King Kong Island natives: why did they have that chicken cage?
Interesting questions for the ecologist, and for any open minded anthropologist, are:
- Who were the natives and how did they get there?
- Why did they have a chicken cage?
In the story they were Sumatrans, but in the movie the actors were African Americans
because Sumatran actors were not easy to find in Hollywood (Haber, 2005). Anyway, there is a mix of African and Asian DNA in the Pacific region, and
the fact remains that for the typical American viewer the requirements for
“natives” are not stringent.
In the first ceremony, the skipper says that their
language is related to that of Nias (a real island which does have its own
language despite its tiny size: Zimmer, 2006).
Their culture also matches what used to exist in Nias, with villages run
by chiefs, large constructions −megalithic, not made of wood− and the concept
of selling human beings (Kennedy, 1943; Zimmer, 2006).
Source: Movepins.com
Is
the demographic structure of the village reasonable?
Yes, if you look carefully
you will see a variety of ages and types, including children, elders and
overweight people. They have basic human technologies such as pottery,
basketry, ladders and torches, and are even more advanced than many Latin
American countries of the time, where rural people were barefooted, my grandfather
included; Kong’s natives wear sandals (not the small children, in accordance
with custom in primitive societies, who are often nearly unclad). In a
realistic way, they also use different clothes for ceremonies (grass skirts)
and daily life (fabric skirts that in the case of young women are short and
show the legs).
The
culture looks African if you consider the oval war shields and the headdresses.
On the other hand, the flower and feather ornaments, royal cloaks, canoe
stabilizers and houses are consistent with Pacific island cultures (see Kennedy,
1943). The cloaks reminded me of Hawaiian ahuúla feather cloaks, but the
coconut brassier worn by actress Etta McDaniel is pure Hollywood
fiction (see McAvoy, 2012).
Source: monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com
I
may be said that the natives could not survive in real life because they did
not have access to most of the island and because you see no fishing boats or
crop fields. But when Kong goes through the door, one of the villagers falls on
a cage, setting free more than a dozen hens. This led me to wonder how the
natives fed themselves and I noticed that their village looks like the very
viable and real villages of Amerindians that I have visited in Central America.
For many years Amerindian groups made a
living in coastal rainforest, without large crop fields, thanks to a combination
of forest plants and animals, and they fished from land (not from boats); these
resources were complemented later with introduced animals like chickens like
the ones in the film. So Kong’s islanders had an advanced economic system
marked the ownership of chickens.
"Kong’s islanders had an advanced economic system
marked the ownership of chickens."
Before
King Kong, directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack had shown
villagers building high walls against dangerous animals in their 1927
documentary Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness, so it is not surprising
that in King Kong they present a tall wall, rather than moats or other
defenses.
Source: Wikipedia.
In the next post:
The dinosaurs of Skull Island: how did they get there?
