Travelogue films showing indigenous life in the interwar period, filmed by the British traveller, linguist, spy and author Reginald Teague Jones OBE, who changed his name to Sinclair after his alleged involvement in the massacre of Bolshevik commissars from Baku in the Caucasus in September 1918.

Views of distant Kilimanjaro across plain; two men in shade of tree, middle distance; thatched hut, Africans in traditional and western dress, children. Further views of Kilimajaro, including shots taken from a moving car. Game, from car: ostriches. Shots of African women, looking at the camera, talking and laughing. Young men with dog; spear throwing demonstrations for the camera (shot list: ‘tribal types’). Various portraits of African men. Long sequence of giraffes, alone and in a large herd. Unidentified European man, talking to the camera in front of car. More giraffes. Masai (?) tribesmen, women and children; large groups of people sit on the grass, looking at the camera occasionally. Game: zebra, antelope, ostriches. Two Europeans observing a giraffe. Portraits of two Africans. European man looking through binoculars; various shots of the landscape. European setting up camera tripod and filming game. Giraffe at close quarters. Waterfall. Traditional dances (shot list ‘tribal war dance’).

Notes

Catalogue entry by Dr Francis Gooding, AHRC Colonial Film Database 2010.