"Cheenama the Trailmaker" (1935)
Category: Produced Film
Length: 38:17
| Film ID | f16-2090 |
| Film Description | This early documentary film takes the form of a story; and aims to show the life of a family of Algonquians (Ojibwa) through different activities of everyday life, such as hunting, picking berries, and the manufacture of baskets, skins, and clothes. Part 1: Presentation of the family: Cheenama and his wife Penni, their son Oka and Blue Jay their youngest child. We see the fauna and the surrounding flora, scenes of everyday life: picking of berries, soaking of skins, manufacturing of buckets and moccasins, hunting, and fishing. Part 2: In a continuation of the first part, we see the family of Cheenama cooking by their tent. Cheenama and his wife are smoking, discussing when to move camp. Construction of a new canoe with birch bark. Part 3: Continuation of the construction of the new canoe. After hunting and fishing, they dry the meat and the fish. The camp is dismantled, they leave and settle in a new place. Cheenama made a fire. We see fields, lake. Oka is hunting ducks. Part 4: During the period of the harvest we see Cheenama and his wife Penni in a canoe in the fields of wild rice. Cheenama beating rice. Once the harvest is ended, Penni places birch bark to hold the rice to dry in the sun, then on the fire. Cheenama digs a hole to trample the rice there. Finally Penni gets the black rice in birch back baskets and covers it with skins for transport. This cataloging is courtesy of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, http://geoweb.civilization.ca:8001/ |
| Video Category | Produced Film |
| Topics | Algonquins, Ojibway, Canada |