Native American Filmography
updated
(12/04)
This filmography lists films, videotapes, and videodiscs
in the American University Library Media Services
collection that relate to the indigenous peoples
of North America. The programs represent a variety of perspectives
ranging from anthropological to historical to stereotypical
depictions in Hollywood Westerns. Other useful resources
for identifying media programs about the indigenous
peoples of North America include:
Battaille, Gretchen M. & Silet,
Charles L. P. (1985). Images of American Indians
on film: An annotated bibliography. New York: Garland. PN1995.9
I48 Z9935
National
Video Resources. (Winter 1993). Videoforum:
A videography for libraries,
Native American issue. V. 1. Available from
the MacArthur Foundation
Library Video Project, P.O. Box
409113, Chicago, IL 60640, 800/847-3671
Native American
Public Broadcasting Consortium. (1992).
Catalog of programming, 1992-93. Available from
Native American Public Broadcasting Consortium,
1800 North 33rd St., P.O. Box 83111, Lincoln, NE
68501, 402/472-3522
Weatherford,
E. & Seubert, E. (c1981-c1988).
Native Americans on film and video. 2
v. New York: Museum
of the American Indian/Heye
Foundation. PN1995.9 .I48 N37
Anthropological and Historical
Documentaries
Alaska, the last
frontier? Human geography, people places
and change. 1996. 1 videocassette (27
min.). This program shows the difficulties of balancing
the needs of indigenous peoples and the wilderness
with economic development and modern life in the
state of Alaska. VHS 3605
Alcatraz is not an island. 2002. 1 videocassette (58 min.). A brief history of the relationship
between the U.S. government and American Indians is covered at the beginning of
this program. This leads to a discussion of the
creation of the United Bay Area Council of American
Indian Affairs, in San Francisco, and a new Pan Indian Activism. This program focuses on the story
of the American Indian occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay beginning in 1969. Many of the former participants are interviewed.
VHS 7482
Always the
enemy; The only good Indian is a dead Indian. c1993. 1 videocassette (100 min.). How the West was Lost. "Always
The Enemy" describes the Apaches' struggle
under Cochise and Geronimo and the 27 years they
endured as prisoners of war even though they were
not defeated. "The Only Good Indian Is A Dead
Indian" shows how massacres of peaceful Cheyennes turned them toward vengeance and how the whites' slaughter of buffalo
herds destroyed their way of life. VHS 2192
America, the dancing
ground. 1 videocassette
(28 min.). Shows the importance of dance in American
culture from the native American dances and dances
brought from Europe by the earliest settlers
to the twentieth century innovations by Isadora
Duncan, Ted Shawn, Ruth St. Dennis, Martha Graham
and others. Excerpts from works by several dance
companies show the variety of dance types that are
part of American culture. VHS 2289
Ancestral
voices,
the power of the word. 1989. 1 videocassette
(58 min.). This is the first of two programs filmed
at Glassboro State College in Glassboro, New Jersey. This episode includes poets who turn to the past and their own
cultural heritage to understand the present. Featured
at a poetry reading at Glassboro State College and
in extensive interviews with Moyers are Garrett Hongo,
Joy Harjo, and Mary TallMountain.
VHS 783
Another wind
is moving: the off-reservation Indian boarding
school. c1985.
1 videocassette (58 min.). Interviews American Indians
regarding their experiences at boarding schools
and examines their positive and negative impacts.
VHS 580
Baked Alaska. 2003. 1 videocassette (26 min.). Documentary about how rising temperatures
and the battle over the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge (ANWR) are impacting life in Alaska. "Temperatures in Alaska are rising ten times faster than in the rest of the world. President Bush is ignoring the warning
signs. He pulled out of Kyoto and now wants to open a wildlife refuge for oil drilling. Native
Alaskans are divided: The Inupiat Eskimos want the
jobs and the money, but the Gwitchin
Indians fear it will destroy their reindeer.
Alaska is rich from oil. But each
barrel sent south comes back as damage to the delicate
balance of Arctic life." -from container. VHS 7267
Between two
worlds. 1990. 1 videocassette (58 min.).
The story of Joseph Idlout,
a highly respected Inuit hunter who attained celebrity
status in Canada in the 1950s as a model Eskimo
in the "good Indian" mold and was pictured
for many years on the back of Canada's two dollar
bill. Idlout's son, Peter Paniloo,
takes us on a poignant journey through his father's
life and tragic death. With footage from the NFB
film "The Land of the Long Day," we see Paniloo as a boy of 14,
living in his father's camp on the land in stark
contrast with his life today in Pond Inlet with
its satellite TV, supermarkets and fax machines. VHS 4139
Buffalo Soldiers. 1984? 1 videocassette (49 min.). A photographic history of the
two black cavalry regiments that served to keep
peace on the frontier from 1867 to 1891. Also shown
is the dedication ceremony at Fort Leavenworth of a monument to the Buffalo soldiers by sculptor Eddie Dixon, with speeches by Gen. Colin Powell
and other high- ranking black officers of the U.S.
Armed Forces. VHS 2284
The Chaco legacy.
Odyssey series. 1980. 1 videocassette
(60 min.). Examines archaeological theories about
the rise and fall of Chacoan
culture, which had a high level of technical development
and flourished over 900 years ago in the area of
Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Shows their extensive water control system, the large network
of roads they constructed and several mammoth structures
they built. Includes a history of the different
excavation projects. Examines the theory that the
Chaco civilization was a technological society that collapsed because
of the gradual depletion of their resource bases.
VHS 4955
A Clash of
cultures; I will fight no more forever. c1993.
1 videocassette (100 min.). How the West was Lost. "A Clash of Cultures" describes the defeat
and demoralization of the Navajo through a visit
to Monument Valley and a description of the 300-mile forced march known as "The
long walk." "I Will Fight No More Forever" describes the gallant fight of the Nez Perce tribe
under Chief Joseph. VHS 2191
The Columbian
exchange. Columbus and the age of discovery. 1991. 1
videocassette (58 min.). Follows the voyage of the
Venezualan Navy training
ship Simon Bolivar as it retraces Columbus's third voyage of 1498 which took him to coastal America and convinced him that he had reached the Orient. Also examines
the interchange of horses, cattle, corn, potatoes,
and sugar cane between the Old World and the New, and the lasting impact of this interchange on the
people of both worlds. VHS 1436
Columbus and The
Age of Discovery. c1991. 7 videocassettes (58
min. each). Exquisitely photographed, painstakingly
researched, this 7-nation co-production chronicles
Columbus's extraordinary journey and legacy. The definitive series commemorating
the quincentennial, this
video history relives Columbus's daring and dangerous voyages and their momentous repercussions--for
both the New World and the Old. VHS 1431-1437
Columbus didn't discover
us. c1992. 1 videocassette (24
min.). Indians from North, Central, and South America speak of
the impact the Columbus legacy has had on the lives of indigenous people. VHS 1980 (English
version) VHS 1979 (Spanish version)
Coming to
light Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians
: a film. 2000. 1 videocassette (56 min.).
Edward S. Curtis was an American photographer whose
documentation of Native Americans is appreciated
today especially by their descendants for the preservation
of their culture. VHS 6817
Cree hunters
of Mistassini. 198? 1 videocassette (58 min.). Shows the conflict produced by
the James Bay development scheme between a hunting culture of Cree Indians and
the dominant white culture that has come to rely
heavily on large-scale technology. VHS 6681
Dance me
outside. 1995. 1 videocassette (91 min.). Film looks
at the relationships between Anglos and Indians
on the Kidiabinessee Reservation in Northern Ontario from the
point of view of the Indians. When an Indian girl
is brutally murdered by a white hooligan, he goes
virtually unpunished. Shocked by the murder, four
teenagers find their friendships put to the test
as their struggle to become men and women becomes
entangled with a fight for justice. VHS 5727
Dancing in
one world. c1993. 1 videocassette (57 min.). Dancing.
This program was made with dancers from the Pacific
Rim Area including the United
States (Afro-Americans,
American Indians, and Hawaiians), Polynesia, Australia, and Indonesia. These dancers also took part in the Los Angeles Festival. Includes
archival film footage. VHS 2298
Death runs
riot. The West. 1996. 1
videocassette (85 min.). In the 1850s, as more American
pioneers poured west, they brought with them the
nation's oldest most divisive issue--slavery--and
the rough frontier would supply the sparks the would
ignite the Civil War. Indians would be dragged into "the white man's war," while the besieged
Mormons would commit the worst massacre of innocent
pioneers in American history. And as the bitter
Civil War drew to a close, celebrated Union heros
such as George Armstrong Custer and William Tecumseh
Sherman would use the tactics which had defeated
the South against the Native Americans of the West. VHS 4234
Domesticating
a wilderness. America, a personal history of
the United States. 1972. 1 videocassette (52 min.). Discusses the Mormons' establishment
in Utah, the first transcontinental rail link, the settlement of the midlands
by European immigrants, and the Indians' last desperate
struggles which exploded in the Custer massacre
and the Battle of Wounded Knee. VHS 1997
The eagle
and the raven purification by banishment. 1996. 1 videocassette (60 min.). Examines the case of two Tlingit Indian youths that were tried by a tribal
court for a crime committed outside reservation
land. They were sentenced to a period of banishment
in the Alaskan wilderness. VHS 4916
The Early
Americans. 1976. 1 videocassette (41 min.). Traces the
arrival of humans in North America as nomadic hunter, sometime
during the ice age, to builder of complex societies
around the 15th century A.D. VHS 6911
Fight no
more forever. The
West. 1996. 1 videocassette
(85 min.). By the 1870s there were only a few pockets
of resistance against the nation's push to conquer
the West. On the Great Plains, Sitting
Bull followed his mystical visions and urged his
Lakota people to fight rather than surrender their
sacred Black Hills and traditional
way of life. Custer's "Last stand" would also become, in effect,
the last stand of the Sioux as a free people. In Utah, the Mormon patriarch Brigham Young would be forced to choose between
saving his church or sacrificing
his spiritual son.
Farther west, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce
would find himself helping to lead one of the most
extraordinary military campaigns in American history. VHS 4236
Genocide,
from biblical times through the ages. 2002. 1 videocassette
(57 min.). Although the term "genocide" was coined by humanitarian Rafael Lemkin
in reference to the Turkish expulsion and slaughter
of Armenians in the early 20th century, the phenomenon
is as old as civilization. In this program, a variety
of experts analyze Biblical accounts and some of
the earliest documented examples of genocide, as
in the Athenian siege of Melos in 416 BC, to explore the psychology that motivates
such violence. This grim survey looks at the extermination
of Tasmanians, Native Americans, Namibia's Herero tribe, and the Armenians. VHS
6887
Geronimo
and the Apache resistance. 1990. 1 videocassette (58 min.). Using archival photos and interviews
with descendants of the Chiricahua
Apaches, the program highlights the clash between
Indian and white cultures and portrays the effects
on an Indian society faced with the loss of its
land and traditions. VHS 3082
Ghost dance.
The West. 1996. 1 videocassette
(85 min.). By the late 1880s, the Americans were
astounded by the change they had brought to the
West. Mining towns such as Butte, Montana were now full-fledged industrial cities. Defeated militarily, Native Americans
throughout the region now flocked to the call of
a Paiute mystic, who offered
the illusionary hope that the lost world of the
buffalo could be brought back by a Ghost Dance.
But its promises would be trampled in the snow and
blood of Wounded Knee. In place
of the great Native American cultures which once
dominated the Plains was a new culture, epitomized
by the Oklahoma Land Rush, in which 100,000 eager
settlers lined up for a mad dash to stake out a
farm and a future. VHS 4238
Gone west.
America, a personal history of the United States.
1972. 1 videocassette (52 min.). Deals with the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis
and Clarke Expedition, the exploration of the distant
reaches of the waterways, the forcing of Indian
nations west of the Mississippi, and the gold rush. VHS 1995
A Good day
to die; Kill the Indian, save the man. c1993. 1 videocassette (100 min.). How the West was Lost. "A
Good Day to Die" describes the rebellion of
the Dakotas, led by Crazy Horse,
Red Cloud and Sitting Bull, to the gold seekers
and shows how the victory at the Battle of Little
Bighorn foretold their defeat. "Kill the Indian,
Save the Man" describes the resistance of Dakotas and Northern Cheyenne to their
removal to reservations. Whites' hysteria about
the Dakotas' ritualistic ghost dance
led to the Battle of Wounded Knee. VHS 2193
The Great
Spirit within the hole. c1983. 1 videocassette (58
min.). Focuses on American Indians in the nation's
prisons and tells that Indian spiritual leaders
are often denied entry to prisons to commune with
their people. Emphasizes how freedom of Indian religious
practices aids in rehabilitation. VHS 1801
Hopi, songs
of the Fourth World. 1983. 1 videocassette (58 min.). An in-depth look at the meaning
of the Hopi way, a philosophy of living in balance
with nature. Describes the Hopi philosophy of life,
death, and renewal as revealed in the interweaving
life cycle of humans and corn plants. VIC 438
How the West
was lost. c1993. 3 videocassettes (300
min.). Documents the epic struggle for the American
West and the devastating effects of westward expansion
on the way of life of five native American nations
through the recollection of their descendants, archival
photographs, and historical documents. VHS 2191-2193
Hunters and
bombers. c1991. 1 videocassette (52
min.). Indigenous Peoples: Standing Their Ground.
The Innu (Montagnais Indians) of Labrador are protesting low-level military flights and the playing of war
games over their territory. VHS 1953
Imagining
indians. 1996? 1 videocassette (57 min.). Using an eclectic
mix of interviews, staged scenes and graphic imagery,
this film represents a Native American's view of
the disparity between self-perception and the white
culture's principally Hollywood-inspired interpretations
of Native Americans. VHS 6866
In the land
of the war canoes: Kwakiutl Indian life on the Northwest Coast. 1992, orig. 1914. 1 videocassette (47 min.). Presents an epic
saga of Kwakiutl Indian life on the northwest coast
of America as filmed in the summer of 1914 at Kwakiutl villages on Vancouver Island, Canada, by Edward S. Curtis. Edited and restored with the addition of
an authentic sound track. VHS 1818
In the light
of reverence. 2001. 1 videocassette (73 min.).
Across the United States, Native Americans are struggling to protect their sacred places.
Religious freedom, so valued in America, is not guaranteed to those who practice land-based religions.
This film presents three indigenous communities
in their struggles to protect their sacred sites
from rock climbers, tourists, stripmining and development and New Age religious
practitioners. VHS 7424
In the white
man's image. 1991. 1 videocassette (58 min.).
Examines the experiment of federal government boarding
schools for Indian children. Historians and writers
focus on this late 19th century experiment of indoctrinating
young Native Americans so that they would become
alienated from their language, religion, history
and social customs. In particular looks at the education
of a certain group of American Indians in the Carlisle School for Indian Students founded by Richard Pratt in the early part
of the 20th century. Includes the story of Cheyenne warriors who were exiled to St. Augustine, Florida as the first group of Indians to be schooled under Mr. Pratt's
direction. Native Americans who attended these schools
help tell the story of this humanist experiment
gone wrong. VHS 3036
In whose
honor? 1996. 1 videocassette (57 min.). In 1989 Charlene
Teters began protesting
the use of an Indian chief as the mascot of the
University of Illinois. Interviews with members
of the university and town communities discuss the
pros and cons of the Indian mascots, including the
damage to Indians' self-esteem but the revenue earned
for the university and for local businesses, campus
spirit and alumni support. American Indian leaders
were involved in protesting the misuse of Indians
as symbols of sports teams. Although the protests succeeded in a
few cases, Chief Illiniwek
is still the mascot at the University of Illinois. VHS 4143
Incident
at Oglala. 1992. 1 videocassette
(90 min.). In 1975, armed FBI agents entered the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Gunfire erupted -
a Native American and two FBI agents fell dead.
After the largest manhunt in FBI history, three
men were apprehended but only one, Leonard Peltier,
was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in
prison. VHS 3022
Indians,
outlaws and Angie Debo.
The American experience. 1988. 1
videocassette (58 min.). Outlines the life and unique
experiences of Angie Debo.
Her meticulous research of Oklahoma history revealed that the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma were victims of a complex swindle involving major political figures.
Debo was threatened and
isolated by these powerful politicians, but she
remained steadfast in her criticism of Indian policy.
Today, her books serve as a cornerstone of American
Indian scholarship, particularly as they related
to tribal sovereignty and land rights. VHS 4065
Iowa's ancient
hunters. 1979, made 1978. 1 film (28 min.). Presents
a documentary on the efforts of a group of archaeologists,
geologists, climatologists, and anthropologists
to reconstruct the climate, environment, and culture
of a prehistoric site located near Cherokee, Iowa. MPD 33
Ishi the last Yahi. 1992. 1 videocassette (57 min.). Presents further research by Jed
Riffe on Ishi,
the last surviving member of the Yahi
Native American tribe in northern California. "When 'Ishi,' the last surviving
member of a small Indian tribe, walked into the
small California town of Oroville in 1911, he became a media curiosity and scientific 'specimen.'
The San Francisco Museum built a Yahi house where audiences could
watch Ishi make arrowheads
and shoot bows. Ishi went
to the theater and received invitations of marriage.
But contact would bring him terrible physical and
psychological consequences." Summary taken
from American Experience/PBS website. VHS 4846
Joy Harjo. Lannan
literary series. 1989. 1 videocassette (60 min.). "Joy Harjo, one of
the most important Native American poets and author
of 'She had Some Horses', reads for the Laguna Poets
in Laguna Beach and is interviewed by Lewis MacAdams"--Container. VHS 3211
Last
stand at Little Bighorn. 1992. 1 videocassette (58 min.).
Examines the Battle of the Little Bighorn, known as "Custer's Last Stand," from an Indian and white man's perspective. Uses
journals, oral accounts, Indian ledger drawings,
archival footage, and feature films to present the
dual viewpoints of this historic event. VHS 4397
Leslie Marmon Silko. Native American novelists. 1995. 1
videocassette (42 min.). Profiles the Native American
woman author Leslie Marmon
Silko, whose work is strongly
rooted in her own matrilineal tribal background.
Like all writing of lasting value, it uses
particular experiences and places to reveal universal
truths. Here,
Silko discusses her own background and the interrelationship
between her smaller, immediate Indian world and
the larger brutal surrounding world. VHS 3933
Lighting
dances with wolves with Dean Semler . Kodak cinematography
master class series
. 1993. 1 videocassette (29 min.). Documentary film cinematographer
Dean Semler demonstrates
how he produced the effect of flickering firelight
in Dances With Wolves. A replica of the interior
of a tipi (or teepee) was constructed for the demonstration.
Scenes from Good Thing Going are used as examples
of his technique. VHS 2303
Little injustices:
Laura Nader looks at the
law. 1981. 1 videocassette (60 min.). Odyssey. Anthropologist Laura
Nader compares the resolution of everyday complaints
in law between a small Zapotec
Indian village and the United States. Studies are based on a 10-year study of 5000 consumer complaints.
She discusses the legal procedures and remedies,
and comments on the problems of an impersonal law
and on large corporations. VIC 209
Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris. 1989, c1988. 1 videocassette (29 min.). In a Bill Moyers interview, this husband-and-wife
team discuss how their writings reflect the
family, community, and lifestyles of their native
American heritage. They introduce the concept of "ironic survival humor" which enables
Indians to live under oppression. They also discuss
the native Americans' ability to live on the land
without pushing it to the brink of ecological disaster.
VHS 810
The Moravian
massacre. 1996. 1 videocassette (48 min.).
In 1782 in Eastern
Ohio ninety Moravian Indians were
massacred in what remains one of the most cold-blooded
murders in the nation's history. The village of Gnadenhutten (German for "House of Grace") was one of three Moravian
settlements along the Tuscarawas River. It was inhabited by Delaware and Mohican Indians converted to Christianity by Moravian missionaries.
Video explores the massacre itself and the events
leading up to it. VHS 5590
The Mystery
of the Anasazi. 1976. 1 videocassette (51 min.). Nova. Inquires into the mystery
of the unknown builders of ruins discovered by the
Navajo Indians 300 years ago. Considers questions
such as who these people were, what happened to
them, and why they disappeared. VIC 69
Mythos. 1996. 5 videocassettes (275 min.). Excerpts from Joseph
Campbell's last lecture series before his death
illustrate his theory of the origin, purpose and
history of myth and mythology. Psyche and symbol:
Looks at the universal themes that operate
in all people and cultures which link us together.
Also examines how
myths emerge from the unconscious and how, in every
culture, these myths have evolved to guide the individual
through the cycle of life. -- The spirit land: Explores
how, for the American Indian, myths served to awaken
in them a mystery of life and provided them with
the rituals to prepare them for the obstacles of
the real world. On being human: Discusses the characteristics
we share in common with the animal world, and that
point where animal behavior ends and human behavior
begins. -- From goddesses to gods: explores the
connections between ancient societies and the origins
of the Western Judeo-Christian tradition. -- The mystical life: Uses texts and artifacts from
the ancient mystery religions of Greece to reveal the unbroken connection between these religions and those
of the West. VHS 5142, VHS
5143
Myths and
the moundbuilders. Odyssey series. 1981. 1 videocassette
(60 min.). Archaeological. ecological
and experimental studies of the mound
builders of the U.S. Midwest and Southeast.
The huge earthworks and mounds scattered through
the eastern half of the United States prompted people in the nineteenth century to speculate that a lost
civilization had preceded the Indians then living
among the mounds. Though we've known for some time
that the ancestors of those Indians actually built
the mounds, archaeologists are still exploring their
contents for a better understanding of their builders.
Includes both the Hopewell (100 BC- 300 AD) and Mississippian (700-1600 AD) prehistoric American
cultures, and discusses social organization in such
large communities as Cahokia in East St.
Louis. VHS 4949
N. Scott
Momaday. Native American
novelists. 1995. 1 videocassette (45
min.). The Native American experience is portrayed
in conversations with N. Scott Momaday. VHS 3994
Native Americans
the invisible people. CNN special
reports: Invisible people. 1994. 2
videocassettes (109 min.). A special report on the
current social conditions of Native Americans. VHS 7395
Navajo medicine.
1993. 1 videocassette (29 min.).
Examines the lack of health care on the Navajo reservation
and the struggles of Navajo health care workers. VHS 3466
New Orleans' black Indians
a case study in the arts. Faces of
culture: revised. 1994. 1 videocassette (28
min.). Explores the blend of American Indians and
blacks that comprise the Black Indian tribes of
New Orleans as they carry out a century old tradition of participation in the
pre-Lenten Mardi Gras revelry. VHS 3123
One sky above
us. The West. 1996. 1 videocassette (85 min.). As the 20th century neared, Americans
celebrated with the World Columbian Exposition,
where they were toldthat the frontier had closed,
but in the real West, for every frontier story that
ended, another one began. Some Native Americans
waged a struggle to hold onto their traditions in
the midst of rapid, overwhelming change, while others
chose to learn the white man's ways, hoping to help
their families and their tribe. In California, the emerging metropolis of Los Angeles waged yet another battle to control the arid region's most precious
commodity--water. Much had changed in the West,
but it continued to be what it had always been--a
landscape of the imagination, the reservoir of our
shared hopes and dreams, a place of both conflict
and infinite possibility, and an enduring symbol
of something unquestionably American. VHS 4239
The people. The West. 1996. 1
videocassette (85 min.). To the original Native
American inhabitants, the West has been a land of
myth. To the European settlers, the West was a "wilderness" to be conquered. Nearly 100 years before the American
Revolution, the Pueblo people of the Southwest rose up against their European masters
and drove the Spanish from their lands. Then, with
America's purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1804, Lewis and Clark set off to find the fabled Northwest Passage, as a confident
young nation prepared for its own epic march across
the West. VHS 4231
Picuris Indians. c1988.
1 videocassette (54 min.). Presents a glimpse of
some of the most intimate, unrehearsed moments of
the Picuris Indian people
at the site of their ancient pueblo hidden in a "Shangri-La" setting in a high mountain
valley in the Picuris Mountains of north central New Mexico. VHS 882
The Primal
mind. 1984. 1 videocassette (58 min.). Hosted by
Jamake Highwater, incorporates
scenic views, still photographs, and vintage footage
in examining the contrasts between traditional native
American concepts and European-based American cultures.
Focuses on differences related to art, nature, architecture,
and time. VHS 685
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