A pact with the “devil”

In Pins’ article entitled “Visual Meida and the Primitivist Perplex”, a dilemma is explained in the form of stories.

The filmmaker recounts his experiences with various tribes as he endeavored to produce documentaries about their lives; their political desires and their need to preserve their traditions.

What I find interesting about the article is this whole dichotomy or contradiction between having to deal with the “Western world”, while also wanting to protect customs historically kept hidden from outsiders.

The “devil” or “Faustian” expression may not mean solely “Western culture” in this paper, but rather the dangers of revealing ancestral secrets coupled with the use of modern technology. The ladder implies a certain “dependence” on “civilized cultures”.

This type of dependence, if managed properly, can play in the advantage of Aboriginal cultures. However, there may also be a tendency to “assimilate” the members of the tribe to new ideas or “tint” the ancient knowledge with foreign concepts.

References:

Prins, Harald E.L., “Visual Media and the Primitivist Perplex: Colonial Fantasies, Indigenous Imagination, and Advocacy in North America,” in Media Worlds: Anthropology on a New Terrain, eds. Faye D. Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod, and Brian Larkin, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, 58- 74