Contrasting Depictions in 1920s Italian and British Colonial Missionary Documentaries

the constructions of colonial dynamics in two Catholic missionary films, one Italian and one British, illuminate the respective colonial powers' contrasting agendas in the 1920s. The Italian documentary Italy in Eritrea and the Catholic Missions (Italia in Eritrea e il ruolo delle missioni, 1922) features Indigenous people, local customs, and Catholic missionaries from the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. This film presents the colonized and colonizing people in ways that differ sharply from another Catholic missionary film from the same period, the British Mill Hill Fathers Shed Light on the Dark Places of Earth (1920), which features footage of the British colonizers in Uganda. Using sociocultural interpretation as well as a careful look at the images and their denotations, this article shows that the differences in these films mirror the divergent strategies of Italian and British colonial rule in the early twentieth century.Both documentaries were produced by Catholic missionary groups. Italy in Eritrea and the Catholic Missions was filmed in Massawa and other cities in Eritrea. The Capuchins had played a key role in the Christianization of Eritrea. In 1894, the Capuchin father Michele da Carbonara was the first apostolic prefect of the Italian colony of Eritrea, and he influenced substantially the development of later missionary activities. The British film Mill Hill Fathers Shed Light on the Dark Places of Earth was produced by the St. Joseph's Missionary Society of Mill Hill and shot in Kampala, Buganda. When the St. Joseph's Missionary Society of Mill Hill arrived in Kampala and established its station in 1895, Buganda was still an independent kingdom. Five years later, it became a province of the British Uganda Protectorate.Analyzing cultural production in the form of missionary documentaries during colonialism in the 1920s from a comparative view allows for a deeper understanding of the impact religious institutions had in the construction of "colonial subjects." Missionaries' difficulty with local languages made images more amenable as a medium to communicate with colonized "children" or "pupils," as the Indigenous people were called. The missionary documentaries had multiple functions, including the "education" of Eritreans to colonial ways of life and, primarily, the need to raise funds for the missions.Italian and postcolonial studies have been moving toward transnational and comparative perspectives. However, scholarship pertaining to Italian imperialism and colonial rule remains mostly rooted in a nation-state framework, with a few exceptions that compare Italian and German colonial rules. This article's comparative analysis of how Italian and British religious institutions dealt with local communities under colonial rule enhances understanding of what the "civilizing mission" signified in the two European countries. The comparative research thus breaks new ground that makes the respective social contexts emerge more clearly.To Italian Catholic missionaries, the idea of educating the colonized locals was central to their work and ideals, while the purpose of the British Catholic mission was different. The British missionaries' aim was a civilizing undertaking. To put it in their own words, the goal was, as the title goes, "to shed light" on the colonized people who resided in what the colonizers saw as spiritual darkness. Educating and civilizing are divergent goals of missionary work. Analysis of commonalities and differences in the two Catholic films illuminates the type of work missionaries initiated in their respective colonized communities, and it provides an answer to the question, how did colonialism and proselytism contrast and compare in different colonial settings?This study analyzes the selected documentary films in relation to several questions. What did the respective colonial governments offer by using images to transmit their sociocultural ideas, civic understanding, or rule of law? What was gained from using documentary films in the colonial expedition? How might viewers understand the underlying colonial rhetoric informing the films' images? Building on Clifford Geertz's conception of "controlled comparison," this study uses a tightly constructed approach in selecting films that have certain overt similarities. Another foundation is the work of anthropologist Lloyd Fallers, whose ethnographic study of the Buganda (a Bantu kingdom in Uganda) examines the idea of "primordial loyalty" (Fallers 4). This article also builds on the research of Maria Francesca Piredda, which analyzes Catholic cinema and argues that "missionary films are a phenomenon which has been linked to the official use of images by the Catholic Church from its origins until now" (Piredda 214). Missionary films from the 1920s were generally screened for their national Italian and British audiences, who gained a specific, projected idea of the Indigenous cultures. This study expands on Piredda's work to focus on the similarities and differences in the portrayal of colonized individuals in the two case-study films and to link prevailing anthropological and ethnographic frameworks to the colonial cultural production by Italian and British missionaries from the period.Relatively few studies have examined Italian and British colonialism or cultural production from a comparative view, whereas British imperialism has long been the focus of comparative history studies. Among the most recent works, that of James R. Fichter deserves special mention; he argues that British and French colonial empires "were mutually constructed," such as in their engagement with Islam during the Hajj pilgrimage period, in how they shared control over the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and South China Sea, and in how they approached their de-colonization processes (Fichter 60). Similarly, Robert Aldrich's study considers the mutual aspects of British and French "indirect rule"—for instance, in the deposition of native monarchs in Asia and Africa. Aldrich argues that even when colonizers impoverished and destabilized local sovereigns, they could not erase the memory of monarchism in national identity, anticolonial campaigns, and the heritage exiles left behind. The collection edited by Nadine Meouchy and Peter Sluglett features essays on the political and cultural policies of British and French mandates in the Middle East and compares their applications and effects.Studies exploring Italian and British colonial rules from a visual perspective are rare, whereas numerous works have explored British and French colonialism from a comparative perspective. Although Italian colonial experiences are abundantly investigated by scholars, it is not clear why there is academic hesitation to use the Italian colonial case as an example for comparative work. Perhaps the divergent colonial rules employed by France and Italy make comparative studies more challenging. For example, Italy's direct rule approach framed colonial territories as an overseas projection of the national administration. During the empire (1936–41), there was a policy of totalitarian subjection, and Italy did not give importance to the study or preservation of Indigenous cultures. However, before that time, in the liberal era beginning in 1882, there had been a different approach to colonialism. Research by anthropologist Gianni Dore has shown that some Italian officers studied Indigenous culture during the years preceding the invasion of Ethiopia in 1936. For instance, Dore details the work of officer Alberto Pollera (1873–1939), a self-made ethnographer who produced several ethnographic works on Eritrea between 1902 and 1922 that were focused on the so-called customary laws.In addition, divergent scholarly views on the impact of Italian colonialism on Eritrean society raise crucial issues that call for further investigation. One line of research that informs the present study is Tekeste Negash's disagreement with Taddia's findings. Negash states that Taddia has argued without sufficient evidence that Italian colonial rule "brought profound changes to Eritrean society" (Taddia 40). Negash explains, "My main contention with Taddia lies . . . in the problem of assessing the intensity of colonial impact on Eritrean society" (Negash 19). According to Negash, Italy's initial "native" policy considered "the rural nature of the colony and the preservation of Eritrean social organizations" (22). Negash finds that from 1907 until 1932, Italian colonial policies "avoided a drastic reorganization of Eritrean society and economy because of the new economic role assigned to Eritrea" (23).Negash identifies 1932 as a turning point in Italian colonialism; that was the year when preparations for the invasion of Ethiopia began, and the so-called first-born colony of Eritrea assumed greater strategic importance. The political stability necessary for the development of Eritrea's economy in the earlier phases of colonialism was no longer the priority from 1932 onward, with new economic and social strategies implemented to prepare for the war. Historian Lucia Ceci has proposed another periodization, stressing that the period between 1935 and 1938 saw significant changes to the administrative system and ideology of fascist Italy. Thus, Ceci's periodization falls three years later than what Negash indicates as a turning point in Italian colonial rule (1932–35). Ceci emphasizes that between 1935 and 1938, racism shaped the Italian government's plans, and legislation applied racist theories to pursue a plan of racial purification (Ceci 28). It was a divide et impera ideology.Looking at Italian colonialism before 1932, the questions raised by the divergence between Taddia and Negash call for further investigation of the complex relations among colonial subjects before divide et impera was implemented in colonial administration. Gianpaolo Calchi Novati has demonstrated that unlike other colonial powers, in its earlier phases, Italian colonialism aimed to turn the colonies into unified nations (Calchi Novati 60). Additionally, through research into cultural propaganda, Alessandro Triulzi has shown that the first photographs taken by Italians portraying Eritrea's people and lands replicated the representations of Italians from the southern part of Italy (Triulzi 185). This implies a level of identification between colonizers and colonized that does not belong to other colonial societies.Although Triulzi notes that Italians associated Eritreans with the Italian southerners, to the Eritreans the colonizers were not southerners or northerners but instead white colonialists. Eritreans situated themselves and behaved in relation to the presence of Italian colonialists irrespective of the part of Italy they came from. Stating this does not dismiss the history of racism and violence suffered by Italian southerners, who were associated with Eritreans and racialized by colonial propaganda. Instead, the point is that an association between Italians and Eritreans was constructed during Italian colonialism—and that the same association did not exist in the British case.What is under scrutiny in this article is the comparison of the two films to ascertain how the two colonial powers established colonial societies differently. The comparative analysis reveals that the Italians aimed to create a colonial society that was inclusive of the colonizers, who were mainly settlers who moved to Eritrea from Italy to stay and prosper. Italy in Eritrea and the Catholic Missions features scenes in which Italians and Eritreans collaborate and work together. It does not include images that show Eritreans as servants or as subjected to work for the Italians. By comparison, in the British film Mill Hill Fathers Shed Light on the Dark Places of Earth, there is a starkly different choice in representing Indigenous people. Ugandans are shown serving the British missionaries as valets or baggage handlers. Their social and religious rituals are defined by title cards such as "barbarous methods to be overcome by Missionaries" (12:06). Throughout, the British film's title cards and images denote a glaring difference from the Italian film: they convey the message that British intervention aimed to substitute and eradicate preexistent social structures to create a strict, newly structured colonial British society.Reflecting research that has highlighted traces of connection between Italians and Eritreans during colonialism before the 1930s, Italy in Eritrea and the Catholic Missions attests to an interest in filming local dances and local ways of organizing communities. While it gives little accurate information regarding Indigenous traditions, the film does not attempt to dehumanize the locals. It does not present the Eritrean people as "other" or convey what an Italian audience would have perceived as inexplicable rituals and traditions. Importantly, the documentary by the Italian Catholic Capuchin monks does not frame Africa through nostalgia for imperial Rome in ways akin to Fascist-era portrayals of colonial subjects.The Capuchins' portrayal of Eritreans is rich in ethnographic material. To gain a deeper understanding of its aesthetic, one must situate this film in the larger context of Italian ethnographic and anthropological studies on Eritreans from the early colonial period. The film was made during what Barbara Sòrgoni defines as a phase of "moderate subjection," which implies that Italy was "attempting to gain some knowledge of Indigenous cultures [and] to the extent [that] Indigenous traditions were useful to colonial rule they were preserved, manipulated, or forbidden. . . . Italian colonialism during the Liberal Era [1861 to 1922] encouraged the study of Indigenous cultures and social structures" (Sòrgoni 229). Sòrgoni shows that during this early phase of colonial rule, Italian professional anthropologists centered their studies on the hierarchical categorization of races and cultural traits. Among these theories, Giuseppe Sergi's "Hamitic hypothesis" received international success and remained at the center of debates until the 1960s. Notably, in Sòrgoni's view, the Hamitic hypothesis "placed Europeans and Africans in the same species pointing to a desire for contact and the fertility of cross-race sexuality" (230).In the 1930s, there was a remarkable change: anthropologists' attention completely turned to biological determinism and the categorization of human races. In the 1930s, anthropologists played a key role in the reorganization of Italian colonial rule. Lidio Cipriani, an anthropologist working for the regime and the creator of the Manifesto of the Race, changed the logic of Italy's colonial rule. Moreover, in contrast to Sergi, Italian anthropologist Paolo Mantegazza (1831–1910) sought to develop a unified "science of man" (Mantegazza 4). The broad definition of this new discipline brought together collections of human physiology, ethnography, and comparative psychology in Mantegazza's new anthropology museum, later complemented by a companion psychological museum. Mantegazza's Florentine school ended during Fascism; however, today it is still possible to visit the collections he catalogued at his Museum of Anthropology and Psychology.The perspectives shaping the 1922 Italian missionary documentary contrast not only with views that dominated Italy in the 1930s; they differ significantly also from the intellectual and political terms central to the British colonial project. Describing how anthropology and colonialism intertwined in British colonial rule, Jack Stauder writes that before the 1920s, "[a]nthropology in Britain was dominated by controversies between diffusionists and evolutionists, who held in common, however, an historical and often speculative approach that was primarily concerned with reconstructing the past of mankind" (Stauder 321). In Anna Grimshaw's terms, pre-1920s "salvage anthropology looks backwards. It is the past of a society, not its present or future, which has meaning and authenticity" (Grimshaw 24). However, in the early 1920s, the discipline of social anthropology introduced the functionalist school of thought. The study of how and when functionalism became embedded in colonial rules allows scholars to trace important differences and similarities in respective government policies of Italy and England. Importantly, in Italian overseas territories, functionalist theories were applied much later than in British colonies and protectorates. Moreover, in contrast to the British documentary under discussion, Italian missionaries involved with Italy in Eritrea and the Catholic Missions played a crucial role in the study of Indigenous communities in Eritrea without applying any specific methodology.In the 1920s, Father Mauro da Leonessa directed Italy in Eritrea and the Catholic Missions. Even though da Leonessa wrote extensively about characteristics of Eritrean "types" based on initial observation, his documentary film does not focus on the perceived differences between the Italian colonizers and the other ethnic groups in Eritrea. There is no representation of different Eritrean "types" to convey the message that Italians have the mission to civilize them, a choice that contrasts with the British film. For instance, in da Leonessa's film, locals are shown performing their everyday life activities (01:08), whereas the British film shows Ugandan people working for the colony as drivers and other services (04:42). Another scene in the Italian film illustrates how Eritrean people in the city of Ghirba preserve and carry water. This is a two-minute sequence (from 24:02 to 26:00) that shows the people making long trips to carry sufficient water for themselves and for their animals. This scene, along with others in the Italian film, denotes three main goals in the Capuchins' approach to filming Eritreans: fascination with what they witness, direct learning, and collecting knowledge from them. These three aims or lessons are completely absent from the British film.Mill Hill Fathers Shed Light on the Dark Places of Earth represents different ethnic groups from the British African territories with title cards that highlight the perceived differences between the British colonizers and the locals. In one scene (discussed later in more detail) that illuminates how the British missionaries constructed the colonial subjects, people from a tribe that the title cards do not identify feed on a bull (13:31). Title cards do not provide any details about how the people receive nourishment from the bull while keeping it alive. Audiences simply see a man assaulting the animal and pinching its jugular vein with a stick to drink some of the bull's blood. After a few seconds, the animal is set free. A title card describes the man as a "human vampire" (14:05), which racializes these people and identifies them as horrific.In contrast, Italy in Eritrea and the Catholic Missions opens with a scene of dhows (traditional sailing vessels with one or two masts) on the Red Sea that also clearly includes larger modern ships in the background. It then shows three children bowing in front of the camera, which does convey an image of subjugation. Soon, depiction of salt harvesting becomes one of the film's central ideas, which highlights colonial notions of modern resource-extraction techniques.In the opening scenes, neither the images nor the title cards explain where the images were shot, but later it is stated that they took place in Gherar, around the northern part of the Massawa area, where salt mining was in operation. The film suggests that Italians "discovered" an ancient method of harvesting salt that involves building and expanding on Indigenous ideas. To emphasize this, the colonial footage presents multiple scenes having to do with salt making and preservation. The salt-making process is slowly detailed, showing salt collection, its placement on a train heading to a factory, and eventually salt being shipped out to world markets. The small-gauge train moves the unrefined salt from the harvested site to the factory, demonstrating that the modern system of transportation has replaced the use of camels for the work.Interestingly, the workers seem to go about their roles in the process of salt production without any apparent sign of discomfort, even in scenes where a worker has difficulties climbing the mountain of salt. Apparent ease and familiarity with this kind of work are indicated through the calm and meticulous movements of the laborers, as if they are adept at this work. The salt-workers scene alludes to and represents the process of assimilation enacted by colonialism. Here, colonizers' perceived and imagined ideas about the cultural traits of Indigenous people are partially acknowledged. The camera does not distinguish the ethnicities of the workers, but it shows able and skilled salt workers and farmers who demonstrate their knowledge of and ability to carry out this work, often oblivious to the camera.The film's images and title cards promote the modernization and mechanization that Italians have brought to Eritrea. For example, title cards describing the use of machinery are explanatory and recurrent: "Machines for the containment of salt water in basins" (01:27), "Transportation to the grinding" (03:56), "Conveyor belt to stock the salt" (04:59), "Stack of salt ready to be stored on steamers" (05:11). The shots in this sequence feature Eritreans working with modern machines, and it is implied that Italians have given the machines to them. However, supervision by the Italians is evident by their dress, including the pith helmet, so reminiscent of colonial officers. The pith helmet signals control, rule, and a position of authority; some scenes show Eritreans wearing pith helmets if they have supervising positions over other workers.The salt sequence suggests that colonized Eritrea now possesses a salt-based industry and that salt is exported in significant quantities. Therefore, the film conveys the sense that Italians have enhanced the Eritrean economy and beneficently offered technology to enhance and ease the work. Indeed, viewers are made to understand that the colonial government has provided work for the Indigenous people. Importantly, Dan Connell and Tom Killion's study on Eritrea explains that the Italian company Saline di Massawa Company opened in 1905 and that by the 1920s employed poorly paid local laborers. As the authors explain in their work, the company's "total production averaged 100,000 to 150,000 tons per year, with most of the exports going to India" (459).Ultimately, through the film's representation of the industrialization process, there is an appropriation of Indigenous culture by the colonizers. The idea this sequence conveys is an opposition in temporal terms: the "now" of colonial rule and progress is contrasted with the primitive "past." The scenes depict Eritrean people working, not Italians showing them how to do the work. The local people know the job they are doing. This type of depiction repeats in the subsequent sequences that portray people working in fields of akat (doum palms). Later, title cards describe "How to cut akat fruit" (11:28), "Taking the fiber out" (11:37), "Washing the fiber" (11:54), "Drying the fruits" (12:11), "Working the fiber with spatulas" (12:40), and "Transportation to the stocking facilities" (13:09), all accompanying images of the Indigenous people working. The scenes are choreographed to show that the Eritreans are skillful in cutting the fruit and that they now know what akat is good for. The sequence indicates some acknowledgment of Eritrean cultural traits by recognizing their manufacturing skills.Modernization and industrialization also are represented in a sequence (from 08:00 to 09:06) in which a group of Ascari—Eritrean soldiers enrolled in the Italian army—return to Asmara from the war fought on Libyan soil. The title card introducing the scene says, "Ascari veterans from Libya while on their way to Asmara meet with their families" (08:00). The first shots portray a crowd preparing to get on a train by collecting their luggage. Then the camera pans over the station of Ghinda and the train. This sequence ends with a panoramic view of the landscape surrounding the railway.Italians allocated the funding to build the first railway in Eritrea for military purposes in 1888 to 1889. The Italian government invested in railways and road systems in Eritrea more than it did in other colonial powers. In 1914, for example, Odoardo Cavagnari designed a master plan dedicated to a new network of roads in Asmara, with contemporary Rome as a model. Transportation was a priority in the plans Italy had for the colony, and the Ascari were a new necessary "military factor" that had a large impact on Eritrea's urban development (Chelati Dirar 534). The defensibility of the colony was among Italy's main concerns, and a functional road system facilitated the movement of groups of Ascari. Colonial soldiers also played a significant part in managing the daily activities in running the colonial system. Thus, the sequence portraying the Ascari reuniting with their families at the train station highlights the benefits Eritreans received from occupation and colonial rule at the cost of freedom.The shots displaying the rail tracks' construction have ethnographic value and purpose. There is meticulous attention to the laying down of the rail tracks, and each laborer follows directions and seems to know exactly what to do. A lot of training obviously went into the work, and eventually a train travels on the newly constructed rail tracks. Why is this scene so carefully shot and orchestrated? The two separate yet relatable aspects of the documentary validate the workload performed by local people: laying down rail tracks was not a part of their daily life, but it was a craft that had to be taught.The railway sequence is not the only scene with ethnographic material; after this scene, at 23:30, the film shows in detail a bit of the Orthodox church celebrating Timkat. This is a long scene lasting over two minutes. There are no title cards explaining to viewers what the ritual is about, which is reminiscent of other ethnographic visual narratives of the time, such as in the Torres Strait (A. C. Haddon, 1898). Instead of representing the Capuchins' ritual celebrations, the film gives visibility to Timkat, and this choice denotes a particular interest in the local culture. These two scenes show Italian missionaries' objective in the colonies: to share their teaching ideals with the primary intention to educate and convert and to learn local customs in order to settle and mingle with the local communities.The title Mill Hill Sheds Light on the Dark Places of the Earth conveys the aim of the Mill Hill Fathers and summarizes the intent of the film. The film portrays the civilizing mission carried out by this British Catholic missionary group in various countries, but this discussion focuses on scenes dedicated to one colony, Uganda. The film starts with a simple yet powerful sentence that sets the tone of the documentary: "we are here to civilize and introduce light." Here, "light" refers to religious conversion and the introduction of a new way of seeing and understanding the world. Viewers are introduced to the many places the Mill Hill Fathers penetrated and where they attempted to civilize people. The missionaries conducted their work in such places as India, Borneo, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Belgian Congo, which indicates their global influence. The film was likely designed for fundraising, but it is not clear whether the film was meant to show the cartographic spread of Catholicism or England's superior imperial standing among European nations. The film addresses a European—particularly British—audience, and its opening does advertise the religious component. It has four parts and belongs to a collection of twenty-nine reels shot on location in different missions. The documentary's opening also advertises the wider series.The first St. Joseph's missionaries arrived in Buganda in 1895, but the film was shot years later, in the 1920s. The St. Joseph's missionaries had settled on Nsambya Hill. The Mill Hill majestic motherhouse (or perhaps mission station) and its gardens appear immediately after the first introductory scene, which consists of shots portraying a single priest or several priests talking and looking happy. There are shots of missionaries in the mission, including several representing the highest religious authorities in the colony, such as Bishop John Birmians. One of the early scenes (01:33) depicts English priests in pairs descending the outside stairs of the mission house; the men look content and at ease with their environment. Viewers are not privy to their conversations, but they seem to be discussing important topics.Other scenes show missionaries arriving in Nsambya from London; a long sequence about newly arrived men covers almost one-third of the film, and it is carefully shot, which indicates that the film aims to promote the mission in Uganda. The focus is on the movement of the church's English servants, and the Indigenous people are absent. The missionary building is well established; the film highlights that the magnificent structure was built in twenty-five years. Yet there is no information about the Indigenous people for the entire duration of this sequence, even if they are in the film. When a group of missionaries from London appear onscreen, for the first time viewers see the "uncivilized" people who will be receiving the titular light. Importantly, the locals appear on the screen suddenly; thin and emaciated, they are servants who carry the bags and other goods of the visitors. As they walk in a line toward the camera, carrying the luggage on their he