Indigenous Media

Itam Hakim Hopi by filmmaker Victor Masayesva was a piece considered an Indigenous ethnography in other words a grassroots piece. It was allowing the director Victor Masayesva to turn the camera around on his own people. He had the chance to tell in a sense his story through the main character, Ross Macaya. This piece was original in that although in the native language of Hoopi there were no subtitles. He seemed to have on purpose, narrated over the main narration. His soothing voice and tone allowed to give a feel to the viewer this notion of oral storytelling.


The whole ethnography is in the narrative of Ross Macaya. He is telling stories of the Hoopi people and stories on how they came to be. What is also unique in this type of ethnography is that he seems to not necessarily make a direct connection with what is being seen and what is being told. Although symbolically and metaphorically there is some connection.

He draws many connections between the people and the natural enviornment, or their natural surroundings. He has a very poetic undertone in the way he cut and edited this film. With the words of Ross Macaya, he shows images of corn being collected and planted and as well in the beginning shows Ross himself weaving a type of traditional dress.

This ethnography was interesting in that it was the first look into "grassroots" media other than "Number Our Days".
"Number Our Days" was a very different approach in this look into indigenous film. "Number our Days" while not necessarily as poetic and metaphoric was still an interesting approach to indigneous media. She looked into a community that "one day she would be a part of".

It was revealing not only in the aspects of the culture but it was universal. Not only was it an insight into the Jewish culture but it was a revealing look into the world of the old. Sad and moving it was a compilement of different narratives from the different people in this Jewish Community Center.


She would cut to herself at times and put in her own two sense of her feelings and reactions to her findings. I think it was nice to see how she was reflecting on her own culture. Her being apart of this culture, or eventually to be a part of it, I found myself almost giving her the authority to iterject and give her own opinion because she herself is a pat of that community.


This film was also in a sense a means to communicate the social injustices that this community had to endure. With the scene of the people giving out free groceries and Meyerhoff explaining that there was not enough support of this center, it exposes the in-humane conditions that some of these older people have to go through. It opens the public's eye and shows how hard it is for some people to get by.

Both these films were unique in the ethnographic field in that it was coming from their side. Both these films reflected the film-maker's culture and where they come from or where they will go. I found myself listening to them more and trusting their input and opinions on the culture they were studying because in a sense they had an "in". They could both speak with authority on these cultures because they themselves are those cultures in a sense. I enjoyed both these films. They both offered very different insights into two very different cultures but were very telling, eye opening, and educational