Full film record of the twelve-day Nambudiri Agnicayana ritual performed in Panjal, India, the world's oldest surviving ritual, a Vedic sacrifice to Agni, the god of fire. Filmed in Kerala, southwest India, this 12-day ritual was performed in 1975 for perhaps the last time. Footage documents the material and spatial preparations for the event and r...

The Curt Maury papers, dating from 1953 to circa 1985, measure 12.7 linear feet and include writings and notes for planned and published books; travel files and expense ledgers for trips to India; photograph ledgers; and extensive photographs and slides of India.

Full film record documents a number of martial arts forms found in south India. Included are the velakali, martial dance of Kerala; the oacchirakali, mock-combat ritual enactment of Kerala; the kalarippayattu, Kerala martial art; and alternate styles of south Indian martial arts including the "southern style" kalarippayattu and silambam. Please no...

Four edited films made in 1974 and 1975 by Clifford Reis Jones in India. Originally filmed in 35mm. Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and co...

Aschwin Lippe was a research fellow and later curator in the Department of Far Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The collection includes his early research and writings on East Asian art, particularly Chinese paintings. It has substantial material on his involvement in selecting the paintings and writing the catalog for the 1961 Chinese Art Treasures Exhibition. He later shifted his research focus to medieval Indian sculpture. The collection includes journals kept during several years of field research in India as well as his extensive photo-documentation of Indian temples and religious sculpture.

Amateur film footage shot in India ca. 1965, amateur edited film on India from footage, amateur edited film, YELLOWSTONE (1938). Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary ...

This accession consists of materials documenting the planning, development, and installation of the exhibition "Celebration: A World of Art and Ritual." This exhibition was created by the Office of Folklife Programs in conjunction with the Renwick Gallery and contained six hundred objects all chosen from the collections of nine Smithsonian ...

This collection consists of the professional papers of Dr. Gus Van Beek, Curator of Old World Archaeology, Division of Archaeology, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution. Included is the overall body of field logs and notebooks, correspondence, administrative work, research for and about exhibits, photographs, drawings, work on a variety of Departmental committees, and work leading toward the publication of a number of manuscripts and papers. These materials cover roughly the period from 1959 when Dr. Van Beek was hired as an Associate Curator in the Department until 2008 when he actively ceased work in his office at NMNH.

This collection contains the professional papers of anthropologist Marvin Harris. Harris was a prominent anthropologist, best known for developing the controversial paradigm of cultural materialism. He authored several important books in the field of anthropology and taught at Columbia University and The University of Florida. The papers include correspondence, research materials, his publications, unpublished manuscripts, conference papers, lectures, subject files, teaching files, computer files, and photographs.

This accession consists of Smithsonian Foreign Currency Program grant review files, both accepted and rejected, which document international funding requests for development in museum collections, scholarly initiatives, and public programs. The records date back to when Francine C. Berkowitz served as Grants Program Manager at the Office of Fe...