Hunting Wild Doves

Duration:

Year Published: 1967

Creator: International Film Foundation

Complete Record: The first program shows DOGon tribesmen as they scale sheer cliffs, using braided ropes, to hunt doves. The second program illustrates the onion farming methods of the DOGon people. The third program shows a festival of the nomadic desert tribes of Southern Morocco. The DOGon people live in the mountains between cliffs and steep ridges. The bark of the baobab tree provides the fiber which is hand-woven into the rope used for scaling the cliffs in which the wild doves make their nests. The inner bark of the baobab is cut off in large pieces from the lower trunk with an adze, and beaten to a fiber with a hammer. After being soaked in water, the fibers are plaited and doubled to make strong ropes. The young DOGon men climb the cliffs for sport and to capture pigeon squabs that are too young to fly from their nests. The doves are eaten and used in a sacrifice such as the Annual Festival of the Dead. The manure of the pigeons, collected and lowered down the cliffs in sacks, can be used in gardens and is traded by the DOGon.