Celluloid Subjects to Digital Directors. Jennifer Debenham
“the prevalence of the group A is a characteristic of the European peoples … and that blood group B had originated in India”.7 It implied a polygenic origin for humans, challenging the more widely accepted monogenic theory proposed by Charles Darwin.8 The Hirschfelds advocated for an internationalised study of blood groups claiming it “would be necessary to have close co-operation between anthropologists and the blood groupers”.9 The importance of this Index to the work of the SABAR group meant the origin of Aboriginal Australians could be determined through blood grouping.
Cleland had been collecting blood group data since 1922 and the conclusions he drew from his work simultaneously reinforced the findings of two other Australian doctors, A. H. Tebbutt and Sarah McConnel; that Aboriginal people were an early offshoot of Caucasians. He believed that the long isolation and separation of Aboriginal people from other groups ←37 | 38→explained the high numbers in group A and an absence of group B which he believed pointed to a lack of Indian or Asian presence.10 The allure of this hypothesis fitted with the belief that science could provide an objective stage where theories of racial hierarchy could be played out. Cleland believed that the resulting data collected would provide a means to racially identify people.
His results indicated a close relationship between Aboriginal people and Caucasian Australians stimulating heated debate not only within the scientific community but also within the wider community. Controversially, Cleland believed it was feasible that Aboriginal peoples could be biologically absorbed into the mainstream white population without causing any undue genetic detriment. Cleland became the foremost advocate for the biological absorption of Aboriginal people.11 It was believed this attempt to phenotypically12 “disappear” Aboriginal people was the answer to what was commonly referred to as the “Aboriginal problem”.
Two Aboriginal Protectors, Cecil Cook in the Northern Territory (1927–1939) and A. O. Neville in Western Australia (1915–1940) were also enthusiastic supporters of an absorption policy. They saw it as a remedy to the inconvenience of having to make special considerations for a minority population group. Others saw it as an opportunity to ensure a unified society. Contrary to what Cleland and his colleagues had in mind, Cook and Neville sought a more structured and methodical approach to how the policy was managed. Sadly, in the hands of these two men it led to the forced separation of families, The Stolen Generations, and today most Aboriginal families still suffer from the familial and cultural dysfunction caused by their interpretation and management of the policy. Although Life in Central Australia makes no specific references to eugenics or policies regarding absorption, the film is ideologically framed by these contemporary ideas. It demonstrates the processes of collecting the biometric data used to support the range of hypotheses proposed by the research group.
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The Film
The silent black-and-white film shows how the scientists interacted with the Warlpiri, Ngarti and Anmatjere people who came to the scientists’ camp. It depicts them as test subjects that provide a source of biomedical data with which to test various hypotheses. For example, the audience observes the methods of blood collection used in the field at this time to develop the hypothesis that Aboriginal peoples were “safe” to absorb into the settler Australian population. The film serves as a visual record of the methodology employed in the field, helping to anchor the visual narrative to the scientific circumstances that were in play when the film was produced.
Establishing the integrity and proficiency of the scientists, the film records the performative display of what the researchers believed to be their scientific objectivity. Each of the researchers engaged their imagined audience by regularly acknowledging the presence of the camera whilst they carried out their tests and experiments and interacted with the Warlpiri, Ngarti and Anmatjere people. They demonstrated how they caste Plaster of Paris face masks, took blood samples from earlobes, measured basal metabolic rates, recorded songs and vocabularies and conducted psychological tests; faithfully recorded to demonstrate their scientific objectivity and proficiency.
The film’s narrative of one hour, focuses on the scientist’s three weeks round journey from Adelaide to Cockatoo Creek in three stages. The first comprising 00:05:58 minutes, shows the group of scientists leaving Adelaide by train to Alice Springs. The group included:
Dr T. Draper Campbell [dentistry] (Organiser), Professor J. B. Cleland [pathologist and ornithologist] (Chairman of the Board for Anthropological Research), Professor T. Harvey Johnston [Professor of Zoology specialising in parasitology], Professor C. S. Hicks [physiologist, pharmacologist], Professor 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,