José María Cruxent, "Orinoco, Parguaza" (ca. 1951)

The following footage comes from films in the Alfredo Boulton archive at the Getty Research Institute. Boulton (1908-1995) was an important photographer and art historian of mid-century Venezuela. The films document some of Boulton's travels, projects, and relationships with major artists, capturing a culturally vibrant moment in the 1940s and 1950s when modernism was thriving in South America.
In 1951, Boulton sponsored an expedition carried out by the archaeologist José María Cruxent to discover the headwaters of the Orinoco River in the Amazon region. Cruxent sent the films and photographs made on the expedition to Boulton for developing. In the footage, Cruxent documented both the landscape and the Piaroas, the Indigenous group living around the Parguaza River. The film also shows the practice of processing yuca to make cassava bread.
Learn more: getty.edu/AlfredoBoulton