People of the Chad (1945)

[Music] this remote land the land of the Chad lies in French Equatorial Africa map of its territory would identify some of its plains and rivers but large areas would be marked unexplored wide savannas and dense forests have kept this region inaccessible and were transport and roads are sparse peoples can't communicate resources can't develop but in this age of the airplane an age of discovery unexplored lands and isolated peoples are a challenge to investigation always among the first to answer is the geographer every month he sets out from his base to chart another little part of the interior [Music] dicket clearers make the first break into the wilderness drummers beat up measured rhythms for the bearers who carry the expedition's equipment and provisions at a fixed time in place the geographer sets up his barometer a careful reading of the barometric pressure is recorded now the altitude of this pinpoint on the map can be calculated the road bill is to follow will know the best course for their construction [Music] at the same fixed time but back at the main base the same procedure is followed by comparing the reading of the altitude taken in the field with this reading of the known altitude at the base an accurate check can be made the intense noonday heat brings the March to a halt it helps if the geographer knows a little about medicine he's responsible for the health of his bearers and can aid the neighboring villagers as well he has his dexterity his knowledge of today but these people to have their dexterity and customs which go back thousands of years in this country which is young some things have remained from antiquity a dagger to dry sticks [Music] and soon there'll be a glowing ember to start the campfire [Music] the geographer works on in his mosquito net cell millimeter by millimeter the unexplored pink sections of the Chad map are being erased here where the maps are still embryonic it's natural for roads to be rare the average about one mile and a hundred square miles and the network expands very slowly road-building in the heart of the jungle demands the utmost in physical exertion and ingenuity regardless of obstacles distances to the outside world must be short the river must be bridged to carry the road only the sweat and energy of the native workers can push the new roads through control new doors open one day machines will cross this still unfinished bridge to help develop the region's natural resources more new crops will be grown when they can reach the markets of the exterior more readily [Music] the possibilities of a richer life are here and slowly the people learn for example coffee readily grows here the plants are started in greenhouses then transplanted in Wicker like fiber pots they flourish in the fertile soil [Music] the coffee plants multiply a number each year each of them yields from 2 to 12 pounds of coffee bean a year [Music] peanuts are another valuable crop the old ways are still used to extract the oil one day a simple machine will make the work easier [Music] further north near Fort Lamy heat there's a sort of African Middle West because this region is luckily free from the ravages of the tsetse fly it has developed as a pasture land milk industry makes this the Wisconsin of Africa [Music] easily balancing their jugs of milk they come to market and they bring their own company right along these milk centers have their own experts who test the milk for its butter fat content [Music] a hand driven turn makes a good button and there are cheeses on the order of tasty camembert and pour de salud [Music] wherever there's a dairy is bound to be a butcher shop nearby in this Prairie region a large scale though still primitive meat industry has developed here old fashioned bully beef is made by soaking the meat in brine and then hanging it in a warm Sun to cure [Music] no cans no labels and it's just as nourishing this way from season to season a good million head of livestock moved from this region to the less fortunate areas their cattle died of the dread sleeping sickness carried by the tsetse fly [Music] this African Horseman handles his herd somewhat as often when your Cowboys do entire herds are driven from one province to another crossing wide rivers without ever losing a single straggling dogie [Music] [Music] the most promising resource of the Chad country is its cotton nearly everyone has a little patch near his Hut and it's hard work bringing the cotton to the factory each little crop makes a little white mound but weighed altogether in a year these mounds add up to an impressive total 70,000 tons [Music] as payment is made they see in this paper money perhaps the price of a new cotton shirt someday [Music] back now to the cotton working black bodies against the dazzling white [Music] the cotton has fed into the ginning machines where the seeds are separated from the fibers [Music] then the bailers [Music] each bale weighs 200 pounds and at last the cotton is ready for shipment to the coast cotton coffee beef these are the conventional products in a new and adventurous land but the element of adventure is here here there is gold it is found in the form of vein rocks and dust rather than in the nuggets of the Klondike [Music] again only rudimentary equipment and muscle whirring toil are available to extract the precious metals and precious little of the metal are they able to keep as a reward for their labor since the time of Herodotus Africa has been called the land of gold maybe this was just an ancient travelers whim or a poet's fancy but today the geologists and the prospectors have proved the poet right [Music] lacking industrial equipment and especially mechanical or grinders the minor is obliged to put aside the blocks of war and to treat only the dust [Music] [Applause] are still the remote villages with Hut's of mud and straw still the old communal well the water shared the strange faceless but there are contrast to some soldiers carry high-powered binoculars some still the old Spears still the old Cup the end of the palaver under the mango tree there exists still startling women's fashions but she wears a different fashion a dress made of the cotton she carries almost as a symbol a symbol of today like the camera which records the faces of the soldiers with their KP like caps and as everywhere else youngsters copy their brothers this dance could be a folk dance which people everywhere appreciate in much the same way these people land and their work will be recorded by the cameras of the future as they build a changing Africa [Music]