thumb|thumbtime=1|upright=1.5|In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914)

thumb|George Hunt (with megaphone), Edward S. Curtis, and actors filming In The Land of the Head Hunters

thumb|Another production still.

In the Land of the Head Hunters (also called In the Land of the War Canoes) is a 1914 silent film fictionalizing the world of the Kwakwaka'wakw peoples of the Queen Charlotte Strait region of the Central Coast of British Columbia, Canada, written and directed by Edward S. Curtis and acted entirely by Kwakwaka'wakw native people.

The film was selected in 1999 for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant." It was the first feature-length film whose cast was composed entirely of Native North Americans; the second, eight years later, was Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North. It was the first feature film made in British Columbia, and is the oldest surviving feature film made in Canada.

Original release

Curtis had earlier experimented with multimedia. In 1911 he created a stage show with slides, a lecture, and live musical accompaniment, called The Indian Picture Opera. He used stereopticon projectors, where two projectors dissolved back and forth between images. This was his prelude to entering the motion picture era. Curtis spent approximately $75,000 to make the film, but it only earned $3,269.18 after a year in theaters. He was so disappointed with the film's financial performance that he sold all the rights to the film to the New York Museum of Natural History in 1919 or 1920. When the museum lost Curtis's donated material, the film was considered lost until 1947. The 2008 restoration brought together these materials.

Historical accuracy

In the Land of the Head Hunters has often been discussed as a flawed documentary film. The film combines many accurate representations of aspects of Kwakwaka'wakw culture, art, and technology from the era in which it was made with a melodramatic plot based on practices that either dated from long before the first contact of the Kwakwaka'wakw with people of European descent or were entirely fictional. Curtis appears never to have specifically presented the film as a documentary, but he also never specifically called it a work of fiction.

Plot

The following plot synopsis was published in conjunction with a 1915 showing of the film at Carnegie Hall:

Cast

See also

  • Dances of the Kwakiutl (1951), short documentary

Notes

  • In the Land of the Head Hunters essay by Brad Evans and Aaron Glass at National Film Registry [https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/land_head_hunters.pdf]
  • In the Land of the Head Hunters essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 37–39 [https://books.google.com/books?id=deq3xI8OmCkC]
  • Edward Curtis meets the Kwakwaka'wakw: "In the Land of the Head Hunters"
  • Book version of In the Land of the Head Hunters (published 1915; now in public domain). PDF scanned from a copy in the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley.
  • In the Land of the Head Hunters: Film Introduction and Panel Simon Fraser University - YouTube