Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses a non-fiction film made by Dutch-Indo filmmaker G.E.A. Krugers in 1928, detailing a journey undertaken by Haji Jawa pilgrims from the Netherlands East Indies to the Hedjaz to perform the hajj.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses a non-fiction film made by Dutch-Indo filmmaker G.E.A. Krugers in 1928, detailing a journey undertaken by Haji Jawa pilgrims from the Netherlands East Indies to the Hedjaz to perform the hajj. In addressing this unique primary source, the article scrutinises how the film complements and corroborates accounts of the hajj from the early twentieth century and elaborates on how it provides the viewer with a experiential sense of travel as was encountered by the pilgrims. Acknowledging the access of digital source material now offered by many archives, this rich visual document is both discussed within the existing literature, and set apart from it, in an attempt to exhume it from early non-fiction film archives of colonial Indonesia relegated to the slow lane of historical and ethnographic research.