side on shots of the women subjects are now considered classic anthropological representations that come from a time when the ethical ramifications of making such images was given little if any consideration. The film concludes with ←42 | 43→A. Rau, the taxidermist returning aboard a camel from a day of collecting animal specimens.
Collectively, the films record the performance of an elaborate display of scientific ritual that emphasised the proficiency and the scientific objectivity of the members of the expedition in their fields of expertise. As a silent film, both the scientists and the Warlpiri, Ngarti and Anmatjere people represented have no direct dialogue with the audience through the film. However, the scientists had more power over how they represented themselves in the editing of the film, deciding the content and placement of the intertitles and had an opportunity to address the film’s audience whenever they exhibited the film. The Warlpiri, Ngarti and Anmatjere people never enjoyed such latitude in their representation. What the film appears to show is their amiable disposition in front of the camera and an eagerness in displaying their skills of spear throwing, making pitchies, shields and spears. Intermittently segments of this footage are shot in slow motion to accentuate the graceful movements of the men. When footage of a pubic tassel being made and is then completed an inter-title appears which says “on retiring the suit is hung on the door”. The Aboriginal man hangs the pubic tassel on his wurley (bush hut) while looking directly at the camera and smiling demonstrating not only his sense of humour at the situation created by the scientists but also an acute awareness that he is performing for the camera; never aware of the intertitle slight.
Paid in food, tobacco and boiled sweets, as exchange or payment for their participation in the tests, the Warlpiri, Ngarti and Anmatjere take advantage of the opportunity to participate in the tests. The extra food compensated for the gathering of these three groups at Cockatoo Creek for ceremony and indicates the relationship between the scientists and the Warlpiri, Ngarti and Anmatjere peoples was to some degree mutually beneficial, despite the imbalance of power exercised by the scientists. At 00:14:52 footage shows Ernest Kramer of the Aborigines’ Friends’ Association. He was responsible for gathering the Warlpiri, Ngarti and Anmatjere at Cockatoo Creek for
