Hephzibah

A father and son, both rodeo riders, travel by train from Marree in South Australia to the Alice Springs Rodeo, in the Northern Territory. They travel on a unique railway - The Ghan - which runs through the heart of Australia. It's an overnight trip through spectacular country, pausing briefly at towns along the way, as the men look forward to their final destination, a bull-riding contest between the best rough-riders in the region.

Because of work commitments and the influence of Christian Missions, traditional mourning ceremonies among the Tiwi people of Melville Island were becoming rare at the time of making this film (1974). The full, elaborate ceremony, called the Pukumani ceremony, lasted several days and involved large numbers of people in ritual roles. It was performed here with full awareness that this may be one of the last times such a ceremony would be staged in the traditional way. The ceremony was prepared by the Mangatopi family of Snake Bay after the death of a 35-year old family member killed by his wife. The dead man’s father, Geoffrey Mangatopi, and his family requested this film to be made as a public record of a disappearing tradition. Unique to the Tiwi people of Melville and Bathurst islands, the Pukumani ceremony was not only performed to safe-guard the passage of the dead person into the spirit world, but to re-affirm kinship relationships and traditional Tiwi culture.