Series Disappearing World Series
Director Leslie Woodhead, Mette Bovin
Country/Production UK
Release 1988
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon / Africa
Ethnic Group Wodaabe
Order No RAI-200.196
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... is the Wodaabe world disappearing? and how are we to place the painted male faces? The very considerable success of this film is the ways it answers these questions. J. Picto The Wodaabe follow their herds in an endless migration across the borders of Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon in search of pasture. The droughts which have ravaged the Sahel since the late 1960s have devastated Wodaabe cattle herds, and this film looks at the daily pattern of survival of one hard-pressed family group at the height of the dry season. Gorjo bi Rima and his family have been the focus of Mette Bovin's fieldwork since 1968 and she has seen his herds decline from more than 300 cows to less than half a dozen. Yet, as she emphasises, the Wodaabe see their life as a balance between hardship and joy, and the film expresses this in sequences which record a child's naming feast and the Wodaabe's obsession with male beauty and adornment. `We like beauty,' Gorjo says. `We like to see people who are young and handsome and this is why we put on make-up.' The elaborate make-up of the young men and their dances, a kind of male beauty contest to gain the attention of women, are linked to a complex system of taboos which the Wodaabe insist they will maintain despite mounting pressures to abandon their nomadic lives. For another view of the Wodaabe and additional bibliographic references, see the entry for Deep Hearts (in RAI Film Library Catalogue Volume II). A.M. Bonfiglioli, 1988. Dudal. Histoire de Famille et Histoire de Troupeau Chez un Groupe de Wodaabe du Niger. Cambridge University Press. M. Bovin, 1974/5. `Ethnic Performances in Rural Niger: An Aspect of Ethnic Boundary Maintenance'. Folk (Copenhagen), Vol. 16/17, pp. 459–74. M. Bovin, 1985. `Nomades "Sauvages" et Paysans "Civilisés": Wodaabe et Kanuri au Borno'. Journal des Africanistes, Vol. 55, No. 1/2, pp. 53–73. M. Bovin, 1990. `Nomads of the Drought: Fulbe and Wodaabe Nomads between Power and Marginalisation (Burkina Faso and Niger Republic)'. In M. Bovin and L. Manger (eds.) Adaptive Strategies in African Arid Lands. Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala. M. Bovin, 1990. `"Mariages de la Maison" et "Mariages de la Brousse" dans les Sociétés Peules, WoDaaBe et Kanuri autour du Lac Tchad'. In N. Echard et al (eds.) 4ème Colloque MEGA-TCHAD. ORSTOM and CNRS, Paris. M. Dupire, 1975 (1962). Peuls Nomades. Etude Descriptive des WoDaaBe du Sahel Nigérien. Institut d'Ethnologie, Paris. J. Picton, 1988. Review of the film. Anthropology Today, Vol. 4, No. 5, p. 23. C. Ver Eecke, 1989. Review of the film. American Anthropologist, Vol. 91, pp. 835–36. C. White, 1984. `Herd Reconstruction; The Role of Credit Among WoDaabe Herders in Central Niger'. Cambridge Anthropology Vol.9, No.2, pp.30–42.
