Boran Herdsmen demonstrates the time-honored solutions to the problems associated with the Boran's dependence on cattle for living. Direct government intervention and the indirect impact of modernization are forcing the old patterns to change. The film depicts herding practices, movement patterns, watering strategies, and the lifestyle of the herdsmen.
The film has special currency for issues in rural development and agricultural, environmental, and human adaption. Courses that emphasize Third World problems, cross-cultural techniques of adaptation, the role of the environment in questions of human survival, and the role of government in rural development will find the film useful.
Major Concepts: Pastoralism, nomadic-sedentary interaction, environmental adaptation, role segregation of men and women in economic and ritual affairs, ritual and the role of the supernatural.
Films in the Kenya series
Boran Herdsmen
Faces of Change is comprised of 25 films that examine five cultures selected for their distinct geographic locations: starting with the
China Coast at sea level and moving up to
Taiwan, then to
Afghanistan,
Kenya and finally to the mountains of
Bolivia. Each location is examined through five themes: Rural Society, Education, Rural Economy, Women, and Beliefs.
This innovative collection of 16mm films and videos was funded by the National Science Foundation, produced by Norman Miller and directed by some of the finest ethnographic filmmakers of its time.