RECORDS OF COLONIALISM IN ROCK ART

An equestrian raider with a musket and stolen domestic stock. The zoomorph at top right is interpreted as a 'rain animal' magically summoned to wash away the tracks. Photograph from Sam Challis and Brent Sinclair-Thompson.

On 11 September 2021 I posted an article titled “In South Africa, Colonialism Was Written on Stone” about armed resistance by indigenous peoples to European colonialism in South Africa. It was illustrated by pictographs from South Africa taken by Challis and Sinclair-Johnson (2021) of equestrian and armed figures including one identified as an armed stock raider.

Porterville galleon. Photograph from Trust for African Rock Art.

Another paper, this one by Kimon DeGreef (2016) has now identified a ship pictograph in South Africa as a record of colonial imperialism. “Whoever painted the ship trekked far inland before leaving his or her mark: the nearest coastal bays lie 100 kilometers to the west. The painting, dubbed the Porterville Galleon, is found in one of the richest rock art areas in southern Africa. The parched and rugged mountain range 200 kilometers north of Cape Town known as Cederberg has several thousand ocher paintings on boulders and sandstone ledges. The images record the lives and rituals of the indigenous peoples who inhabited the Cape of Good Hope for hundreds of generations before European settlers – first from the Netherlands, then Britain – took control of the land.” (DeGreef 2016)

“In caves and overhangs throughout the area, San rock art can be found, evidence of the earliest human inhabitants. European settlement brought forestry and some agriculture, and led to massive destruction of the local cedar trees, with thousands felled for telephone poles, furniture and housing. The European arrival also led to the elimination of the San population.” (Wikipedia) An example of all the sins of Colonialism, the eradication of the San people was merciless.

Borderland region painting with horses and guns. Photograph by Sam Challis and Brent Sinclair-Thompson.

“Some paintings found near the Cederberg are more than 3,500 years old, left behind by ancient San hunter-gatherer societies. They depict animals, humans, and therianthropes – people with hybrid animal features metamorphosing during trance states. Geometric patterns, handprints, and paintings of domestic sheep overlay some of these images, which are thought to date to the appearance of Khoi pastoralists 2,000 years ago. The ship painting marks a more recent and dramatic historical contact.” (DeGreef 2016) While most of our attention to rock art of the region has been directed at the remarkable San imagery, the pictographs reported here are from a later phase. They were produced by people we can call the Khoisan, also once known as ‘Hottentots.’

Another armed equestrian, either a stock raider or a guard. Photograph by Sam Challis and Brent Sinclair-Thompson.

“In around 2300 BP, hunter-gatherers called the San acquired domestic stock in what is now modern day Botswana. Their population grew, and spread throughout the Western half of South Africa. They were the first pastoralists in southern Africa, and called themselves Khoikhoi (or Khoe), which means ‘men of men’ or ‘the real people.’ - - The Khoikhoi brought a new way of life to South Africa and to the San, who were hunter-gatherers as opposed to herders. This led to misunderstandings and subsequent conflict between the two groups.” (South African History Online) I really do not know how accurate this short expose’ of the history of the peoples of South Africa is. The record is so full of colonial racism and apartheid and I am not expert enough in their history to know who to trust.

“The Khoikhoi were the first native people to come into contact with the Dutch settlers in the mid 17^th century. As the Dutch took over land for farms, the Khoikhoi were dispossessed, exterminated, or enslaved and therefore their numbers dwindled. The Khoikhoi were called the ‘Hottentots’ by European settlers because the sound of their language was so different from any European language, and they could not pronounce many of the words and sounds.” (South African History Online) This is seemingly a rerun of the Ancient Greeks dubbing all other cultures ‘barbarians’ because their language sounded to the Greeks as if they were babbling gibberish – bar, bar, bar.

The lessons represented here can, and should, be applied to anywhere Western Colonial peoples moved into land occupied by indigenous people, including the North American continent, and can give us new insights into how we interpret rock art in our own studies.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Challis, Sam, and Brent Sinclair-Thomson, 2021, South Africa’s Bandit Slaves and the Rock Art of Resistance, 20 August  2021, The Conversation Africa, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

De Greef, Kimon, 2016, In South Africa, Colonialism Was Written on Stone, 12 December 2016, https://hakamagazine.com/article-short/south-africa-colonialism-was-written-stone/. Accessed online 12 March 2023

Faris, Peter, 2021, The Rock Art of Resistance, 11 September 2021, https://www.rockartblog.blogspot.com/.

South African History Online, The Khoisan, https://sahistory.org.za/article/khoisan. Accessed online 25 March 2023.

Wikipedia, Cederberg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cederberg. Accessed online 15 March 2023.