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by Sven Ouzman - Rock Art Department
This is a multi-component, cross-temporal site characterised
by many superimpositions. The paintings are executed in the ‘classic’
manner - that is , they have muted hues and a rounded, three-dimensional
appearance and this is the tradition that extends back 27 000
years, though the paintings we see in shelters today will be considerably
younger. The imagery is painted in monochrome, bichrome, polychrome
and shaded polychrome techniques. Eland (Taurotragus oryx)
are present - up to 11 individual - and represent the most spiritually
potent animal to Bushman people. The eland, it was believed, was
an animal of immense supernatural potency. This supernatural potency
- what the !King San call n/um, is present in fat. The
more the fat - and the eland has much fat; interestingly it is
the male eland and not the female, that has the most fat. Tohlong
1 is notable for the many finely detailed depictions of rhebuck
(Pelea capreolus); an animal important to Bushmen in that
its social organisation - it aggregates in large family groups
as well as disperses in smaller groups is a natural analogue for
Bushman social organisation. The site is also notable for the
three human figures that utilise natural nodule hollows for heads
- something found at very, very few sites. There are at least
3 felines depicted and these symbolise the malevolent, anti-social
forces, often personified by evil medicine people or shamans.
The entire 3m x 1,4 m panel has strong shamanistic referents like,
for example, the human figures with dancing sticks - used when
the n/um or supernatural potency ‘boiled’ so painfully
in the stomach’s of the trance-dancers, that they had to bend
over and support their weight on dancing sticks.
This shelter has imagery depicted in quite bright pigments
and is characteristic of sites painted within the last 400 years
or so. The site does not seem to have had many episodes of painting,
but what it does have, is a strong thematic unity. The 2m x 0,7m
main panel of the 14 hunters and 6 eland is in a good state of
preservation. The hunt is unlikely to be a literal hunt as archaeologically
we find mismatch between excavated animal remains from shelters
- dassie, rhebuck, grysbok and so on - and that found painted
- large antelope were seldom eaten. For the Bushmen, the eland
was spiritually their most important animal - much like the lamb
is in Christianity. Eland were ambiguous animals because the male
had more fat than the female - the opposite to all other animals
and humans. It was believed that fat contained supernatural potency
and thus the fatter the animal, the more potent it was. When eland
were killed - they were hunted on occasion - this supernatural
potency was released and people could dance well and heal people.
In order to heal, however, you had to become the animal of potency.
This altered state of consciousness experience meant people felt
themselves transform into animals and the part-human, part-animal
small black creatures painted at Tohlong II are almost certainly
these therianthropes or part-animal human beings. The detail on
the three-part arrows is also noteworthy.
This shelter, just north of Tohlong I has a most remarkable
running human figure, -the legs of this figure are1,2m long. Also,
this figure is infibulated -it has a bar across its penis. This
was not a real practice but relates to a hunting belief wherein
the new hunter was not allowed to follow the first large buck
he shot. He had to stay in camp while other hunters tracked his
prey. During this time it was believed that the hunter and prey
shared a strong bond and that actions on the part of one would
affect actions on the part of the other. Thus, while the poison
from the Bushman’s arrow coursed through the animal’s body, the
hunter could not urinate, lest the prey do so too and expel the
poison from its body. This shelter also has 7 cyprinid fish painted,
metaphor for ‘underwater’ or ‘being in trance’. Though all the
figures in this shelter appear as monochrome red, each would have
had various white painted bits, but the white has since faded.
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