Timothy Asch

The people of the Tana 'Ai region of Flores, Indonesia live in seven ceremonial domains, of which Wai Brama is the largest and the oldest. The people of Wai Brama are shifting cultivators, hunters and gatherers who, unlike their neighbors, have maintained their traditional ceremonial and social system. A Celebration of Origins, filmed in 1980, depicts the first celebration of these rituals since 1960. The rituals, which require the participation of the entire community, had been delayed by poor harvests and epidemics. The film focuses on a small group of ritual leaders who struggle to hold the celebration in the absence of the Source of the Domain, the ritual leader of the community, who died after initiating the rituals. Evoking the contested nature of ritual, the film demonstrates how ritual performance implicates delicate political relationships based on pragmatic alliances, festering antipathies or developing jealousies.

Cremation rites are the most elaborate rites of passage performed by Balinese householders. Poor families may wait years before accumulating enough resources to cremate their dead, who are buried in the meantime. In 1978 many more cremations than usual were carried out because of the great purification cermony, Eka Dasa Rudra, held at Bali's main temple, Besakih, in 1979. Religious officials recommended that all Balinese cleanse the island by cremating their dead, as part of the preparations for the great Besakih ceremony. Villagers of limited means pooled their resources to perform group cremations which greatly reduced the cost for each family. This film is about a group of villagers in Central Bali who cooperated to carry out a group cremation.

This traditionally ethnographic sequence film focuses on the negotiations betwen representatives of two families during a payment of bridewealth. In the past the husband's group would carry a spear and a sword to hang in the wife's house. Now, a payment is made as a substitute for the spear and sword. The payment of bridewealth is a long and complex ceremony in which representatives from the husband and wife's family engage in a heated negotiation process. The bride and groom are completely excluded from the negotiations and never appear in the film.

This film examines the ecology and poetry of everyday life. Two Rotinese narrate this film, each offering his perception of the importance of the Lontar (Borassus) palm: a clan leader describes the many practical uses of the palm; a poet tells of its origin and mythic significance. The film complements Fox’s book, The Harvest of the Palm, as well as his essays on ritual language.

Unlike many spirit mediums, Jero Tapakan practices as a masseuse once every three days, when possession is not auspicious. This film focuses on Jero's treatment of Ida Bagus, a member of the nobility from a neighboring town. Jero has been treating her client for sterility and seizures. She begins work this day with religious preparations and the assembling of traditional medicines. Treatment includes a thorough massage, administration of eyedrops, an infusion, and a special paste for the chest. The dialogue, which is subtitled, includes a detailed discussion between anthropologist Linda Connor, Ida Bagus, and Jero, about the nature and treatment of the illness, as well as informal banter between Jero, her other patients, and people in her houseyard. In an interview, Ida Bagus and his wife speak about the ten-year history of his illness and a variety of diagnoses

Jero, who know sustains a lively practice as both medium and masseuse, recalls her earlier poverty and despair as a farmer, and how she fled her home and wandered briefly in the countryside as a peddler. After serious illness and mystical visions, she returned to her husband and underwent a consecration ceremony as a spirit medium. Here she talks with Linda Connor about these experiences.

In 1981, anthropologist Linda Connor and filmmakers Tim and Patsy Asch returned to Bali with video cassette recordings of A Balinese Trance Seance. The resulting film presents some of her reactions to Connor as she watched and listened to herself for the first time. Jero had a unique opportunity to spontaneously and consciously react to and reflect upon the experience of possession. Her comments provide insight into how she feels while possessed, her understanding of sorcery, and her humility in the presence of the supernatural world. More mundane thoughts are revealed as well, for example the importance of the fine appearance of her house. Jero On Jero could most fruitfully be used as a companion to A Balinese Trance Seance, which would be shown first and followed by a discussion, before screening Jero Tapakan's own response.

Bringing offerings of rice, flowers, and woven coconut leaves, clients visit Jero in her household shrine to determine the cause of their son's death. Jero lights an incense brazier, sprinkles holy water, and recites mantras as preliminaries to trance. Several ancestors and finally the young son speak through her voice, revealing the nature of his premature death (witchcraft) and his wishes for cremation. In contrast to other films about Balinese trance which focus on spectacular, community performances, this film provides an intimate view of a fascinating process of communication between Jero, the spirits, and her clients who are at one point moved to tears. (der.org)

The Ax Fight (1975) is an ethnographic film by anthropologist and filmmaker Tim Asch and anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon about a conflict in a Yanomami village called Mishimishimabowei-teri, in southern Venezuela. It is best known as an iconic and idiosyncratic ethnographic film about the Yanomamo and is frequently shown in classroom settings.

This is one of the few ethnographic films in which the anthropologist appears as one of the subjects, and as such it is a lively introduction to the nature of fieldwork. Napoleon Chagnon, who lived among the Yanomamo for 36 months over a period of eight years, is shown in various roles as "fieldworker": entering a village armed with arrows and adorned with feathers; sharing coffee with the shaman Dedeheiwa who recounts the myth of fire; dispensing eyedrops to a baby and accepting in turn a shaman's cure for his own illness; collecting voluminous genealogies; making tapes, maps, Polaroid photos; and attempting to analyze such patterns as village fission, migration, and aggression.

Yanomamo feasts are ceremonial, social, economic, and political events. They are occasions for men to adorn their bodies with paint and feathers, to display their strength in dance and ritualized aggression; for trading partnerships to be established or affirmed; and for the creation or testing of alliances. In the feast filmed in 1968, the Patanowa-teri had invited the Mahekodo-teri to their village. The two groups had been allies until a few years before this event, when they had fought over the abduction of a woman. They now hoped to renew their broken alliance, which they did successfully. Soon after the filmed feast, the two villages together raided a common enemy. A detailed discussion of this feast, and of the significance of feasting among the Yanomamo, is found in chapter 4 of Chagnon's Yanomamo: The Fierce People. The film's graphic representation of reciprocity and exchange may enrich (and be enriched by) a reading of Marcel Mauss' The Gift.

This film illustrates the field techniques used by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Michigan in collaboration with their Venezuelan colleagues. The film also includes a brief sketch of Yanomamo culture and society.