Debating Rock Art: Myth and Ritual, Theories and Facts

South African Archaeological Society

Debating Rock Art: Myth and Ritual, Theories and FactsAuthor(s): J. D. Lewis-WilliamsSource: The South African Archaeological Bulletin, Vol. 61, No. 183 (Jun., 2006), pp. 105-114Published by: South African Archaeological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3888913 .

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South African Archaeological Bulletin 61 (183): 105-114, 2006 105

Discussion Forum

DEBATING ROCK ART: MYTH AND RITUAL, THEORIES AND FACTS

J.D. LEWIS-WILLIAMS

Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2050 South Africa. E-mail: [email protected]

(Received November 2005. Revised April 2006)

Debate is the life-blood of academic discourse. Its back-and- forth exchanges lead to the refinement of ideas and the further- ance of knowledge. But as debate proceeds, important ideas are often blurred and evidence for them may be lost sight of over the years. From time to time it is therefore useful for researchers to clarify their positions as best they can.

Unfortunately, two less welcome corollaries must be mentioned. First, original discoveries and explanations are subjected to criticism, as they should be, by fellow researchers. Those interested in but perhaps not directly implicated in the area of research being debated tend to accept these critiques at face value. Critiques themselves are seldom subjected to rigorous criticism.

Secondly, is the matter of personal attacks. When a writer devotes much time trying to discredit a single author, alarm bells begin to ring. Personal invective and sneers have no place in academic work.'

In this article I consider eight topics that are frequently the focus of debate on San rock art. They are highlighted by Jean-Loic Le Quellec (2004) in a book, published in both French and English, that is unusually comprehensive in its misunderstandings. There is therefore a need to clarify these issues.

TOPICS

1. MYTHOLOGY OR RITUAL? Today some researchers debate whether we should con-

sider San rock art to have been implicated in mythology or ritual, as though these are two mutually incompatible kinds of explanation. Le Quellec (2004), for instance, argues that southern African San images are better explained by 'mythology' than by religious rituals and beliefs that I and others believe can be labelled 'shamanistic'. He repeats arguments put forward more coherently, cogently and interestingly by Anne Solomon (1997). To begin, we must briefly clear away three preliminary misunderstandings that tend to bedevil discussions.

First, and contrary to a widely held but false perception, San mythology has not escaped the attention of those who accept that, overwhelmingly, the images are demonstrably more closely related to ritual experiences than to mythology (e.g. Lewis-Williams 1981:104-107, 117-126; 1983: 44-54; 1996; 1997; Lewis-Williams & Loubser 1986; Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a: 109-133, 189-193).

Secondly, we must not allow disputes over words to become confused with disputes over facts. Whether 'shamanism' is an appropriate word in the southern African context or not does not in any way affect what the San actually did - and still do-in their rituals (Lewis-Williams 1992; see also Price 2001 on the disputed word).

Thirdly, the use of the word to describe some rock arts does not imply that all rock arts are shamanistic. In southern Africa, for instance, there are rock art traditions, other than that of the

San: they are not shamanistic (e.g. Smith & Ouzman 2004). Le Quellec tries to clinch his overall argument by juxtapos-

ing a /Xam San myth with two groups of rock paintings that George William Stow copied in the 19th century (Stow & Bleek 1930: pls 45 & 58). Paintings removed from one of the sites are now in the National Museum, Bloemfontein; the other site has not been re-discovered (a failure that urges caution; Dowson et al. 1994). When shown these two copies, 19th-century /Xam San informants referred to a single myth (it may have been only one informant who commented on both copies).

The myth to which they (or he) alluded concerns a girl who offends the rain by killing a 'Water-child'. She and other people are then caught up by a whirlwind, dropped into a spring, and turned into frogs (Bleek& Lloyd 1911: 199-205). Does this myth 'fit' the rock paintings? Does it support the view that 'the art' in general is better described as 'mythological' than 'shamanistic' (if that word be considered apposite)?

In Le Quellec's first comparative copy (Fig. la; Le Quellec 2004: 205, fig. 80; Stow & Bleek 1930: pl. 58), only one of the 31 anthropomorphic figures may be frog-like. The second painted panel (Fig. lb; Le Quellec 2004: 205, fig. 81; Stow & Bleek 1930: pl. 45), the one that has not been re-discovered, shows a line of 11 anthropomorphic figures; three of them have enlarged thighs that maybe frog-like. There are no other images that link this panel to the myth.

Nevertheless, let us look more closely at the myth itself, something that Le Quellec does not do. There is much more to the narrative than a simple, perhaps cautionary, tale about girls, whirlwinds and frogs.

An obviously crucial point to note is that the story concerns a girl at puberty. We know this because she was ritually secluded in a 'house of illness', !koukenka Ilnein - the name that the /Xam gave to a girl's seclusion hut during her first menstru- ation (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 200 & 201; see Lewis-Williams 1981: 41-672 and Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a: 160-164 for discussion of both girls' and boys' rites of passage, as well as reference to parts of this myth). A /Xam man explained:

When she is a maiden [girl at puberty] she has the rain's magic power (!khwa ke /koc:-dde). The rain is a thing which hears; for the rain's sorcerers are with the rain. They by magic lead out the rain (Bleek & Lloyd MS L.V13.4989-4990; Lewis-Williams 1981: 52).

Girls at puberty are closely related to the rain and to shamans (Bleek's 'sorcerers') of the rain (!khwa-ka !gi:ten).

Moreover, frogs (along with snakes and tortoises) were believed to be 'the rain's creatures' (Bleek 1933: 301; Lewis- Williams & Pearce 2004b: 212-215), and hunters who killed the rain when it was in the form of an eland were turned to frogs (Lewis-Williams 1981: 106; 2002c: 222-223). In place of a simple tale 'illustrated' by a rock painting, we are beginning to see a complex set of related associations.

An even more important point that Le Quellec omits to mention is that, in commenting on the first of the two copies, the San informant identified a rain-animal (!khwa-ka xorro) of the kind that/Xam !khwa-ka !gi:ten 'led out', captured and killed in order to make rain fall (Stow & Bleek 1930: caption to pl. 58; Lewis-Williams 1981: 103-116; Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a,b). Feathered figures (suggesting flight) surround the rain-animal, as do shamans in other paintings that depict the capture of this creature. One of the feathered human figures accompanying the rain-animal has two flywhisks (see topic 2), not shown in Stow's copy and hence unknown to Le Quellec



106 South African Archaeological Bulletin 61 (183): 105-114, 2006

a

~~~~, 4,Kv ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~-~

~~~~~~~~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ .-

FIG. 1. (a) A San rock art panel copied by George Stow in the 1870s in the southeastern Free State, South Africa (Stow & Bleek 1930: pl. 58). (b) Another of Stow's copies from the same area (Stow & Bleek 1930: pl. 45).

(see Lewis-Williams & Dowson 2000: fig. 43 for a copy of a portion of the panel that is now in the National Museum, Bloemfontein). In addition, two of the figures have crossed legs, a posture associated with trance experience (Lewis- Williams & Dowson 1990: fig. 8; 2000: fig. 20). Many have antelope heads. Both the anthropomorphic figures and the rain-animal are also associated with multiple zigzag lines (for more on such lines see Lewis-Williams 1995a; Lewis-Williams & Dowson 2000: 94-95). So, if one image is indeed intended to be frog-like, there is much more to the whole panel than an

illustration of a tale. All the images are parts of a conceptual nexus that includes rituals concerning girls at puberty, rain, shamans of the rain, and frogs that transform themselves and inhabit both water and land (Lewis-Williams 1981: 41-53; Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a: 193-198, 2004b).

Most importantly: although 19th-century San informants commented on 27 of Stow's copies, it was in response to only two that they (or he) provided a myth - the same myth. In two other instances their observations may possibly be said to relate to mythical beings, though not to known narratives (Stow &




Bleek 1930: pis 5 & 26). By contrast, in response to as many as 12 copies, they referred not to myths but, significantly, to shamans, rain-making, or rain.

Still, the proposition that San rock art was, in general, associated with mythology merits further evaluation. Despite Le Quellec's thin argument, 'mythology' is, after all, a word that readily springs to mind when one is confronted with curious rock paintings.

To begin, it is instructive to turn to the work of Megan Biesele who has for many years studied the Ju/'hoan San (!Kung) through the medium of their own language, which she speaks fluently. Although she is especially interested in folklore and myth, she is in no doubt as to

* the importance of trance experience and, crucially,

* the ways in which metaphors of trance permeate myths (Biesele 1975, 1978, 1979, 1993).

Moreover, Biesele also found that versions of what happened to a person during a specific religious revelation (such as the 'gift' of a new medicine song imbued with potency) may vary as people recall and talk about the occasion, perhaps around camp fires. But what does not vary is the understanding that those believed to have received the revelation were

experiencing some sort of altered state of consciousness at the time .... These states, whether dreams, trances, or day-time confrontation with the spirits, are regarded as reliable channels for the transfer of new meaning from the other world into this one .... Though dreams may happen at any time, the central religious experiences of Ju/'hoan life are consciously and, as a matter of course, approached through the avenue of trance .... Contact with the beyond is regularly made, and all who come to the dance experience an uplifting energy which they feel to be a necessary part of their lives (Biesele 1993: 70 & 74).

Researchers who question "the supposed centrality of hallucinatory experience in visualization and the production of rock art" and simplistically argue that myth should be seen as "determining, rather than determined by" trance experience (Solomon 1997: 3 & 11) should note Biesele's insistence that the "religious experiences of Ju/'hoan life" are principally, "regularly", "and as a matter of course, approached through the avenue of trance". For the Ju/'hoansi it is trance experience rather than 'teaching' (myth telling) that matters (Lewis- Williams & Pearce 2004a: 82-98).

New information about spiritual things is more highly valued if it comes through an altered state of consciousness than if someone invents and then 'teaches' it. Imaginative story-tellers supply some of the narratives and elaborations of myths as they narrate them and entertainingly act them out (Lewis-Williams 1997), but the essence of the spirit, or mythical, realm comes from shamanic experience.

Biesele goes on to point out that "trancers", as she calls Ju/'hoan n/omkxaosi (owners of n/om, potency, the activation of which induces altered states of consciousness),

mediate to the whole community not only healing power but also information about how things are in the other world and how people in this world would do best to relate to them. Great attention is given to trancers' accounts of what they have experienced, and no one's account of a genuinely altered state is belittled (Biesele 1993: 70).

But how do potentially idiosyncratic, individual experiences of altered consciousness enter and become part of tradition? In answering this question, Biesele makes a point that, I argue, throws considerable light on one of the functions of San rock art:

Part of the answer lies in the fact that [trance] experience itself is, from an early age, already culturally informed and mediated. Initiates have certain experiences in trance because they expect to do so, basing their expectations on other accounts [of trance experience] they have heard. A high de- gree of stereotyping is present in the verbal accounts of travels beyond the self which are made after a night's trancing. Yet the Ju/'hoansi themselves treat these experiences as unique messages from the beyond, accessible in no other way save through trance, and they regard narratives of the experiences as documents valuable to share. The narratives are thus Ipreconstrained' by tradition but they also add to it.... The hallucinations of actual n/omkxaosi become, by a process at once highly individual and highly social, conventionalized vehicles facilitating trance for the uninitiated (Biesele 1993: 72 & 76; brackets added).

One cannot infer from these acute observations that 'mythology' fully 'determines' trance experience. As Biesele says, it is accounts of trance experiences that "add to" tradition. They help to mould future trance experiences: trance feeds back into trance (see also Lee 1984: 103).

Biesele's phrase "culturally informed" includes practices of daily life, hunting techniques, human relationships, relationships with animals, and so forth, all integral to San life. This is why trance experiences often closely resemble every-day life: in the spirit world people hunt, argue, and so forth.

It is also important to remember that myths and the beings who feature in them are seldom part of trancers' reports of what they experience in the spirit realm. They concentrate on reporting personal encounters with God during which they plead for the sick; they also combat malign spirits of the dead (less frequently, they contact spirits of recently deceased benign relatives), acquire supernatural potency, hunt, engage (for the /Xam) with 'rain-animals', and, importantly, person- ally explore visual apprehensions of all these supernatural activities.

On the other hand, metaphors of trance permeate many myths (Biesele 1993: 83-98; Lewis-Williams 1996,1997). Certain components of trance experience derive from the functioning of the human nervous system. For example, sensations of float- ing or flying in a realm above (sometimes suggested by feathers and wings) and penetrating the ground below via some sort of a tunnel (or through water) are hard-wired human neurologi- cal experiences (Lewis-Williams 2002a,b, 2003a; Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a). They structure not only many San myths but mythology worldwide; all religions have an ecstatic compo- nent, though extreme altered states of consciousness are not necessarily experienced by all adherents (Lewis-Williams 1996,1997; Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2005). Transformation (e.g. people into animals) also appears to be wired into the nervous system. At the same time, some hallucinations involve no distortion at all: they are as 'real' as normal sight or hearing. These complexities explain why trance experiences, though resembling everyday life, differ fundamentally from it. (This is not to say that all myths derive from trance experience.)

What Biesele says about verbal accounts of trance experience also applies to painted images: "Initiates have certain experiences in trance because they expect to do so" (Biesele 1993: 72). The painted images, along with verbal accounts of the spirit world, must have guided the expectations of those about to enter trance and what they (or, less likely, others) would later paint (Lewis-Williams 1982: 438; Lewis-Williams & Loubser 1986: 280). Because of their vivid and precise impact, painted images in the rock shelters of southern Africa probably exer- cised a more effective constraining influence on trance experience than merely verbal accounts of the Kalahari Desert. The experiences of San shamans in regions where there is rock art




were therefore probably more standardized than those of shamans in the Kalahari where there are virtually no rock paintings. The constant presence in the inhabited rock shelters of images of another world powerfully informed religious experiences (Lewis-Williams 2002a, 2003b; Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a).

There is thus no evidence that an independently generated 'mythology' determined trance experience. What the San talk about after trance experiences (their principal access to the spirit world, as Biesele repeatedly insists) and what is painted in the rock shelters both concern the same supernatural realm, the one in which many myths take place. But mythology and trance experience relate to largely different aspects of the spirit realm. San realm-travellers know what spirits of the dead look like because they see them. Yet spirits of the dead seldom play a role in myths; conversely, major mythical beings, with the exception of God, hardly appear at all in trance experiences. The San painted neither generalized 'mythology' nor specific narratives, but rather their own forays into the spirit realm.

Moreover, the act of painting was itself a ritual that entailed special preparations that seem to have involved shamans. Le Quellec writes that the ingredients and the making of images "must have been at least as important in itself as its result - the finished painting" (Le Quellec 2004: 197), apparently unaware of published accounts of the ritual sequence that led up to and followed the act of painting. I argue that image-making was but a part of a complex ritual sequence that comprised:

* acquiring insights into the spirit realm;

* preparing paint sometimes imbued with the same supernatural potency that shamans activate;

* making images;

* using images in various ways after they were painted (Lewis-Williams 1994; Lewis-Williams 1995b; reprinted in Lewis-Williams 2002b; Lewis-Williams 2001; Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a: 100-106).

A final set of interrelated questions raises elusive issues. If

San images were, after all, in some way connected with mythology, what was the nature of that connection? Do paintings merely illustrate myths, as Le Quellec and other writers

simplistically imply? Did people paint episodes from stories? Or mythical beings outside of any particular narratives? Or did

they paint the essence, or 'meaning', of certain myths? If the

images did indeed relate to the same social and psychological issues with which myths dealt, we have to ask what were those

issues? Or did the tellers of myths and the makers of images deal in their own particular ways with the same issues (rather than narratives and beings), neither practice being derived

from the other? Advocates of the 'mythical' explanation for San

rock art do not seem to appreciate these complexities; they do not ask penetrating enough questions about their own

explanation. If, as Biesele found, metaphors of trance permeate myths,

do they also permeate rock art? This last question raises the

matter of context. For instance, one could juxtapose any one of

the multitude of eland paintings with the myth of the creation

of the first eland (Bleek 1924: 2-9; Orpen 1874: 3-5). There

would probably be a connection, but what would be the nature

of that connection? The answer lies in the notion of focused

polysemy: the eland as a 'central symbol' had many meanings and associations. Which meanings and associations were highlighted in a given instance was determined by context (Lewis- Williams 1999). Rock art is a context, even as the Bland Bull Dance of the girls' puberty ritual, or the boys' first-kill rites, or marriage rituals, or the trance dance are all focussing contexts of the eland as a symbol (Lewis-Williams 1981, seen in the light

of Lewis-Williams 1998). Moreover, the rock face itself was not a tabula rasa but a significant context, the interface between this world and the spirit realm (Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1990). The context focuses on specific components of the eland symbol's complex meaning. Rock art, as a context, focussed on the eland as facilitator, through its exceptional potency, of access to the spirit realm, without entirely excluding other associations.

Questions concerning the relation between mythology and imagery are not easily answered, but we can perhaps reach a compromise position. Shamans who believe they travel to the spirit realm may occasionally see certain mythical beings (e.g. the rain-animal, God). There is therefore no need to distinguish absolutely rigidly between mythical and ritual explanations. We must, however, remember that, in the case of the San, realm-travellers seldom subsequently speak about mythical narratives or beings (except God and spirits of the dead, whom they combat). The view that San rock art was principally associated with shamanic visits to the spirit world rather than with mythology has opened up a way to understanding the multiple functions and subtle, contextualized nuances of the images. It takes us to individual San people (Dowson 1988), not to an impersonal 'mythology'.

2. HUMAN-ANIMAL FIGURES: MASKS, MYTHS OR TRANSFORMATIONS?

The vexed issue of the part-human-part-animal figures is closely related to the myth/ritual dispute (for recent general discussions see Jolly 2002; Hollmann 2003; Blundell 2004). Southern African painted therianthropes in general have been interpreted as depictions of

* people disguised as animals (e.g. Lee & Woodhouse 1970; Thackeray 1983),

* spirits of the dead (Ju'hoan: Ilgauwasi; /Xam: /nu:-!ke) (Lee & Woodhouse 1970; Pager 1975: 404; Vinnicombe 1976: 330; Solomon 1997: 9, 1999: 56; cf. Dowson 1994),

* people of the Early Race (/Xam: !Xwe:-/na-se-!ke) (Solomon 1997: 4, 1999: 56),

* transformed shamans (Lewis-Williams 1981; Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004b: 166-175).

The first of these explanations was at one time much debated because researchers exaggerated the number of figures that are clearly shown with some sort of antelope headdress. In

fact, the number of such images is miniscule. One instance was

copied by Stow (Stow & Bleek 1930: pls 13 & 14) and illustrated

by Le Quellec (2004: 182, 183, figs 58 & 59). It was checked a

decade ago in the field by members of the Rock Art Research Institute (Stevenson 1995): it does indeed show human figures, some clearly women, who appear to have antelope heads rest-

ing on top of their own heads (Fig. 2a). These are among the

very few thoroughly convincing examples of which I am aware

(for a recent discussion of this panel see Lewis-Williams &

Pearce 2004a: 169-171). What do we know about them? Le Quellec does not adequately report what, in the 1870s, a

/Xam San man said about Stow's copy. He did not say anything about mythology. Instead, he specified that the people thus

adorned 'mean to tread the "ken with them [i.e., the 'caps', as

he called the headdresses] .... At the time when they do the

'ken they wear such caps" (Stow & Bleek 1930: caption to pls 13 & 14; brackets added; Lewis-Williams 1981: 77). Le Quellec does not seem to know that what is given in this statement as 'ken is more properly//ke:n, a/Xam word for the supernatural potency that shamans activated in their trance dances and other activities (Lewis-Williams 1981: 77; Bleek 1956: 569; nlom in the Ju/'hoan language). I made this point some years ago: "The




a -b

d

FIG. 2. Southern African rock art images. (a) A human figure wearing an antelope headdress. (b) A humanfigure wearing an eared cap. (c) Therianthropicfigures with large karosses that grade into elands' humps. (d) Therianthropicfigures with antelope hoofs; bloodfalls from the nose of one of them. All copies by Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand.

donning of the caps thus seems, in some cases, to have been preparatory to participating in a medicine or curing dance" (Lewis-Williams 1981: 77). So, Stow's copy does not depict supernatural therianthropes; I have never argued that it does. Nor does it depict mythological beings. It refers to the trance dance.

Nor does Le Quellec allow that eared caps (Fig. 2b), which are frequently painted and should not be confused with fully therianthropic images, were worn by 'shamans of the game' (opwaiten-ka !gi:ten) in the belief that an antelope herd would follow the wearers of these caps into the waiting hunters' ambush (Bleek 1936: 1443) - a spiritual rather than a literal belief (Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a: 169-171).

Many therianthropes seem to wear a kaross (animal skin cloak) that grades into an eland's shoulder hump and head (fig. 2c). In these kaross-clad figures, what are at one extreme the 'hem lines' of karosses are, at the other, the body, neck and head of an eland. Le Quellec cites John Parkington et al. (1996) as pointing out this feature. In fact, it was first noted in 1983 in a book that Le Quellec lists in his bibliography (Lewis-Williams 1983: 56-57). Both there and in subsequent articles I have

discussed the significance of kaross-clad figures (e.g. Lewis- Williams 1996). Briefly: like bags, karosses could, in supernatural circumstances, revert to antelope, the raw material from which they were made. For instance, an 'angry' rain was said to turn karosses back into springbuck (Bleek 1933: 300). Karosses were also associated with shamans:

A man who is a sorcerer [!gi:xa] will not lay down his kaross, even if it is hot, because he knows that the place will not seem hot to him.... For the doings of sorcery [//ke:n-ka didi, literally, the deeds of supernatural potency; //ke:n is a near synonym for !gi:] are not easy (Bleek 1935: 13; brackets added).

'Getting into' a bag or kaross was thus akin to 'getting into' an animal and being enveloped by the creature's potency.

A final and major problem with seeing many of the therianthropic images as masked is that, in addition to antelope heads, they have cloven hoofs in place of hands and feet, clearly not parts of disguises (Fig. 2d).

All this evidence shows that we can reject suggestions about masks and disguises in the overwhelming majority of therianthropic images. For the purposes of our present




enquiry, it is not necessary to adjudicate unequivocally between the next three of the explanations I have listed.

If therianthropes represent spirits of the dead, they are often clearly the spirits of dead shamans, such as are indeed confronted by living shamans in their trance experiences. In many instances, the backward position of their arms, nasal bleeding (see topic 4), emanations from the backs of their necks, 'streamers' flowing back from their bodies, and the fact that they hold flyswitches (see topic 4) establish this point.

Similarly, if therianthropes represent people of the Early Race who feature in myths, they are shamans of the Early Race: their arms-back postures, streamers and other features suggest this (Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a: 164-166).

The third explanation - that, generally, therianthropes represent transformed shamans contemporary or nearly contemporary with the painters - is, in a majority of cases, the most likely. This view is supported by an important and much- quoted comment that the 19th-century San informant Qing made on rock paintings of 'men with rhebok's heads" (Orpen 1874: 2; the heads are actually of eland). Le Quellec follows the 19th-century student of fairy tales and the origin of mono- theism Andrew Lang (1897), who had no knowledge of San languages, in taking Qing's use of the curious word 'spoiled' to mean 'the second creation in San mythology" (Le Quellec 2004: 198-200). In fact, Qing said that the men with antelope heads were "spoilt at the same time as the elands and by the dances of which you have seen paintings" (Orpen 1874: 2; original italics). What could he have meant? Megan Biesele points out that the Ju/'hoansi use their word for 'spoil' to mean 'enter deep trance' (Lewis-Williams 1980; 1999: 92; 2002b: 62; 2003b). If the men with antelope heads were "spoilt ... by the dances", there can be no doubt that Qing meant they were sent into deep trance during trance dances (Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a: 171-173). Le Quellec's, Lang's and other writers' readings are achieved by apparent ignorance of the meaning of 'spoil' in this context and by ignoring Qing's assertion that the 'spoiling' was done "by the dances".

3. THE SPECTRUM OF CONSCIOUSNESS Whilst few researchers doubt that religious experiences,

such as those at the heart of the San trance dance, come out of shifting mental states, some are reluctant to explore neuropsychological avenues to an understanding of those states. Instead, they criticize the three-stage model of the spectrum of altered conscious (Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1988; see also Lewis-Williams 2002a: 126-135; 2003a: 141-152), as does Le

Quellec:

As for the appeal to psychological data needed to establish the universality of three supposed 'stages of trance', a recent study by an American neuropsychologist has rebutted this. This is an old theory which has been long obsolete and is now irreparably refuted; it is now only of historical interest (Le Quellec 2004: 203).

The uneasiness engendered by Le Quellec's hyperbolic rhetoric is confirmed when we notice that he takes Patricia Helvenston and Paul Bahn's rejection of neuropsychological evidence at face value (Helvenston & Bahn 2002); he does not

evaluate their criticisms in any way. Genuine neuropsychological research has in fact confirmed the validity of the three-stage model (Lewis-Williams 2004). Contrary to what Helvenston and Bahn claim, all three stages are not dependent on the ingestion of psychotropic substances (Bressloff et a!. 2001; Burke 2002; ffytche 2002; ffytche & Howard 1999; ffytche et al. 1998; Santhouse et al. 2000). The falsity of Helvenston and Bahn's claims has been fully exposed by new neuropsycho-

logical research, as well as older work (all listed in Lewis- Williams 2004 and Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1988). It need not be repeated here. The neuropsychological evidence is un- equivocal: it is not a matter of 'interpretation' (for a summaries see Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a: 29-37,2005).

4. NASAL BLEEDING The relationship between religious experience and nasal

haemorrhage, which all southern African researchers accept is depicted in San rock art, is sometimes misunderstood. It is an important but not a 'key" issue, as Le Quellec believes (Le Quellec 2004: 174).

To discredit any link between nasal bleeding and San rituals, Le Quellec cites ethnographic literature from elsewhere in the world in which rituals and myths involving nasal bleeding are not associated with trance. He could, of course, just as well have cited many worldwide instances of its being associated with trance (e.g. Whitley 2000: 110-111, on shamanic nasal bleeding in North America; see also Whitley 1998). Either way, all this has no bearing on what the San do and believe; no one argues that all nasal bleeding everywhere results from altered states of consciousness. The question is: Is there evidence that the San associated nasal bleeding with trance experiences? The evidence is in fact abundant (e.g. Arbousset & Daumas 1846: 236-7; Orpen 1874: 10; Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 115; Bleek 1935: 12, 19, 20, 34; see also Butler 1997).

Nasal bleeding seems to be less frequent in the Kalahari today than it was in the 19th-century south among the /Xam and the Drakensberg San. But nasal bleeding associated with trance is nevertheless well known in the Kalahari. There, San healers still speak of it, as Biesele found (Lewis-Williams 1981: 81). Le Quellec, however, dismisses an instance that Lorna Mar- shall recorded (1999: 62):

[T]he only case of nosebleed that she [Marshall] had heard of concerned a man who had fallen into a trance and been struck by epistaxis because a lion that had terrorized him - and thus completely outside of any shamanic context (Le Quellec 2004: 174; brackets added).

Le Quellec thus acknowledges that trance and nose bleeding are associated. But he then curiously separates trance experience from shamanism and denies any shamanic context. What does Marshall actually say?

Toward morning, one supposes in the long-continued emo- tional stress, Bo fell into a trance. At sunrise the lion left, and the people said that Bo's spirit followed it and chased it far away, and they never saw it again. When Bo's spirit returned to his body and he came out of trance, his nose bled severely (Marshall 1999: 62).

San people thus associated nasal bleeding with shamanic out-of-body travel, known to the /Xam as/xau (Bleek 1935: 23 & 31; 1936: 132) and associated by them with nasal bleeding. Marshall accepted (Marshall 1999: 87; pers. comm.) and Biesele recognizes that Bo's nasal bleeding was associated with

shamanic trance experience. Indeed, Biesele explicitly refers to Marshall's account as "an instance of trance being used against real lions" (Biesele 1993: 111). To say, as Le Quellec does, that Bo's experience was 'completely outside of any shamanic context' (which any event would include dreaming) is a serious error.

It is a further error to claim that, in understanding the role of shamanism in San rock art, nasal haemorrhage is a "key" point "from which everything else follows"J (Le Quellec 2004: 174). There are in fact numerous painted features that point to shamanic experience: they are independent of nasal bleeding and certainly do not "follow" from it. They include:




* distinctive dance postures (such as the arms-back posture that some San dancers adopt when they ask God for more potency; Lewis-Williams 1981: 88),

* dancing sticks (often two; Marshall 1969: 358 & 363; Lewis- Williams 1981: 78),

* supporting the weight of bent-over bodies on sticks as potency contracts dancers' stomach muscles (Marshall 1969: 364),

* dance rattles that the San wear only at trance dances (Mar- shall 1962: 249; Lewis-Williams 1981: 78),

* flywhisks which the San use only in such dances (Marshall 1969: 358; Lewis-Williams 1981: 78; Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1990),

* flecks of n/om (potency) among dancers that can be seen by shamans only (Lewis-Williams & Dowson 2000: 45),

* emanations of sickness from the back of the neck (the n//au spot in the Ju/'hoan language) that, likewise, only shamans can see (Lewis-Williams 1981: 93),

* lines from the top of the head that indicate the departing spirit (Lewis-Williams 1981: 95-97, fig. 31; Lewis-Williams & Dowson 2000: 72-75, figs 32a,b, 33b), and

* 'threads of light', lines that link the images to animals and to the spirit realm behind the rock face (Lewis-Williams et al. 2000).

5. ALTARS AND SACRIFICE Writers worldwide who accept the religious nature of some

rock arts often use words like 'sacrifice' and 'priest'. Are they justified?

For example, commenting on the southern African painted panel shown in Fig. 3, Le Quellec insists that the eland head to the right is the key to its meaning. He cites at length Pager's use of an article by Oswin Kohler in which the writer describes elaborate rituals involving antelope heads and 'altars' performed by the Kxo6 San of northern Namibia (Kohler 1973). Le Quellec comments:

Harald Pager saw correctly that the feature that gives this assemblage its entire meaning is none other than the antelope head in front of which the eleven men are dancing ... a tradition of ritual hunting which Oswin Kohler was fortunate enough to be able to observe in 1962 and 1971 among the San Kxo6 of Namibia, but which must have been widespread in the past.... When the dance is performed by ordinary men, the painting doubtless depicts the ceremony itself, but when the participants are therianthropes, it is probable that they represent the ancestors - half-men, half-animals - coming to accept the offering made to them. Thus there is no need to call on the shamanic hypothesis to read these images in the light of San traditions (Le Quellec 2004: 175).

Le Quellec accepts Kohler's article uncritically. He never evaluates evidence. When the article (see also Pager 1983) first appeared, southern African rock art researchers were greatly interested in it. But sober reflection on the features that Kbhler recorded led them to believe that, in this ritual, the Kxo6 were greatly influenced by neighbouring Bantu-speaking peoples, some of whom, unlike the San, do have notions of sacrifice, altars and so forth (see topic 8). If, as Le Quellec asserts, the ritual "must have been widespread in the past" among the San, it is inexplicable that no sign of it turns up in any other San ethnographies, not in the present-day Kalahari, nor in the 19th-century texts. There is no evidence that the Kxod ritual was typical of the San, nor that the panel shown in Fig. 3 depicts something like the Namibian Kxoe ritual. What it does depict is obscured by Le Quellec's discussion of supposed inaccuracies.

6. EMPIRICAL ACCURACY Today researchers rightly strive to make their records of

rock art as accurate as possible. Pager's work in the Ndedema Gorge and the Brandberg is an outstanding example of meticu- lous attention to detail (e.g. Pager 1971, 1981 and subsequent volumes in the Brandberg series).

Le Quellec illustrates my supposed indifference to empirical accuracy by verbally comparing a Rock Art Research Insti- tute copy of a dance scene (Fig. 3a; Lewis-Williams 1981: fig. 19) with one that Harald Pager made (Le Quellec 2004: 173, fig. 48; from Pager 1983). He writes that Pager's copy (Fig. 3b) is "far more precise than that of Lewis-Williams" and 'only two people display lines (one of them at chin level, the other at nose level) that could possibly be interpreted as a flow of blood" (Le Quellec 2004: 175; original brackets). He does not cite any other differences between the two copies, so readers are left wonder- ing what "far more precise than that of Lewis-Williams" may mean.

Examination of the painted panel reveals that, pace Pager, four of the dancers do indeed bleed. (In any event, not even Le Quellec doubts that some of the figures bleed.) Nor does Pager show other important features. His re-drawing (Fig. 3b), now in the archives of the Rock Art Research Institute, shows neither the angle of the ceiling of the rock shelter nor the lines that radiate from the leading figure's fingers across the ceiling. His published version does show the lines (shorter than they are) but not the important right angle. Pager also omits short lines on the heads or faces of the figures second, third, fifth, sixth, seventh and tenth from the right (cf Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a: 152, fig. 7.8), and dance rattles from some figures' ankles. Interestingly, the figure seventh from the right has a hand-like foot with five long digits that Pager does not show.4 Moreover, neither Pager nor Le Quellec mentions that the eland head at the extreme right is actually painted partly in a deep cleft in the rock (for an explanation of this feature see Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1990; Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a: 179-181).

What, then, does Fig. 3 depict? The nasal bleeding of four figures, their bending-forward dance posture, their dancing sticks, their dance rattles, and their flyswtiches, all point to a trance dance. Apart from the nasal blood, Le Quellec ignores this set of interrelated and mutually confirmatory features. And the eland head? Le Quellec omits to mention that the Ju/'hoan San like to dance next to the carcass of a recently killed and dismembered eland because they believe the place to be redolent with potency (Lewis-Williams 1981: 60; Lewis- Williams & Biesele 1978: 128). There is a further relevant point. The Ju/'hoan respect word for eland is tcheni; it means 'dance' (Lewis-Williams 1981:14 & 64). While hunting (or in other ritual circumstances), a Ju/'hoan man may whisper, "Tcheni (dance) is behind that clump of trees." Eland and trance dancing are thus closely associated. The painted juxtaposition of an eland head with dancing, bleeding and trancing men is therefore apposite.

7. OVERALL METHODOLOGY: EMPIRICISM Empirical accuracy (as in copies of rock art) is sometimes

confused with empiricism. Le Quellec, for one, castigates writers who have criticized empiricist approaches to rock art (Lewis-Williams 1990; Lewis-Williams & Loubser 1986; Dowson 1990) and then claims that the critics indulge in "total subjectivity", display "a very casual attitude towards factual data",l and that "their sole aim" is to illustrate "their personal convictions" (Le Quellec 2004: 156) - more serious personal accusations (see endnote 1).

A careful reading of the published criticisms of empiricism in rock art research shows that the writers whom Le Quellec vilifies follow philosophers of science in distinguishing




a

b | \

FIG. 3. (a) A copy of a San rock painting made by members of the Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand. (b) A copy of the same painted panel made by Harald Pager. His published version (Pager 1983:fig. 2) shows the lines radiatingfrom the leadingfigure'sfingers but not the angle of the ceiling.

between (a) empiricism and (b) empirical work - a distinction that is commonplace in accounts of scientific method.

Empiricism is a supposed scientific method. It can be sum- marized thus:

(1) observation and recording of all facts, (2) analysis and classification of these facts, (3) inductive derivation of generalizations from them, and (4) further testing of the generalizations (Hempel 1966: 11; cited in Lewis-Williams & Loubser 1986: 254).

Empiricism as a scientific method has been rejected for so long now that any detailed discussion here is superfluous (see, amongst many others, Chalmers 1978). Briefly, philosophers have shown (1) that it is possible to record only observations that seem relevant to a hypothesis; (2) that the classification of observations cannot be derived from the data alone; (3) that reliable inductive reasoning from (necessarily) subjectively recorded observations is impossible; (4) that further testing is in danger of circularity because the data against which inferences are to be tested has (necessarily) been collected subjectively and in the same manner as the original data.

It follows that numerical recording and statistical analysis of rock art images by categories (once more popular than it is now) is unavoidably subjective and tendentious: reliable explanatory inductions cannot be made from such inventories (Lewis-Williams 1990; Lewis-Williams & Loubser 1986).

Le Quellec does not mention the key distinction between empiricism and empirical work (Willer & Willer 1973: 2; quoted

in Lewis-Williams & Loubser 1986: 254). Criticisms of empiricism do not deny the value of good empirical work (Lewis-Williams 2002b: 167; original emphasis).

8. NEIGHBOURHOOD BORROWING Le Quellec tries to identify another kind of empirical error

in southern African rock art research. He places an exclamation mark after his heading "Not only the San!", as if no one has considered other southern African peoples. This issue has in fact been much discussed.

Le Quellec follows Jolly's (1996) interesting work in arguing that San rock art in the southeastern mountains should be seen in the light of Bantu-speakers' beliefs and myths (Le Quellec 2004: 187) - though he illogically restricts himself to San evidence in his own interpretations of San rock art. He seems unaware that the late David Hammond-Tooke, formerly Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand and student of the Nguni (southern Bantu- speakers) has shown that it was San beliefs, rituals and the trickster-deity /Kaggen (the Mantis; Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a: 112-116, 218-219) that were, along with linguistic clicks and, by inter-marriage, distinctive genes, taken over by the Nguni, not the other way round (Hammond-Tooke 1997- 1999, 2002). For discussions of these and related matters see Loubser and Laurens (1994), Lewis-Williams (2003b: 107-117) and Lewis-Williams and Pearce (2004a: 209-221, 218-221).

Nor does Le Quellec (2004:197) mention that the southern




Drakensberg San descendant who lived with Nguni people took Pieter Jolly (1986) and me to the cave where her father painted. She said that he danced before the images and that people could derive "amandla" ('power' in Xhosa, the only language she spoke) from them because highly potent eland blood had been an ingredient in the paint with which some were painted (Lewis-Williams 1986, 1995b). She did not mention any myths.

TOWARDS PROFITABLE DEBATE Ultimately, how are we to discriminate between hypothe-

ses about the significance of San rock art? I suggest that, having evaluated the evidential support and theoretical consistency of competing hypotheses, we need to stand in a great many painted rock shelters, not just a few dozen, and see how many of the images and how many of their details are (a) brought to light and (b) explained by each of the hypotheses. We can then adjudicate between hypotheses that simply make generalized statements and those that address the specifics of the images in terms of San beliefs. Whereas the 'mythological' explanation is a blanket statement that illuminates very few painted details indeed, the explanation that ties the images to ritual experiences and associated beliefs grapples with the art in a realistic way without excluding the important role that myth played in San religion.

Of course, we must recognize that some debates will not end in unanimous agreement, and the opposing sides will have to agree to differ - we hope in an amicable way unmarred by personal attacks. What is important in unresolved debates is that readers should have a fair and full understanding of what each side argues. The best way to obtain an informed view is not to depend on critics' imperfect summaries but to read the original work, and then not just a few publications in the hope that they contain all that is relevant.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank colleagues who kindly commented on drafts of this

paper and members of the Rock Art Research Institute, Univer- sity of the Witwatersrand, who digitized and prepared the illustrations. I also thank the National Research Foundation for financial support (grant number: 2053693).

NOTES 1. For example, Le Quellec (2004) directs numerous personal sneers at the author of this article: e.g. "our impromptu ethnographer" [p. 183]; "It is amusing to note...." [p. 190]; "hushing up differences" [p. 1781, as well as exclamation marks after conclusions that he wishes to ridicule. Moreover, his tangential smear about 'neo-shamanism in the "New Age" syncretism' (p. 173) is irrelevant: to the best of my knowledge none of the academics who take the view, wholly or in part, that Le Quellec criticizes is in any way interested in 'New Age' thought. In any event, the reading of San rock art that Le Quellec challenges is, in varying degrees, widely held; he lists only six other authors and then almost only in a footnote. 2. By and large, I give references to my early book Believing and Seeing: Symbolic Meanings in Southern San rock Paintings (1981). The explanations therein have been elaborated and added to in subsequent publications (e.g. Lewis-Williams 2003b, 2004; Lewis-Williams & Pearce 2004a). 3. The Bleek and Lloyd 19th-century /Xam San material that was published in the 1930s in a number of sections in the journal Bantu Studies has been edited in the light of the original manuscripts, annotated, provided with an introduction, and published in a single volume (Hollmann 2004). 4. A finished copy that Harald Pager made of this panel was donated, along with many other copies, by his widow Shirley-Ann Pager to the Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand. Curi- ously it shows neither the angle of the ceiling nor the lines radiating across it. The lines, though not the angle, do, however, appear in Pager's published version.

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Debating Rock Art: Myth and Ritual, Theories and Facts