Dead Birds

The Dani people live in western New Guinea. Their settlements are in the Baliem Valley. The documentary follows their daily life. Two people are at the centre of it. One is a grown warrior named Weyak. The other is a boy named Pua. Weyak spends his days keeping watch. There is an ongoing conflict with a neighbouring group. Both sides hold the same belief. By that belief a death on your own side upsets the balance. What restores it is a death on the other side. So the conflict never comes to an end. The film shows that cycle together with the work and the beliefs of ordinary days. It was shot during the Harvard Peabody expedition that began in 1961, which included anthropologists and naturalists. Robert Gardner made the eighty four minute film, an American production finished in 1963.