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.

Burma: small craft in Rangoon harbour. Study of a Chinese girl, taken on board a ship; she is joined by a female European friend. Sampang in harbour. Shots of Indian travellers coming ashore. Pagoda (Shwedagon?). Street and market scenes in Rangoon. Rural scenes, South Shan: preparations for the ‘dry cultivation’ of potatoes. Fascinating sequence of the ‘leg rowers’ of Lake Inle; the oar is held in a upright position, with the standing rower’s leg wrapped around it – propulsion comes from the circular gyration of the leg at the hip. Pagodas and stupas at Yawnghwe (shotlist ‘Yuangshweh’). Roadside scenes outside Mandalay; study of two young Burmese girls. Elephant pushing cut timbers with trunk and feet (shot list: ‘a valuable record which cannot be repeated’; see also MYY115). Sampang in Rangoon river; shot of large pagoda at Insein taken from boat.

Notes

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