Southern African Humanities

Nets or not? Identifying LSA rock paintings of reticulate forms in the Kouga Mountains, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Jeremy Hollmann — 2024-11-18

The corpus of southern African Later Stone Age (LSA) rock art (or San/Bushman/hunter-gatherer art) follows broad conventions across the subcontinent. San/Bushman ethnography is used to identify recurrent themes and metaphors, such as hunting, dance, powerful animals, death and transformation. In certain cases, however, painted subjects receive scant mention in the ethnography. Is it possible to identify these without misunderstanding their implicit meanings? Paintings of reticulate forms in the Kouga Mountains of the Eastern Cape reawaken this debate in southern African rock art research. Although it is less secure to infer practices and items of material culture based almost entirely on their depiction in rock art, it is argued here that some inferences are safer than others. The reticulate forms and their overall painted context comprise a narrative based on hunting practices that involve the use of nets in which to capture animals. However, the paintings are not illustrations of hunting techniques: they are informed by the same tropes and concerns that have been detected in southern African LSA rock art more generally. It is to be expected that depictions of other subjects and practices not mentioned in any ethnographic records will embody a wealth of associations.

Notes on George Stow’s copy of the Mo’koma (dance of blood) depictions copied from Namahali Shelter, Maloti-Drakensberg

Jeremy Hollmann — 2024-11-18

We reintroduce and discuss a painted copy of 16 figures that George Stow recreated from what we refer to as Namahali Shelter. This shelter is located in a part of the Maloti-Drakensberg that is difficult to reach and has not been relocated since Stow’s visit. His comments link the figures, their activities and material culture to the Mo’koma dance described by Arbousset as one of the most important among the San people. Stow’s notes on the figures, the painted copy and the accompanying pencil sketches have not been presented as a cohesive record before. We introduce our own preliminary descriptive notes and interpretations, drawing from current understanding of the San world view. We demonstrate that the depictions from Namahali Shelter are exceptionally rich in conceptual elements that inform their narrative component, allowing us to recognise the interweaving of the ‘real’ with the ‘nonreal’ of some of the elements of the dance. We provide original insight into the possible role of women in healing and out-of-body travel in trance, the use of material culture (such as batons and bored stones), as well as concepts of fighting and death, in the performance of the Mo’koma dance. Our reading remains tentative until Namahali Shelter can be relocated and the original paintings recorded in their complete context.

Local ceramics of Ngoni settlers in southern Tanzania

Thomas Biginagwa — 2024-11-28

This analysis of the archaeological ceramics from the earliest Ngoni settlements of Mbinga-Mharule and Ndirima in southern Tanzania aims to determine the cross-cultural influence of Ngoni immigrants in their contact with local ethnic groups. The analysis seeks to establish whether Ngoni immigrants from South Africa during the Mfecane introduced distinct ceramic traditions that the autochthonous groups adopted or vice versa. Attributes analysed were fabric and temper, surface treatments, vessel forms, rim profiles, lip-end styles, and decoration types and their placement on the vessels. The ceramics were compared with those reported from nearby contemporaneous non- ngoni settlements and distant sites in abutting regions of Lake Nyasa. The results suggest that the Ngoni influence on the ceramics of local ethnic groups in southern Tanzania was insignificant. Instead, the Ngoni appear to have adopted the ceramic styles of autochthonous groups, but with adjustments, since they opted for large pots, largely for producing traditional brews. These findings offer some lessons essential in understanding the cultural impacts of other ethnic migrations in the past, present and future.

Destruction and opportunism: firearms, violence and banditry among Khoe-San in the early 19th-century Cape Colony

Brent Sinclair-Thomson — 2024-11-28

The conflicts along the colonial Cape frontier in the late 18th and early 19th centuries saw mixed groups of Khoe-San descent forming bandit communities to both resist the colony and to improve their own stations in life. Members within these communities often banded together after fleeing their positions as subservient workers in the colony, either on settlerowned
farms or in the military. Firearms had a significant impact on these communities. In some cases, like that of the bandit leader Draghonder, they sought to enact revenge and resistance towards their former masters. Draghonder’s attacks, however, ultimately led to a response from the colony. This response included a heavily armed commando and Khoe-San military unit, and resulted in the destruction of the bandit community. In other cases, such as that of the bandit leader Abraham Kruger, the bandits acquired firearms and turned on groups who were not able to defend themselves, including smaller Khoe-San communities. Kruger and his community sought to enrich themselves by preying on others. While they effectively used their guns for opportunistic measures, these opportunities ultimately came at the price of the destruction of other indigenous communities.

More thoughts on ‘thinking strings’: a comparative approach to concepts of soul and the notion of ‘thinking strings’ in southern African San cosmology

Carolyn Thorp — 2024-12-31

I previously demonstrated the congruence of ‘blood’ and ‘thought’ in /Xam cosmology, and that the equivalence of blood and thought expressed by the notion of ‘thinking strings’ underpins their role in beliefs about the powers and work of !gi:ten. In this paper, I contend that thinking strings are equivalent to Naro and Ju/'hoan concepts of soul/heart. Naro ethnography situates [??] (thought/soul) within the cardiovascular system. This explains the physiological equivalence of blood vessels and thinking strings in the /Xam worldview and the conceptual unity of 'soul/heart' with thought and feelings in Naro, Ju/'hoan and /Xam worldviews. I also determine here that Naro and Ju/'hoan beliefs about healers' hearts/souls/thought travelling away from their bodies during trance are conveyed by a /Xam idiom: !gi:ten’s hearts 'fall down'. I observe that /Xam !gi:ten's falling hearts 'resound' and 'rumble' like the 'low, rumbling groans' of Ju/'hoan healers' n//hara sounds during trance. I establish that for both Ju/'hoan and /Xam people, shooting stars, which also 'resound' and 'rumble' as they fall, embody the hearts/souls of !gi:ten or healers during extracorporeal travel and upon 'death'. I conclude that whether thin red painted lines in the rock art of the Maloti-Drakensberg and the Cederberg of the Western Cape express the notion of 'threads of light' inspired by shooting stars, or alternatively thinking strings representing blood vessels, both of these metaphors allude to embodiment of thought or soul within the cardiovascular system.

Reflected sound: acoustic apprehension and 'resonant' ontologies at Kurukop rock art site, Nama Karoo, South Africa

Neil Graham Rusch — 2024-12-31

Kurukop is an archaeological site in the Nama Karoo drylands, South Africa. The metamorphic sandstone outcrop protrudes 23.6 m above the surrounding scrubland plain. The area (70 000 m2) is marked by petroglyphs (n = 112) and other signs of human presence, such as ostrich eggshell fragments and pottery, dating from c. 11 500 before present. Kurukop has an aural signature, with distinctive echo. Taking note of sound, an archaeoacoustic reading of the material remains and the engraved depictions is possible. It is hypothesised that site selection, archaeology and spatial transformation may include an acoustic dimension in a regionally specific ecology of sound. Recordings collected from an array of Impulse Response (IR) positions were subjected to spectrum analysis. The IR method has been applied in archaeoacoustic research at open-air and cave sites elsewhere in the world. At Kurukop there is an area of maximum echo intensity to the east and adjacent to two large rock pavements marked with engraved depictions. The archaeoacoustic data supports growing recognition of the sound sensibilities of indigenous people and their relational, ‘resonant’ ontologies, which in many cases pre-figure and intersect the domains of bioacoustic and ecoacoustic research.

The women of the Mazeppa in 1842: absences from settler Natal’s social memory and memorialisation

Graham Dominy — 2024-12-31

During the conflict between the Boers and the British at Port Natal in 1842, a group of women played a significant and heroic role far beyond the prescribed roles of women in the Victorian era. The concept of Victorian military heroism is discussed to provide a context for the further discussion of this incident. Regrettably, the actions of the women of the Mazeppa are only very rarely recalled in social memory, in traditions, and in texts, but not on memorials. This is contrasted with the memorialisation of women in Afrikaner mythology, as expressed at the Voortrekker Monument. The social memory of colonial Natal and the dominant historical narratives favoured heroic male figures, particularly in this instance, the male settler Dick King (his Zulu companion Ndongeni kaKoki was included in the memorialisation as a contested afterthought). However, the heroism of the women who sailed the little schooner Mazeppa out of the Bay of Natal, under heavy Boer fire, north to the Mozambique Channel in search of a British warship to come to the aid of their menfolk, has been largely ignored. Their voyage was unsuccessful, but this paper surmises that even if they had been successful, their contribution would have been memorialised in a manner subsidiary to that of the male ‘heroic’ figures aboard the ship.