An Introduction to Bushman Rock Art

Let’s start as we mean to go on with the Archaic Visions reboot, and open the first strand with which this blog will continue – Rock Art of Southern Africa. Here I present rather a long article, the first in this series, which provides an introduction to Bushman Rock Art and Culture. It is rather academic in style in places, and the intention is to present to my readers a style of art and painting which shares next to nothing with familiar Western or Oriental art traditions in its method, approach, interconnection with religious and ritual practices, and even how it interacts with the environment in which it is found. If at times this series of articles seems to go into excessive detail, then this only reflects my genuine enthusiasm for Bushman rock art and engravings, and my deeply-held desire to understand, and to see these remarkable painted images through the eyes of the remarkable people who painted them. In this spirit, let’s begin this long, winding and hopefully fascinating journey into the world of the Southern African hunter-gatherer…

Southern Africa is home to one of the most fascinating, and yet least well-known, art traditions in the world. Running in a near continuous line of rock shelters from the Cederberg in the West to the Drakensberg-uKhahlamba mountain range in the east, as well as across other sites in the subcontinent, the rock paintings and engravings of the indigenous hunter gatherer peoples of South Africa and beyond – the Bushman, San, or Khoi-San peoples and their cultural ancestors – represents one of humanity’s most distinctive art styles and, until its extinction some 150 to 200 years ago, one of the longest running.

Map showing personally visited sites in the Langeberg, Klein Karoo and Drakensberg

I have been fortunate enough to see some of this rock art for myself during visits to South Africa. This is especially significant for me as I was first switched onto Bushman rock art in my twenties, when a fellow artist showed me a book of the art and I realised that many of the images I had seen before. As a child I suffered from terrible and often dazzlingly visionary migraines, and much of the imagery from those formative and dysphoric life experiences resonated with some of the geometric and abstract imagery (Rimell, 2014b) seen accompanying the more familiar figures of humans and animals. I was immediately fascinated.

Rock art sites are found throughout Southern Africa, but they are particularly concentrated in the aforementioned line which starts in the Cederberg in the Western Cape, continues through the Langeberg and Outeniqua mountain ranges in the Southern Cape, as well as in the Klein Karoo just to the north of these, eastward to the Maluti range in Lesotho, and then into the Drakensberg-uKhahlamba mountains (Vinnicombe, 1976) where some of the most spectacular artworks are preserved. Other areas of intensely concentrated paintings can be found in the Brandberg Massif in Namibia (Fliegel Jezernicky Expeditions, 2010), the Tsodilo Hills in Botswana (Rimell, 2014a) and the Matopo Hills in southwestern Zimbabwe (Garlake, 1995; Parry, 2000), as well as Mashonaland in northern Zimbabwe (Garlake, 1995) and the Limpopo province of South Africa.

Map of Southern Africa showing significant areas of Bushman rock art sites

Among all of these, I have so far visited six sites, one named Ikanti near Underberg in the Drakensberg, and several in the Southern Cape, Pietersrivierkloof in the Outeniqua mountains, Ezeljagdspoort in the Klein Karoo and three sites – Veldmansvlei, Romanskraal and Buchukloof – in the Langeberg within the Hessequa District. Despite the fame of the Drakensberg and Cederberg paintings, this series of articles will generally focus on the sites and the art within this central region, at least at first, and narrate site visits to each of the sites listed above.
 
Further inland are other sites, such as in the Great Karoo of the Northern Cape where a large number of geometric and abstract rock engravings are to be found (Dowson, 1992), and the Limpopo Basin where Bushman paintings are associated by later Bantu-speaking peoples with a kind of spiritual ‘capture’ of prey animals (Eastwood & Eastwood, 2006). Dowson (1992, pp5-7) notes that the engravings tend to disclose a different subject matter to the paintings: the former tend to have a stronger entoptic and geometric character than the paintings, which focus more on naturalistic depictions, although not exclusively.

Grid-marked giraffes and entoptic patterns. Kamanjab, Kunene Region, Namibia
(Dowson, 1992, p56)

A note needs to be briefly made on the term ‘Bushman’, which is sometimes pejorative. There is in fact no word to refer to contemporary and recent historical hunter gatherer groups of Southern Africa which does not have negative connotations or roots. The word ‘San’, for example, is commonly used in academia, but it derives from a Nama word saan, ‘vagabond’ (Deacon, 1994, p5), while Bushman derives from the Dutch pejorative bosjeman ‘bush-man, wild person’. Since several members and descendants of these groups that I have met were proud to call themselves ‘Bushman’, I use this term with absolutely no pejorative connotations whatsoever. I also use specific ethnic terms for tribes and bands of Bushman people, such as /Xam, !Kung, Ju’/hoansi, !Xõo, and so on (*1). In quotes where ‘San’ is used, however, I retain the original author’s usage. (On this see Deacon, 1994, pp4-5 & Hitchcock & Biesele, 2014)

THE AGE OF THE PAINTINGS

Precise dating of rock art is notoriously difficult to ascertain, but there is general agreement that the tradition in South Africa likely began some fifteen to twenty thousand years ago (see Vinnicombe, 1967, pp105-8 for a variety of dates; see also pp133-37 & Mazel, 2009a, pp81-94) and continued until the extinction in the early twentieth century of Bushman cultures such as the /Xam (Lewis-Williams & Challis, 2011, pp33-36), and the hunter-gatherers of the Maluti and Drakensberg ranges whose names have not come down to us (Vinnicombe, 1967, pp9-103). The final phase of art shows, in some places, the coming of the Voortrekkers into the South African interior from the Cape Colony, with men on horseback and leading carts (Parkington, 2008, p25).

Colonial images of horses and wagons, Cederberg, Western Cape
(Parkington, 2008, p25)

Parkington (2006, pp22-25) reports that secure dates for the rock art in the Cederberg is very sparse: he generally assumes the date range for most of the art is from 4000 to approximately 200 to 300 years ago, but Elands Bay cave has revealed ochre-stained tortoise carapaces and limpet shells in deposits around 10,000 years old, suggesting that people were making paint at that time. Furthermore, he reports (2006, p24) on a find at Steenbokfontein, in which a fragment of wall painting had fallen and was buried under deposits at least 3500 years old, and he notes that elsewhere in southern Africa, similar evidence suggests an age of at least 7000 years for wall painting.

Mazel reports (2009a, pp81-97) that dating techniques have greatly improved since the 1970s, and gives a series of radiocarbon dates (p90) for encrusted organic deposits overlaying several paintings in the Drakensberg of between 1000 and 2900 years old. Parry notes (2000, pp9-13) meanwhile that Bushman peoples disappeared from Zimbabwe some 2000 years ago, which sets a minimum age for the rock art in the Matopo Hills, and she suggests (2000, p13) from stylistic evidence that rock art in the region may stretch back to 13,000 years ago. The finding of the Coldstream Stone in deposits dating to 9000 years ago (British Museum, 2016) also supports this ancient date for the painting traditions.

The Coldstream Stone, c. 7000 BC. Lottering River, Western Cape

The majority of the rock art now visible across Southern Africa, however, is likely to represent the most recent phases of imagery, perhaps no more than two to three thousand years old at most. This estimate resonates with the date for much of the rock art in the Klein Karoo region given by archaeologist Vicky Nardell as “up to two thousand years old” (Oudtshoorn Courant, 2015), and despite the dryness of the inland areas such as the Karoo, the climate conditions of much of southern Africa (such as the Cederberg and Maluti-Drakensberg ranges) are not favourable for the preservation of rock art images over many tens of thousands of years that we see for the Upper Palaeolithic cave art of southern France and northern Spain.

COLONIAL EXPLANATIONS OF THE ROCK ART

Early attempts to understand Bushman rock art were centred upon the pervasive belief that KhoiSan peoples were incredibly primitive and incapable of the kind of subtle thinking and refined religious sensibilities (Lewis-Williams & Dowson, 1989, pp23-26) that we now know to be disclosed in the art. Late nineteenth century ethnographer Wilhelm Bleek was prescient when he said that Bushman rock art was

“…an attempt, however imperfect, at a truly artistic conception of the ideas which most deeply moved the Bushman mind, and filled it with religious feelings.” (Lewis-Williams, 2004, p55)

Bleek also spoke of Bushman paintings disclosing a “higher character” (Lewis-Williams & Dowson, 1989, p29) beyond mere idle daubings or art for art’s sake. However in a colonial age where licences were still being granted by South African authorities to hunt and kill Bushman peoples as if they were animals, his was a lone voice of reason.

Subtle art of a higher character. Painted tracing by Patricia Vinnicombe.
Makhenckeng, Qacha’s Nek District, Maluti Range, Lesotho
(Vinnicombe, 1976, p301)

It was not until the twentieth century, and the arrival in South Africa of people such as the famous Abbe Henri Breuil, that a semi-serious attempt on the understanding of these artforms was attempted (Lewis-Williams, 2004, pp2-6). However, racial undertones still persisted, and while Breuil attempted to bring his ‘sympathetic hunting magic’ hypothesis from European Upper Palaeolithic cave art into Southern Africa, suggesting a similar kind of idea for the Bushman paintings, he is perhaps most well-known for his theory (in Breuil, 1948, pp1-13) that the so-called ‘White Lady of Brandberg’ in Namibia represents a young woman of Cretan origin who had somehow found her way to Southern Africa with her attendants, and there was then commemorated in the indigenous artwork of the period.

His florid prose describing his encounter with this figure, however, hides the implicit assumption that only with some prehistoric arrival of a white person was the Bushman suddenly capable of ‘Great Art’. His fanciful and Eurocentric beliefs also blinded him as to the true nature of this image, which a closer examination reveals to be male as Lewis-Williams narrates:

“Had he [Breuil] been a bit more careful, he would have seen that the figure has a penis. Moreover, the penis is ‘infibulated’, that is, it has a short line drawn at right angle across it, and to, make the questions that this overlooked detail raises even more interesting, the line is fringed with small white dots. These dots suggest that the infibulation is associated with another feature of San rock art… a sinuous bifurcating red line, similarly fringed with white dots… Breuil’s ‘charming young girl’ is certainly male and has no features to distinguish it from other elaborately detailed San rock art images.” (Lewis-Williams, 2004, p5)

The White 'Lady' of Brandberg, in context. Brandberg, Erongo Region, Namibia

The red lines fringed with white dots that Lewis-Williams mentions here pierces to the heart of Bushman rock art, for as we shall see, these lines, and many of the painted depictions point not merely to representations, but of manifestations, of !gi, the /Xam word for an immanent supernatural power experienced by shamans (Lewis-Williams & Challis, 2011, pp56-57). This becomes even more clear when we consider the /Xam word for shaman was !gi:xa ‘one who is full of !gi’ (Lewis-Williams & Challis, 2011, pp56-57; the plural is !gi:ten), and terms of similar meanings exist in the languages of the Ju’/hoansi and the Nharo. It is possible, then, that the so-called ‘White Lady of Brandberg’ might well turn out to be the ‘Painted (Male) Shaman of Brandberg’, an image which is much more fitting – and indeed positively generic as we shall see – to the themes and concerns of Bushman rock art.

CHALLENGING WESTERN ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT ART

A more serious attempt at understanding the art in the mid-twentieth century was explored by artist Walter Battiss (narrated in Lewis-Williams, 2004, pp5-9). His method was to ignore all theories and gaze at the art itself – its techniques, colour choices, compositions, and so on – as if one were in an art gallery. This approach of aesthetic enjoyment (Lewis-Williams, 2004, p6) attempted to gain some kind of objectivity towards the art, however his work essentially ran along lines of Western assumptions about what art should be: an aesthetic pursuit primarily towards composition and technique.

Interactions of art imagery with the rock face: i) Several lines of dots emerging from a deep
fissure and rising up towards a scar in the rock, where they disappear (Romanskraal, Langeberg,
Western Cape) and ii) Seven to ten faded white clay figures in shamanic postures emerging from
a 1cm inequality in the rock face (Pietersrivierkloof, Uniondale District, Western Cape)

Such views are now known not to be applicable to Bushman rock paintings and engravings. In the first place, the pervasive Western notion that the art medium – the paint, the canvas, the gesso board, and so on – are little more than passive or transparent surfaces upon which art is imposed, or through which art is created, is diametrically opposed to the Bushman conception. As we shall see in subsequent articles, the Bushman artist did not conceive of the rock surfaces upon which she painted as simply a place to make art: rather the rock was a living surface and liminal boundary into a world of spirits and supernatural power held to exist beyond the rock walls (Lewis-Williams & Dowson, 1990; Lewis-Williams, 2004, pp98-106). The artists constantly made use of features of these walls, such as cracks, inequalities, fractures and fissures to suggest painted figures, objects and magical phenomena emerging from or receding into this supernatural realm. In ensuing articles we will see constant – and very often ingenious! – expressions and reminders of this principle.

This idea of using the rock features suggests a profoundly different approach to composition, and this difference is compounded by another common feature of Bushman rock art, overpainting and superposition of images (Lewis-Williams, 2004, pp29-48). At many rock art sites, images are crowded onto a single panel in a particular locale, despite the presence of other relatively flat walls nearby which in principle could have been used for art but were not. Instead, later figures are painted over earlier figures, and sometimes the surface of the rock is smeared with red ochre before painting the later images.

Crowded and overpainted images: at least three layers are visible.
Pietersrivierkloof, Uniondale District, Western Cape

Here is also another disclosure of supernatural power: if the art itself is a manifestation rather than representation of this power, such crowded overpainting begins to make sense. Once art is situated upon a particular panel, the rock panel itself becomes potent and attractive as a site upon which to paint – and potentially, a place where contact between this world and the world of the spirits can be more easily made – and in front of which rituals and trance dances may have been performed (Lewis-Williams & Dowson, 1989, pp35-36; Lewis-Williams, 2004, pp259-61). This would then account for why certain panels accrued large amounts of crowded images, and others of apparently equal artistic potential did not. Lewis-Williams has furthermore shown (1972; also 2004 pp35-39) that in the majority of cases, it is often elands or human figures which are involved in these overpaintings, suggesting some specific, deliberate and ritualistic action rather than a random spread of overpainting driven by the demands for space: other depictions of animals are only very rarely overpainted.

In subsequent articles, we will begin to see why certain sites were chosen in the first place, since the environment in which they were located seem to already disclose some magical, potent or otherworldly property which likely invoked the attention of the Bushman artists. The site may have commanded excellent views over the surrounding countryside, or was located next to a waterfall and pond whose water was dark in colour due to the presence of a natural mineral. Alternatively, a supernatural potent animal, such as the bee or a swift, may have had its nest very close to the site of the paintings, or the rock art was located at the top of a kloof, or ravine cut by a small stream, a challenging terrain up through which it was necessary to climb in order to arrive at the site. The Bushman artists seemed to have nearly always chosen their sites in this way: in particular, sites in the Klein Karoo seem to have been oriented closely towards the presence of water.

PAINT, RITUAL AND SUPERNATURAL POWER

A third example of difference is the paint itself, and particularly red ochre paint, which was a sacred and ritual substance redolent with supernatural power. How reports (1962, pp34-35; see also Lewis-Williams, 2004, pp254-55) on a Lesotho oral tradition that a particular type of speckled red ochre called qhang-qhang (*2) in the Sotho language (possibly this would be !haŋ!haŋ in Bleek’s /Xam orthography) was sought, and an elderly Sotho informant in Lesotho of the early twentieth century (who had learned to paint with /Xam Bushman artists some years previously) reports how this was heated until red hot, ground into a fine powder, then mixed with the blood of a freshly killed eland by a young woman on the night of the new moon (How 1962, pp35-37; Lewis-Williams pp255-56). Furthermore, Sotho people believed that qhang-qhang in its raw form was a powerful medicine that could ward off lightning and hail.

Red ochre tones: orange, blood red, purple, brown
i) & ii) Cederberg, Western Cape, iii) Veldmansvlei, Langeberg, Western Cape,
iv) Drakensberg, Kwazulu-Natal

This idea of paint as a ritual object with supernatural powers communicates deeply with the modern understanding of Bushman rock art as essentially shamanic in nature, an idea first conceived in the 1980s by David Lewis-Williams and fellow researcher Thomas Dowson at the University of Witwatersrand’s Rock Art Research Institute (see for example Lewis-Williams, 1980; Lewis-Williams & Dowson, 1989; Lewis-Williams & Dowson, 1990). Independently, Patricia Vinnicombe was also making the connection between /Xam and Kalahari ethnography (1976, pp299-313), oral traditions from Nguni peoples about Bushmen in the Drakensberg, Maluti and Eastern Cape regions (1976, pp97-103), and depictions of ‘sorcerers’ in the rock art (1976, pp306-308 & pp315-37).

David Lewis-Williams in particular transformed the nature of the research field by seeking to develop three separate strands of epistemology (see Lewis-Williams, 1995; also 2004, pp133-161) regarding Bushman rock art, and the prehistoric religion and society of the artists who created the images. These are: i) the rock art itself, closely studied, recorded and reproduced along with its archaeological, geological and environmental context, ii) nineteenth century /Xam ethnography from the archive of Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd, which contains very many important cultural details not always understood at the time, along with twentieth century ethnography of Kalahari Bushman peoples such as the !Kung, and iii) the neuropsychological model of altered states of consciousness, in which objective psychological studies of the effects of altered states and visionary experiences are applied to study of the rock art imagery.

Seemingly bizarre depictions such as these begin to make more sense
when seen through shamanic, ethnographic and neuropsychological perspectives
i) Drakensberg, Kwazulu-Natal, and ii) Ezeljagdspoort, Klein Karoo, Western Cape

The example of paint manufacture above is a good access point into the intercommunication of these various elements, illuminating our understanding of Bushman culture and the shamanic nature of the rock art, and illustrating how deeply embedded with many other ritually important events in the Bushman mind the practice of art-making was.

Lewis-Williams reports (2004, p255-57) that the ritual of paint-making in which eland blood is used implies that a group of Bushman people would need to hunt before any painting could take place. Hunting is enfolded into a whole array of social attitudes and religious beliefs in all Bushman cultures, and none more so than the hunting of the eland, which is both the largest antelope and the most supernaturally potent in Bushman conception. This hunt would set off a sequence of ritual associations relating to this supernatural potency.

Detail of frieze of elands: note the three painted red lines on the neck and shoulder
of the eland at lower left. Ikanti, Southern Drakensberg, Kwazulu-Natal

An informant of partial Bushman descent in the Tsolo District of the Transkei (now Eastern Cape province) was interviewed by Pieter Jolly (in Jolly, 1986, pp6-9), and she narrated how this eland hunt took place. The narrative has striking visionary elements:

“A young girl would accompany the eland hunting party and [she]… 'hypnotised' the eland. She did this by pointing an arrow, which had 'medicine' on it prepared by the medicine men, at the eland. The eland would become dazed and semi-paralysed. It would be led back to the hunters to the cave under their supernatural control. Here it became dizzy and would slip and fall. It would be killed by having its throat cut.” (Jolly, 1986, p6)

The informant further described how the eland would murmur and tremble when near death, and emit foam from its nose. After it died, cuts would be made on the eland’s forehead, neck and rib cage to extract blood, which was mixed with fat to make medicine. Some of this mixture was also mixed with paint (1986, p7)

A dying eland attended by shamans in trance.
Game Pass Shelter, Kamberg Nature Reserve, Southern Drakensberg, Kwazulu-Natal

Lewis-Williams speculates (2004, p256) that the young girl may have been a new menstruant, since such women were held to be at the peak of their supernatural power (and menstrual depictions are sometimes seen in the rock art). He also notes that a Great Dance ritual or trance dance would often follow the hunting of an eland in many Bushman cultures, and we thus see the basic theme of supernatural potency arising again, since such rituals were held to open the participants to the experience and accumulation of shamanic power. He further notes (p257) that since shamans often bleed from the nose during the trance dance, we again have the resonating idea of blood: he argues that two types of blood – eland blood and shaman’s blood – were directly or indirectly involved in the making of paint, but if his speculating about the new menstruant was correct, then a third blood type was also obliquely enmeshed in this nexus of cultural associations.

Thus, the process of making paint for rock art was not merely an isolated occasion in Bushman thought, but a ritually potent event deeply embedded within a complex of other, equally emotive and supernaturally powerful events, including: i) the eland hunt itself; ii) the young girl’s magical hypnotising of the eland; iii) its dizziness and apparent trance along with its death throes apparently mirroring the behaviours of the shamans in trance; iv) the staging of a Great Dance after the hunt in which ritual potency was amplified, and these dances may have been held at rock art sites such as Romanskraal and Ezeljagdspoort where large flat areas suitable for dancing are seen; and  v) the making of paint from the eland’s blood and fat, mixed with powdered red ochre, which itself may have been a supernaturally potent substance judging by the ritual nature in which it was handled and prepared

i) Close-up of two figures wearing karosses, with nasal bleeding depicted, and
 ii) the fragmentary panel from which this detail is taken (painted tracing by Patricia Vinnicombe)
Veryan Farm, Umtai River, Southern Drakensberg, Kwazulu-Natal
(Vinnicombe, 1967, pp316-17)

COLOURS AND STYLES OF THE PAINTINGS

A word should be said about the various colours and styles of paintings visible in the rock art. Across Southern Africa, many of the same pigments appear to have been used, with only minor local variations, and while there are variations in the subject matter from region to region (including some imageries unique to each region), the depictions of human and animal figures tends to be broadly similar over the widely dispersed areas. This suggests a common visual language, and by implication a common set of cultural conceptions, even among differing language groups. Such commonality is also seen in the ethnographies of contemporary and historical Bushman groups (Lewis-Williams, 2004, p52).

Both Vinnicombe (1967, pp131-33) and Mazel (2009a, p94) elucidate the various styles seen and attempt to decipher them into a roughly chronological sequence for the Drakensberg paintings, as follows:

Phase I paintings are, as Vinnicombe describes (p131) “mostly very fragmentary and little can be deduced as to their content and style.” They are mostly monochrome in dark reds and maroons. Mazel notes that some antelope and human figures conform to this style and the paint is effectively stained into the rock face.

Phase II paintings consist of human figures and animals in bichrome red and white colours, and sometimes polychrome with varying shades of red with white, and with some shading visible between the tones. Black is sometimes introduced for human figures, and the white tones are sometimes only evident due to bleaching on the rock face, the original paint having faded.

Bichrome Eland in red and white with shading
Esikolweni Shelter, Cathedral Peak Nature Reserve, Central Drakensberg, Kwazulu-Natal
(Mazel, 2009a, p88)

Phase III marks the development of a fully polychrome technique. Colours include various red ochres, purples, oranges, pink and tan/brown tones, as well as black and white pigments, and expert shading between tones is often seen. Elements of perspective are also introduced, such as foreshortening and frontal views of antelope images (see Rust & van der Poll, 2011, p26), and human figures show fine details of “facial markings, beaded bands and decorative thongs or tassels” (Vinnicombe, 1967, p132) as well as close attention to expertly rendered body proportions and dynamism. Mazel reports (2009a, p94) that sometimes individual brushstrokes can be seen in this phase.

Polychrome feline figure and two polychrome foreshortened elands
Botha’s Shelter, Cathedral Peak Nature Reserve, Central Drakensberg, Kwazulu-Natal
(Mazel, 2009b, p95)

Phase IV is the final phase in the sequence. Here, the shaded polychrome style becomes less visible, giving way to greater usage of black and yellow colours along with red ochres without shading between tones. Mazel notes (2009a, p94) that the paint in this phase sometimes lacks a binding medium, and eland images are more stylised, stiffer and more block-like than the naturalistic images of previous phases. He also notes that later styles in this phase consist of monochrome pinks and brown-reds (i.e., typical red ochre) in parts of the Drakensberg.

The majority of rock art sites I have visited have tended to evidence the last three of these phases, and particularly Phases III and IV. At Ikanti, I saw both polychrome images in shaded browns and white, as well as monochrome red ochre friezes. At Pietersrivierkloof in the Outeniqua mountains, a dazzling array of styles was seen, all superimposed on one another, including polychrome shaded browns and white, bichrome red and yellows, monochrome red ochre, monochrome white, and bichrome white and black. Monochrome red ochre of various tones including reds, oranges and purples and monochrome yellow ochre images were seen at Veldmansvlei, as were bichrome red and overpainted yellow

Detail of complex frieze showing polychrome elements in reds, orange and white.
Game Pass Shelter, Kamberg Nature Reserve, Southern Drakensberg, Kwazulu-Natal

Polychrome images are particularly common in the Drakensberg, whereas in other areas such as the Cederberg and Langeberg, monochrome red ochre images tend to predominate. However, at Langeberg sites such as Romanskraal, faint trances of yellow ochre are visible, suggesting that some of the sites in the latter regions may well have originally been polychrome but have since faded, leaving only the red ochre. The continuation of Bushman culture – and by extension, rock art traditions – in the Drakensberg until the mid-to-late nineteenth century (Vinnicombe, 1967, pp97-103), and the disappearance of these people from the Cederberg and Langeberg many years or centuries previously, might lend the impression that Drakensberg paintings are, on the whole, newer, leading to the better preservation of the polychrome elements.

Parkington narrates (2008, pp38-42) that red ochres could come in several different tones from orange to purple and were made principally from “weathered oxides or hydroxides of haematite and limonite.” (2008, pp39-40) Iron-rich shales were also sometimes used to achieve a bright pinkish tone. Black tones, meanwhile, appear to have been made from powdered manganese dioxide and white was made from clays which is often fragile and easily damaged or faded. It is not clear exactly what the binding medium would have been in all cases: despite the ritual narration above, it is unlikely that eland blood was used for every single painting, and Parkington suggests (2008, p41) that egg white, plant saps, blood and fat may have been used, or a mixture of these. He also notes that the fine lines and adhesive quality of the paint generally rules out water alone as a medium.

Half-Human Half-Ostrich figures in a rock shelter in the Klein Karoo, Western Cape
(Rust & van der Poll, 2011, p43)

Parry, meanwhile, reports some evidence in the Matopo Hills of Zimbabwe that ostrich eggs contributed to the binding medium – both the egg white and yolk appear to have been used together – which suggests an early use of a tempera style of painting. There are occasional depictions of ostriches, and in the Klein Karoo, half-human half-ostrich therianthropes are reported by Rust & van der Poll (2011, pp40-45), suggesting the use of ostrich eggs may have had a ritual dimension. Keeney & Keeney further report (2015, pp4-9) from his Ju’/hoansi informants that visions of ostrich eggs are extremely important in the religious understanding of contemporary Kalahari Bushman cultures. Thus, again, we see a continuous movement between paint, supernatural power, religious vision and ritual.

MAJOR THEMES IN THE ART

Contrary to earlier beliefs about Bushman culture, the /Xam and other peoples who painted the rock art did not merely create illustrations of daily life (Lewis-Williams, 2004, p13). In fact, the art has a strongly religious flavour, with depictions of rituals, dances and gatherings in which the participants appear to be richly decorated in their finery, bearing bows and quivers of arrows, or wearing a kaross, a type of large animal skin cloak.

Predominant in the religious life of the Bushman was the Great Dance (Bannister & Lewis-Williams, 1998, pp74-75), a healing trance dance officiated by shamans who fell into altered states of consciousness (Lewis-Williams & Challis, 2011, pp51-72), and very often felt themselves transformed into animals or as passing into the world of spirits to effect their healing methods. Dances such as these are still performed by Kalahari Bushman peoples such as the Ju’/hoansi (Keeney & Keeney, 2015), and the same bending-over postures, linked arms and gestures such as pulling the arms sharply backwards which are seen in Ju’/hoansi dances are also seen in the rock art (Lewis-Williams, 2004, pp63-64; Lewis-Williams & Challis, 2011, p101).

Great Dance or Medicine Dance of !Kung Bushmen in the Kalahari desert
Note the circular formation and track on the ground with singing and clapping women in the centre
(Vinnicombe, 1976, p305)

)Similarly, the inner experiences of the shamans are also seen in the rock art: therianthropes of half-human half-animal figures, or animals with a few human attributes, are very common depictions, as are elongated body forms suggestive of altered states of consciousness (Lewis-Williams, 2004, p120). Transformations of humans into animals, as well as strange body modifications, may also be suggestive of the experiences within trance dance rituals.

In addition to depictions of the Great Dance, rituals relating to the rain and weather control are also commonly seen. Perhaps the most ubiquitous is the killing of a ‘rain’ animal (Vinnicombe, 1967, pp314-344; Lewis-Williams & Challis, 2011, pp110-31), a visionary event in which one or more ‘rain sorcerors’ (in the words of nineteenth century /Xam informant /Hanǂkasso; Lewis-Williams & Challis, 2011, p99), or shamans of the rain, entered the world of the spirits to capture an eland, elephant or other supernaturally potent creature, and then ‘kill’ it and lead it across the sky, its blood falling as rain to replenish the land so that the people could feed themselves. There is a finely-rendered, although faint and partially obscured, representation of this ritual at Pietersrivierkloof, which we will see in a forthcoming article. Some images which were previously considered to be hunting scenes may well depict this event.

Predictably, the animals which Bushman peoples believed to be the most supernaturally potent are the ones which are most commonly depicted. The eland, the bearer of !gi par excellence (Lewis-Williams & Challis, 2011, p57), is the most commonly seen, as is the elephant which was also a supernaturally potent animal (Lewis-Williams, 2004, p114) in the conception of Bushman peoples. Surprisingly, depictions of /Kaggen, the Mantis, the principal shaman trickster figure in /Xam mythology, appear to be quite rare, however, since /Kaggen was also held to transform himself into many other guises (Vinnicombe, 1967, p158), so it is possible he is present as other, non-insectoid, animal figures and has therefore not been often identified. He is also closely associated with the eland in myths and spiritual conception, as the Maluti Bushman Qing explained in the 1870s:

“We don’t know [where /Kaggen is] but the elands do. Have you not hunted and heard his cry, when the elands suddenly start and run to his call? Where he is, elands are in droves like cattle.” (Vinnicombe, 1976, p170)

Photo and clarifying diagram by Patricia Vinnicombe of the capture of a rain animal:
the polychrome eland is being led by a chord through its nose by two shamans with eland hooves
Anteater Shelter, Tsoelike, Qacha’s Nek District, Maluti Range, Lesotho
(Vinnicombe, 1976, p163 & p327)

The choice of animal depictions in the rock art is biased towards supernaturally potent animals and therefore highly selective (Parkington, 2008, p69-73) when compared to what Bushman hunters would have seen in daily life, or when considered in light of their customary diet, which mostly consisted of small animals like the dassie or young antelopes, and a great deal of plants such as tubers, none of which are seen in the paintings. Furthermore, regional variations in this selectivity can be seen in different areas: Parkington reports (2008, p68) that the eland and elephant were most common in the Cederberg and other areas of the Western Cape (and, in my own experience, in the Langeberg and Klein Karoo as well) but in the Drakensberg the elephant is a rare sight, being replaced by the rhebok. Similarly, in the Tsodilo Hills of Botswana, the most common depiction by far is the giraffe, suggesting this may have been a ritually important or supernaturally potent animal.

There are also plenty of images which do not pertain to the shamanic or to supernaturally potent animals or dances, for example, those pertaining to menstrual rites. At Willcox’s Shelter and Sorceror’s Rock in the Drakensberg are two images (Vinnicombe, 1967, pp152-53) which seem to evoke androgynous, therianthropic and menstrual associations (Knight, Power & Watts, 1995, p94) while at Fulton’s Rock, there may be seen a depiction of the Eland Bull Dance, a rite for new menstruants (van der Post & Taylor, 1985, pp60-61 & Plate 44). Fight scenes, such as the image called ‘Veg ‘n Vlug’ (‘fight or flight’) in the Cederberg (Parkington, 2008, pp64-65) and processions (Vinnicombe, 1967, p109) like that seen at Ikanti in the Drakensberg are also sometimes found.

The Eland Bull Dance for a new menstruant
Fulton’s Rock, Highmoor Wilderness Area, Central Drakensberg, Kwazulu-Natal

A final note needs to be made on the use of the word ‘shaman’, since its usage in any rock art archaeological context is disputed by some researchers, particularly by Bednarik, although he seems not always to understand the subtleties of the approaches to Bushman rock art taken by Lewis-Williams and his colleagues (Bednarik, 2013, pp491-94). What is clear from both twentieth century ethnography in the Kalahari and nineteenth century ethnography among the /Xam people is that about half of all men and a third of all women are ritual healers whose methods include altered states of consciousness and the entrance into a world of spirits to effect their cures. For sure, Bushman ritual healers are markedly different from the classic Siberian shaman or the indigenous Amazonian curandero, but in this experiential light, I agree with Lewis-Williams’ point (2004, p190) that the endless logomachy in some academic circles about what does or does not constitute a shaman adds very little to our understanding about the rock art or prehistoric Bushman culture, or indeed the prehistoric rock art of any culture.

The entrance into an altered state and the constant depiction of this experience in the rock art is one of ten aspects of shamanism that Lewis-Williams lists (2004, p196) and contrary to Bednarik's words (in 2013, p493), it is more than mere performance. Rather the practice reflects a pervasive experience in Bushman culture specifically and human culture more generally, whether it is termed shamanism or not, and it is the various aspects of this experience (rather than its nomenclature), along with the cultural institutions with which it was intimately associated, that are expressed in the rock art. Furthermore, as Lewis-Williams says, the shamanic interpretation is

“… not a final, monolithic ‘explanation’ of San rock art. Rather, it opens up to limitless possibilities for new and ever more detailed insights into the iconography and… into San mythology, cosmology and social relations.” (2004, p95)

‘Veg ‘n Vlug’ panel showing a physical or shamanic battle. Cederberg, Western Cape
(Parkington, 2008, p64)

I hope therefore that this series of articles with accompanying images, recording my personal site visits and highlighting the particular aspects of Bushman rock art which most fascinate me, will bring to wider appreciation this scintillating art tradition, and by the time the series ends, that the reader will agree that the images and visual records of the Bushman painters deserve to stand with the best that human artistic endeavour has produced in its complexity and visionary intensity.

THE 'BUSHMAN ROCK ART' SERIES OF ARTICLES

This article is the first in a series of articles about Bushman Rock Art, and subsequent articles will be centred around visits to sites that I have personally made. One site in the Drakensberg, Ikanti, was visited in 2010, while in 2016 and 2017 I have visited several sites in the Western Cape province, including the famous Ezeljagdspoort. In many cases, a site might contain several panels of paintings, or consist of different sites within close proximity (within a few hundred metres) of each other. Since the subject matter of each panel or sub-site is different, these will often be dealt with in separate articles.

However, preceding the site visit articles in many cases will be some short articles about generic features of Bushman rock art which are intended to ‘prepare’ the reader for the imagery seen in the subsequent site visit article. So for example at Ikanti Site #1, a frieze of painted polychrome elands is seen, along with a fragmentary depiction of what may be a rain-making ritual, and so preceding this site visit will be two articles exploring eland paintings and rain-making in Bushman art and culture. Hopefully, this approach will make the detailed descriptions and photographs of the site visit articles a more immersive and enriching experience for the reader!

NOTES

*1 – The symbols in these names are not punctuation, but represent click consonants in Bushman languages. The / symbol represents a dental click, similar to a ‘tutting’ sound, while the ! mark represents an alveolar click, like the ‘tock’ sound made to imitate a clock. Other click sounds include the palatal click represented by the ǂ symbol, the lateral click (similar to the sound made to gee up a horse) represented by a double // mark, and the bilabial click, similar to a kissing sound and found only in the /Xam and closely related languages, represented by the ʘ symbol. Clicks are very often combined with other sounds, and as such there are nasal clicks, voiced clicks, aspirated clicks, and so on. The /x at the beginning of the word /Xam, for example, represents a dental click with a heavily aspirated [x] sound, like the ‘ch’ in Scottish ‘loch’, pronounced at the same time. Other phonetic symbols commonly seen in /Xam orthography include ŋ which represents a ‘ng’ sound and a colon sign : which represents a long vowel, as in !gi:xa or !gi:ten. The ‘i’ in both cases is pronounced with the double the length of the other vowels in the words.

*2 – Fascinatingly, Vinnicombe reports (1967, p158) a number of different orthographic and dialectal variations on the name of the Bushman trickster-shaman deity, /Kaggen, the Mantis. These include Kaggen, Cagn, ctaggen, and most strikingly Qhang. It is possible therefore that the name of this red ochre pigment may have resonated with the name of the deity in the Maluti Bushman language, although this is a speculation based upon admittedly slender evidence

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