warauduati

Adam Ball, director and cinematographer, with a Bachelor’s Degree in ethno- graphic filmmaking and involved with the Garífuna language program at the University of Florida in Gainesville, and Alison Muckenfuss, photographer with a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, announce the upcoming release of their new documentary called „Man in Manali“ produced by their own company High Noon Pictures. The final version of about an hour and a half will be subtitled in Garífuna, Spanish, and English.

„Man in Manali, an experimental ethnographic video on an indigenous people called the Garifuna who reside on the eastern coasts of Central America. Our intention is to depict the daily life of a Honduran community through visual images. To gain insight into their own view of daily life, we gave a means of production to members of the Garifuna community. To acknowledge the effect of our presence on their daily lives, we included ourselves in the depiction.“ High Noon Productions

In Honduras Manali is also known as Ciriboya, a small and fairly pure Garífuna village on the edge of the Caribbean on one side and of lagunes, mangroves and the Mosquitia rainforest on the other. During my field research in 2004 I passed through Ciriboya for some time as well. Here several traditions like the original way of making casabe, guifiti, and machuca, building thatched rooftops, and the religious and ceremonial dügü are still known and seen. Due to bilingual schools set up within the last years, the Garífuna language seems to be spoken again by all generations.

I am exited and looking forward to watch this documentary, one of the very few that have been made about the Garífuna people throughout Central America. A trailer and various pictures are available already.

On Sunday Invocavit, the 1st Sunday of fasting, our region as well as some parts of Austria and Switzerland celebrate a tradition called „Funkenfeuer“ (maybe best translated as „fire of flying sparks“). The days before youngsters collect old christmas trees, wood, straw, and crates within the local area. Now- adays associations dedicated to the maintenance of tradition are involved, too. Normally the collected material is piled up in an elevated spot within the village borders, in the midst of the stack a long branchless pole with a witch made of straw on top.
The evening of Sunday Invocavit kids and juveniles with lanterns and torches as well as adults assemble at the stake. Along with polka sounds of the local brass band the fire is lit up. The sparks are flying. Wine is served. Cheers are made. The highlight is reached when the witch is in flames and finally brought down.

Supposedly the „Funkenfeuer“ with its accompanied customs has a long tra- dition. Testimonies reach back to the 11th century in Germany, the Sunday Invocavit is dated back to the 13th century in France and there are various notes on Switzerland and the region along the shores of Lake Constance. From the 19th and 20th century there are many reports because of an inten- sification of field research within the developing ethnic, folklore, and cultural studies.
Nevertheless the definite origins and motives of the „Funkenfeuer“ are still a mystery. Theories range from power of nature motives, love and friendship rituals, fire victims and witchcraft, feast and fasting periods, to carneval and spring fire traditions. Originally, Sunday Invocavit was the final night of Fasching (carneval) for a long time. Today the main reason is to symbolically expel the wintertime …

Literature:
Kapfhammer, Günther, 1977: Brauchtum in den Alpenländern. München: Callwey.

Photos:
See the Funkenfeuer within the new gallery section (in process) …

Click pic to enlarge …

Many thanks to I.P.S.!

„Cultural Rallye for Oldies and Youngtimers from the Allgäu to the Orient“ !
Start: Oberstaufen, Germany. Destination: Amman, Jordan(ia).



Rules:
1) Vehicles of twenty years and older.
2) Vehicles of 2.000 Euros and less.
3) Vehicles stay in Jordan(ia) for the good cause or will be scrapped along the route.
4) Entry fee is 111,11 Euros.
5) Nights are spent in tents or accommodations less than 10 Euros.
6) Daily, there is no more than 666 kilometers to be driven.
7) The winner gets a camel to be visited in Jordan(ia) whenever wanted.
8) More information: Rallye Allgäu – Orient.
9) Aim: „The Good Cause“ – „Fromagerie a lá Allgäu“: Cheese production in artisan Allgäu-style, in collaboration with the World Food Program of the United Nations. The cheese sold at Amman’s market will be called „Rallye- Käse-Oberstaufen“ !



Sources:
a) PanoramaGolf.de
b) Stern.de
c) Die Neue Epoche Online
d) Allgäuer Zeitung, Die Dritte Seite, Dienstag, 06. Februar 2007, AZ Nr. 30.
e) Die Welt.de

P.S.: Wouldn’t that be something for ker.?

„The Curse of the Caribbean“ – not only because of the latest discussion on Disney’s cannibals – but also on gold as a curse itself, Inca gold!

After a sensational success in Leipzig and Berlin with more than 80.000 visitors, the Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg presents the exhibition „Der Fluch des Goldes – 1000 Jahre Inkagold“ the 21st of January to the 24th of June 2007.

The highlights are „art-historical significant original gold-exhibits“ (Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg – INKAgold Austellung). Kindly as a loan of the Museo Oro del Perú, masks, mugs, bowls, burial objects, and jewelry from 400 B.C. to 1.500 A.D. are to be seen.

But besides this special exhibition, Hamburg’s Museum for Cultural Anthropology is always a recommendable experience…

Thinking about blogosphere I couldn’t help to feel disappointed of many plea- sant and helpful entries lost in the great void of the world wide web within time. Consequently I started to install and test new plugins here on this site.

First of all, there is a new feature called „Popularity Contest“, kindly provided by Alex King, presenting you warauduati’s Most Popular Entries. On a personal level it is interesting to follow which articles are read and commented the most, but on an administrative level I hope for some maybe valuable infor- mation (at least in my unassuming and modest believe) not to be lost within cyberspace. Because of the fear of a distorting statistics, I set the popularity values of home, archive, category, and feed views to „0“, only counting comments (30 pts), permalinks (30), pings (50), and trackbacks (80). I hope that these settings will show the readers of this blog which entries are found and read the most within time.

Secondly, I am running a test phase of „Search Phrases“, provided by Glüh- weinjunkies, although after a few hours I already notice that the feature is not showing the 100% valid googles. It is very well likely that I will shut down this plugin in a few days again.

Thirdly, the next days I will work on an „Articles List Page“ as well as on a „Photos List Page“ to provide a faster and more convenient way to search through this blog for bygone but still interesting entries, instead of browsing the archives and categories. This time Alex King’s „Articles“ plugin didn’t work out for me because I don’t want to list articles below the implemented cate- gories. So this feature might take a few days of construction, but with the advantage to also post some old published articles such as in Ethnologik.

Anyway, another few hours of figuring out blogosphere in its terms and by all means, the technical finesse is still an unread book to me …

Michael Poliza, a wildlife, nature, and landscape photographer known for his images in National Geographic, Nature’s Best Photography, Africa Geographic, Travel Africa, and Stern, and his friend Stefan Breuer recently crossed Africa at low levels by helicopter. The results are fantastic aerial and close-up views and an interesting to read daily diary. The project „Heli-Africa: Hamburg to Cape Town“ later was covered in a 34-page feature by Stern magazine…



Poliza’s new book Africa apparently sold out within three months and has been reprinted now. In the past he also published Die Reise der ‚Starship‘, In 1000 Tagen um die Welt after a three-year multimedia round-the-world project called „Starship Millennium Voyage„, and Wildlands: Adventures In Some Of the Most Extraordinary Places On Earth.
„True to his IT roots and passions, Poliza was one of the pioneering photo- graphers to embrace digital photography“ (M. Poliza Photography: About). Check out the portfolio for his works reaching from Antarctica, African Sunsets and Chimpanzees Mahale Mountains to Himbas and Nude in Nature.





Thanks to T. H.-W. for the reference!

Being well sloshed—and succesfully having unnerved the bartender—they are parting at 2am. „I will google you,“ she says as a good bye. „Finally,“ he thinks while watching the taxi receding into the unknown city’s dim lights, „the information age has penetrated all aspects of my life.“



cited via zephyrin in xirdalium

One of the first entries here discussed Metro- polis, a science-fiction-based movie released in 1927 by Fritz Lang. Now, 80 years after its première, toy company Stenco, known for its robots since 1955, reconstructed Maria.
Created when the face and soul of human activist Maria is transferred to a female robot, robot Maria now becomes an evil seductress in the movie. As a rarity in film those days, Maria had been an example and an inspiration for various machine men in the future, C-3PO of Star Wars probably the most famous.
The original robot was destroyed by a fire while shooting Metropolis in 1926. Since then fans worldwide tried to reproduce her based on the movie scenes and press photos. Her creater Walter Schulze-Mittendorff built a static copy in the 60s.
Now, Stenco wants to distribute 2.000 speci- (wo)men of life-sized Maria made of synthetic resin throughout the internet and the German film library in Berlin beginning in February. Additionally to the figure, busts and smaller models can be purchased by collectors, museums and cinemas.

Nothing much happened during my absence of You Tube. Apart from another Ooolalaa music clip featuring The White Stripes with „Seven Nation Army“, the Littleloca stuff is still the same and gets kind of boring actually. Nevertheless other interpretations by Stevie Ryan keep my attention. Once again she has done a wonderful nostalgia vid that’s worth watching. If I am not mistaken by my short research, the beautiful music is by Yann Tiersen, a young Breton versatile minimalist multiinstrumentalist (see Wikipedia). Simply enjoy, nothing more…

Reviving the „old days“ … as a counterpart to cyberculture? Yet so much of cyberculture as it gets, which reminds me of an overdue reply to zephyrin on xirdalium which might follow within the next weeks (promised?).