image of person or book cover 4316764256067200063.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website.
form y separately published work icon Making a Bark Canoe single work   film/TV  
Issue Details: First known date: 1969... 1969 Making a Bark Canoe
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This film is a fine example of the many films that Roger Sandall made for the Institute of Aboriginal Studies in which he recorded Aboriginal craft techniques and skills – in this case, the process by which two men, Djurkuwidi and Wangamaru, work together to make a bark canoe.'

'Near the end of the Wet season, in the coastal swamps of Buckingham Bay in Arnhem Land, thousands of magpie geese fly in to build nests in the reeds. Canoes are used to travel through the swamps to hunt geese and collect eggs.'

'The film meticulously follows the process from the initial choice of the stringy-bark gum tree from which a huge sheet of bark is stripped, through to the completed canoe being poled through the swamps. Sandall’s narration explains details of the canoe-making process, and reflects on how techniques have changed from earlier times.' (Source: Ronin Films website)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Language: English
      1969 .
      image of person or book cover 4316764256067200063.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 16 minsp.
      Series: AIATSIS Collection Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies , collection

      'The Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (later AIATSIS – the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies) was established as a statutory authority in 1964. The Institute quickly established a film unit to act as an archive of filmed material and also to record material of ethnographic and historic significance. Part of this work also involved the preparation of films for public release, and until the early 1990s, the AIAS Film Unit became responsible for some of the most significant works of ethnographic film then produced in Australia. This collection of some thirty significant documentary works will be progressively released by Ronin Films in association with AIATSIS, where possible in re-mastered form and with associated interviews with filmmakers.' (Source: Ronin Films website)

Last amended 13 May 2016 15:30:52
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