Carter Holton Film Collection

Carter D. Holton (1901-1973), a missionary in western China until leaving in 1948, made these films in Gansu and Qinghai between 1930-1948. The video clips depict Tibetans, Mangghuer (Tu), Muslims and Han Chinese involved in trade, travel, agriculture and religious rituals. These two digitised films are the only extant video in the public domain that depict the Minhe Mangghuer (Tu) in the 1930s and 1940s.

Holton died at the age of 72 in Riverside, California. He was born in Chetek, Wisconsin and attended Simpson College in Nyack, New York. In the fall of 1923, he and his fiancee, Lora Newberry, traveled separately to China, eventually arriving in Gansu Province. They were married in 1925, and continued their work in China for the next 25 years.

The voice-over was recorded in 1995 by Robert Carlson with some assistance from Robert Shuster. Robert Carlson specifically mentions a solar eclipse briefly featured in the video as occurring on 21 August 1941. This video has been made available courtesy of the Christian and Missionary Alliance National Archives, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA, and is disseminated and cohosted by the Digital Himalaya Project.

Please click on one of the images below to play the film.