Dead birds
Presents an ethnographic cross section of the life and customs of the Dani people who live in the Baliem Valley of West New Guinea. Dead birds is a term for a person killed by the enemy which is any neighbouring group of the Dani clan who engage in continual formal battles and less frequent but more deadly raids against one another. Each death must be revenged to appease the ghosts of the slain. Warriors also decorate themselves with feathers and bird-like markings as part of a belief system that the clan chose to live briefly like birds rather than forever like the serpent
VHS Video, English, 1963
Hardvard University Film Study Center, Cambridge, MA, 1963