The 'cutting edge' of rock art: motifs and other markings on Driekuil Hill, North West Province, South Africa

Abstract

Driekuil Hill is one of at least 12 sites, all on outcrops of pyrophyllite, or 'wonderstone', that include Gestoptefontein Mountain and Gestoptefontein Hill, regarded collectively as the largest and most significant Khoe-San rock art sites in the former Western Transvaal (now North West Province). Two types of markings are identified on Driekuil Hill based on Josephine Flood's distribution between 'referential art' (pecked and incised images of anthropomorphs, zoomorphs, aprons, skins and other objects) and 'gestural art' (grooves, pits, hammered areas, clusters of pecks and cut marks) that may have been made as part of ceremonies. It is suggested that the art is associated with Khoe-San girls' puberty rituals and that the wonderstone outcrops on which the motifs and other markings occur were believed by the Khoe-San to be the body of a great Water Snake.

To cite this article: Hollmann, J. C. 2007. The 'cutting edge' of rock art: motifs and other markings on Driekuil Hill, North West Province, South Africa. Southern African Humanities 19: 123-51.