The Thin Red Line: Southern San Notions and Rock Paintings of Supernatural Potency

South African Archaeological Society

The Thin Red Line: Southern San Notions and Rock Paintings of Supernatural PotencyAuthor(s): J. D. Lewis-WilliamsSource: The South African Archaeological Bulletin, Vol. 36, No. 133 (Jun., 1981), pp. 5-13Published by: South African Archaeological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3888013 .

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The South African Archaeological Bulletin 5

THE THIN RED LINE: SOUTHERN SAN NOTIONS AND ROCK PAINTINGS OF SUPERNATURAL POTENCY*

J. D. LEWIS-WILLIAMS Department of Archaeology, University of the Witwatersrand

ABSTRACT

A sinuous red line, often fringed with white dots, is an enigmatic feature of southern San rock art. This paper attempts to interpret the red line by first examining southern San notions of supernatural potency as they are recorded in the nineteenth century ethnography. Beliefs about this potency are then used to interpret four rock paintings which illustrate some of the contexts in which the line is found. The ethnography and the paintings together suggest that the line depicts the potency which is activated in the medicine dance and which the medicine men manipulate to achieve their several ends.

Introduction The southern San (Bushmen) were click-speaking hunter- gatherers who lived in what is now Lesotho and South Africa; they have been extinct for nearly a hundred years. One of the most noteworthy features of their culture was the rock paintings which have been preserved in vast numbers in hundreds of rock shelters.

But abundance is no guarantee of intelligibility, and the art has numerous enigmatic features which have puzzled writers for many years. One of the most intriguing is a sinuous, bifur- cating red line often fringed with small white dots. It occurs most commonly in the vicinity of the Drakensberg and Maluti Mountains; in the western Cape it is found infrequently and usually without the white dots. 1 In both regions the line appears to link certain paintings of antelope and men by touching their feet rather like a path or, alternatively, by entering and leaving various parts of their bodies; but other examples seem to depict an actual rope-like object being held by human figures.

To explain both the 'symbolic' and the "representational' examples Pager (1975: 78-80) cites an Australian Aboriginal ritual which uses a rope fringed with white feathers. From this evidence he concludes that, although the painted line often symbolises a spiritual bond, a replica of the bond was sometimes used for 'ceremonial purposes' by the San as well as the Aborigines. Other interpretations have also depended on exotic parallels and concepts. One writer has proposed a connection between the red line and a comparable feature in ancient Greek ceramic art (Du Toit 1976), while others have suggested 'the passage of time' and 'the river of life' (Woodhouse 1975: 125). Vinnicombe (1976: 334), on the other hand, sees the line as the link said to exist between San game medicine men and the creatures they claimed to control. Woodhouse (1976: 6), in a comparable explanation, has aptly referred to 'lines of magic force', but he has not related the idea to specific San beliefs.

All these -explantions are correct in pointing in one way or another to an abstract entity, but only Vinnicombe refers to the nineteenth century southern San ethnography on which any reliable interpretation of the art should depend; explanations which are not derived principally from a close analysis of the southern ethnography must remain speculative and suspect. This nineteenth century ethnography was compiled in the 1870s by W. H. I. Bleek, together with his collaborator Lucy Lloyd, and by J. M. Orpen. Bleek and Lloyd worked with /Xam informants who came from the Cape Colony south of the Orange River. Although none of the informants was himself an artist, they were contemporary with the final artists and shared the'same cognitive system. Orpen's informant seems to have been more directly acquainted with the art because he guided Orpen to some painted shelters and explained the paintings to him (Lewis-Williams 1980).

Additional and more detailed San ethnography is available from the better known groups, like the !Kung, who still live 1000 km to the north in the Kalahari (e.g. Lee & De Vore 1976; Marshall 1976; Tobias 1978; Lee 1979). Although these northern people speak a different language, do not paint and are widely separated in time and space from the now extinct southern artists, they retain many of the concepts which informed the southern art (Vinnicombe 1972; Lewis-Williams & Biesele 1978; Lewis-Williams 1980, 1981). It is therefore legitimate to use the modern San ethnography to explicate the nineteenth century record where, as in the present case, close parallels can be demonstrated.

In this paper I first consider relevant southern and northern San beliefs. I then describe and illustrate examples of the red line to show that, once certain San concepts and metaphors are properly understood, the line need no longer pose serious diffi- culties. In elucidating paintings of the red line I also touch on some more general but important characteristics of the art and identify the area of San life with which the paintings were principally associated.

Contexts and Concepts of Potency No nineteenth century San were asked to comment on the

red line with white dots, as they were on other kinds of paintings (Orpen 1874; Lewis-Williams 1977, 1980). One man was, however, shown a Stow (1930: pl. 50) copy depicting five men apparently dancing along a broad, undulating band which is similar to parts of the narrower red line in Fig. 1; he declared the 'path-like appearance' to be a 'sorcerer's thing'. This tenuous clue at least suggests where a search for the meaning of the red line might begin. Fortunately, the voluminous Bleek collection contains a good deal about medicine men2 and their activities (Bleek 1933, 1935, 1936).

The /Xam recognised four overlapping categories of medicine men: the curers, who were known as !gi:ten (sing. !gi:xa); those who controlled the game, the opwaiten-ka !gi:ten; those who had power over the rain, the !khwa-ka !gi:ten; and those who were believed to use their powers to harm people, the //xi:ka !gi:ten. The curers removed from the bodies of their patients whatever was believed to be harming them; such deleterious items included 'arrows of sickness', little sticks, or various creatures which could have been sent by a malevolent //xi:ka !gi:xa. The rain medicine men were said to capture a 'rain animal' and lead it to areas parched by drought; there they killed it and its blood and milk became precipi- tation.3 The game medicine men were similarly believed to control the movements of food animals and to render them vulnerable to the hunter's arrows.

The /Xam medicine men achieved their several ends by entering trance. This altered state of consciousness was induced not, as in some cultures, by hallucinogens, but simply by rhythmic dancing, hyperventilation and other physical activities. As a man approached the threshold of trance he experienced a rising sensation, shivered, sweated profusely and finally bled from the nose. Then, in a state of controlled trance, he captured the rain animal, influenced the game or drove off evil influences. These functions were believed to be performed by a medicine man's spirit which could leave his body on out-of-body travel or /xau. He could also use /xau to visit distant places to reassure himself that his friends were safe and well. /Xam bands were separated by wide expanses of semi-arid veld, and the ethnography shows that the people experienced considerable concern for distant groups and that

* Received November 1980

S. Afr. archaeol. Bull. 36: 5-13. 1981



6 The South African Archaeological Bulletin

this anxiety was assuaged by reports provided by the medicine men. Sometimes these supernatural journeys were accomplished in the bodies of animals 'possessed' by medicine men (Bleek 1935: 15, 26, 30-32). The concept of 'possession' was denoted by /ki and embraced the influence or control of the things possessed. A medicine man could /ki one or more of such diverse items as springbok (Bleek 1935: 35, 47; 1936: 144), ostriches (L.V.10.4785), locusts (Bleek 1933: 388), wind (Bleek and Lloyd 1911: 396), rain (Bleek 1933: 305) and even mantises (Bleek 1936: 143). Bleek (1956: 315) notes that the white farmers used /ki to mean the San dance: this possibly incorrect use nevertheless points to the importance of /Ai in the context of the medicine dance.

Associated with these activities were notions about a supernatural potency which was denoted by three words: !gi:, //ke:n and /ko:ode. Two of these words, !gi: and //ke:n, appear to have been synonymous, although each might have had subtle connotations not apparent in the restricted ethnography; I have been able to trace only twenty uses of !gi: and sixteen of //ke:n. Nevertheless, these thirty-six contexts provide an ade- quate appreciation of what the San understood by both words.

Both !gi: and //ke:n were used to mean the potency possessed by a medicine man. !Gi is the first syllable of !gi:xa. The possession and manipulation of !gi: or //ke:n was learned by dancing behind an accomplished !gi:xa (Bleek 1935: 12); as the two men danced together, the potency was transmitted from mentor to novice. In a medicine dance, people were said to 'learn the deeds of !gi:' (Bleek 1935: 12) or to 'do the deeds of //ke:n' (Bleek 1935: 14). Both expressions mean to enter trance, or, as they put it, 'to die of //ke:n'. One informant added that 'dying of //ke:n' was 'not easy' (Bleek 1935: 13). Once acquired, !gi: or //ke:n was usually used to accomplish the beneficial purposes I have already described.

But this potency could also be used maliciously. Both !gi: and //ke:n were spoken of as making people ill or even killing them (Bleek 1935: 3, 20): 'We seem to think it is illness of which the person lies dying. But it is //ke:n that is killing him' (Bleek 1935: 33). Another informant claimed that his grandmother had been killed with !gi: (Bleek 1956: 382). Nevertheless, !gi: or //ke:n was not in itself considered good or bad, but it could be directed to either beneficial or harmful ends.

The third word, /ko:wde, like !gi: and //ke:n, was sometimes used to mean a potency which could be sent by a //xi:-ka !gi:xa to harm a person and which could be counter-acted by curing and smearing with nasal blood (Bleek 1935: 34-35), but fifteen uses of /ko:dde suggest it more generally meant a dangerous degree of potency possessed by such things as eland and hartebeest (Bleek 1924: 10), locusts (Bleek 1935: 11), rain and girls at puberty (L.V. 13.4989). The eland's heart was believed to have especially strong /ko:6de, and a hunter who had shot an eland would not approach the carcass until his companions had cut out the heart (Bleek 1932: 237). Despite such precau- tions it would be wrong to suppose that /ko:bde is different in kind from !gi: or //ke:n. Situations in which /ko:6de is mentioned should certainly not be thought of as evil or even as polluting, but as so strong that 'respect' is imperative. /Ko:6de might, in fact, have been the /Xam respect or avoidance word for exceptionally strong potency.

This suggestion is supported by !Kung notions of potency. They have one word, n/um, which means 'a supernatural potency' (Marshall 1969: 350) which can be either harmful or beneficial. When n/um is particularly potent, they deem it prudent to avoid the usual word and substitute la (Marshall 1969: 351), perhaps their equivalent for /ko:dde. Like the /Xam, the ! Kung also say that eland, girls at puberty, rain and many other strong things have n/urn, and that medicine men activate n/urn to enter trance and go on out-of-body travel. The !Kung also use 'die' to mean 'to enter trance'. The !Kung medicine man's source of n/urn is the 'strong' thing which he possesses and which is celebrated in the medicine song particularly associated with him.

It seems, then, that /Xam and !Kung beliefs about potency are very similar. Even if painting was restricted to certain San groups, at least some of the beliefs which the art expressed were

widespread and important. Certainly, the !Kung ethnography supports the inferences I have drawn from the southern record and so lends weight to my interpretations of paintings.

So far in these preliminary remarks I have adumbrated the context and main features of San beliefs about potency; now, by considering examples of the painted red line, I take the discussion a stage further and describe some of the key metaphors of potency which, I argue, the southern artists translated into graphic symbols. The ethnography and the paintings interact to give a clearer appreciation of recondite religious beliefs.

Metaphors and Symbols of Potency I have selected four paintings of the red line to illustrate its

various forms; only one, from Cullen's Wood, Elliot, has been previously published. I use this exception because the published version (Woodhouse 1975: fig. 1), though suggestive, is greatly reduced and so omits some significant details. My copy (Fig. 1) shows only the central part of the four metre long panel: to the left of this section there are other men and to the right further human figures and animals. Consistent superpositions suggest that the principally red figures were painted first and that the principally white figures were added later, but uniform preservation of all figures implies no great lapse of time between the painting of the two groups. Some portions of the red line are without the white dots, doubtless a result of weathering. Some breaks in the line may also be a result of fading paint or flaking rock, but other sections were intended to be separate.

The group unquestionably depicts a dance, and the experience of trance is indicated by a number of features to which I shall refer, but most explicitly by the figures which are bleeding from the nose; there are two such white and two red figures in this section of the panel. They have evidently so activated their !gi: or 7/ke:n that they have crossed the threshold into trance.

At the lower left men wearing dancing rattles and carrying sticks dance along the line as if it represented a dance furrow formed by their pounding feet. When a number of dancers perform in a line, they produce a fairly deep rut; Barrow (1801 I: 284) saw such a circular rut in the eastern Cape. Among the ! Kung the dance furrow or n 7 ebe is treated with some respect (Wilmsen, pers. comm.). Men start dancing outside it, approach it and then slip into it. Similarly, the women who sit clapping in a tight circle within the circular rut, do not step across it; they slip in and dance a few steps before coming out on the other side. Men and women unite in the dance, and the encompassing n # ebe contributes to their emotional unity. It is, therefore, not surprising that !Kung informants believed a similar line in a copy of another painting (Lewis Williams 1981: fig. 18) to be a n $ ebe (Wilmsen, pers. comm.).

Although possibly partially correct in that instance and also at Cullen's Wood (Fig. 1), this attractive indigenous explanation may be too literal: other sections of the red line certainly cannot be so explained. The shorter line which joins the thighs of the two clapping women and one dancing woman above points away from a literal, concrete explanation, such as a dancing rut, and more to the power of the dance to establish emotional and social unity; this function is recognised and consciously exploited by the !Kung to reduce social tension (Biesele, pers. comm.). The analeptic power of the dance is believed to be a product of interaction between men and women; they work together, the men dancing, the women singing and clapping the medicine songs, to generate potency. The location of portions of the red line at the dancers' feet and also across the clapping women suggests that the feature here symbolises the ambient and unifying !gi: which they are together activating.

This initial interpretation of the red line may be refined by reference to the purposes for which the !gi: is being generated. Particularly suggestive are the two men wearing caps with antelope ears: they are second and fifth from the left in the line of dancers. One holds a bow, bends forward and bleeds profusely from the nose. These eared caps were worn by medicine



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men of the game in the belief that the antelope would follow and be controlled by the wearer (Bleek 1935: 46; 1936: 144); some donned caps with the horns of small gemsbok when they were 'doing //ke:n' (L.V.10.4745). The caps and bows carried by some of the men suggest that the whole group is 'doing //ke:n' to control the movements of game. This interpretation is even more strongly suggested by the man to the lower right who holds the line as if it were a rope. Carefully painted to give the impression of its being astride the line is an unindentifiable animal. Here, I suggest, the man is manipulating the !gi: generated by the dance to /ki animals.

How the /Xam actually conceived of the sort of control depicted here was explained by an informant who spoke of his aunt, a medicine woman with power over springbok (Bleek 1935: 44-47). She was said to keep a springbok tied up and to release it to go among the wild springbok and lead them to the hunters. Her springbok was inadvertently shot and the informant's mother made an eared cap of its scalp to give to the medicine woman who then gave her old cap in return for the new one.

Writers who have cited this account have accepted it literally, but a number of points lead me to believe that it is rather a metaphorical expression of /ki concepts. The /Xam informants never made it clear whether they were speaking literally or metaphorically, and this account, like those of the capture of a rain-animal, is probably more metaphorical than literal. In the first place, it is hard to believe that a nomadic band would keep a 'pet' springbok and, even more incredible, that it could be trained to act as a decoy. The most explicit statement in the published version about the woman keeping her 'heart's springbok' (L.V. 10.4715 rev.) tied up is more literally (and less specifically) translated, 'It was a springbok which was fastened up' (L.V. 10.4718). The springbok was also said to have been 'castrated'. These two statements, together with the release of the springbok, reflect the set of opposed ideas which charac- terise accounts of rain-making: the rain-animal was first captured, bound or led by a thong attached to its nose: the second stage involved the contrary ideas of 'loosening' or 'dis- membering' to release blood and milk (Lewis-Williams, 1981). These opposed concepts are fundamental to an understanding of /Ai, whether of rain or of game. Control of both the rain- animal and the springbok was, at least on occasion, thought of as a thong; both creatures were 'bound' and then 'released'. Control by means of a thong is, I suggest, the concept expressed in those paintings which show lines of potency being held as if they were ropes. This explanation is not contradicted by paintings which show the 'possession line' entering and leaving various parts of an animal's body (Vinnicombe 1976: 334); those paintings are a variant expression of the concept of a 'bound', metaphorical animal.

But control of animals is not the only use to which !gi: is being put in this richly significant scene. To the right a red figure runs rather than dances along a section of the line. His legs are in the commonly painted stylised posture which suggests speed, but he is also carrying a fly-whisk, an object with which !Kung often like to dance and which is frequently depicted in the paintings of dances. His association with trance is further suggested by the two lines which emanate from the top of his head. It is from here that a man's spirit is said to leave when it departs on /xau or out-of-body travel. A comparable white runner has been added just to the right of this red figure; in place of the two lines the white figure has a five pointed crown-like head. So this section of the scene probably depicts a man using his !gi: to reassure himself about absent fellows' well-being or to combat malign //xi:-ka !gi:ten who may be sending sickness. The line along which he speeds probably represents the !gi: which facilitates his /xau to remote places.

In addition to the two functions I have already mentioned, the protective or curing aspect of the dance is also implied. To the left of the clapping women there is a white crouching figure from whose hands fall white spots which may represent the sickness he has removed from the people. Some !Kung curers stagger beyond the group as if carrying a heavy burden of sickness which they then dramatically throw to the ground

(Biesele, pers. comm.). A /Xam account of a medicine woman describes a similar practice: 'Stooping she took the thing outside, then she went to lie down outside with it. She came back again stooping, . . . while blood came from her nose' (Bleek 1935: 19). Nevertheless, curing is not nearly as explicitly depicted here as it is at, say, Lonyana where within a circle of dancers, a kneeling man places his hands on a recumbent figure (Lewis-Williams 1981: pl. 18).

The source of the !gi: being activitated in the Cullen's Wood group to cure, to control game and to go on out-of-body travel is suggested by the small white crosses to the left. Comparison of these crosses with other paintings shows that they are, in fact, bees (Pager 1971: 349-350). Just to the left of the section shown in the illustration is another swarm and a roughly square form which almost certainly depicts the hive. Bees and honey enjoyed such a rich symbolic status among the southern San that it is highly probable the artist would have thought them to have /ko:dde, like other very 'strong' things. Stow (1905: 117) described a dance in which the sounds and movements of bees were imitated, but similar phrasing suggests that his account is based on Sparrman (1789 I :256). A more reliable association between bees and dancing was explicitly described by a /Xam informant (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 353-359). He said that people used a bullroarer to cause the bees to swarm and make honey which they collected in leather bags and took home to the women. When they had satisfied their hunger, the band danced all night, the women clapping and the men pounding their feet until all were enveloped in a cloud of dust. Today the ! Kung still consider bees to be very potent, and they believe that a dance performed at the time when the bees are swarming is especially powerful and effective (Wilmsen, pers. comm.). I do not suggest that the men painted at Cullen's Wood are literally dancing in a swarm of bees any more than the !Kung do, but that the bees are juxtaposed as a symbol of potency. The presence of the bees is, like everything else in the group, consonant with trance performance and potency.

It seems, then, that this large and complex composition depicts men and women co-operating to generate !gi: for the three purposes I have noted: to cure, to control antelope and to go on out-of-body travel. Each portion of the red line can be explained by beliefs preserved in the southern ethnography and still held by the !Kung; the line is clearly a symbol associated with various aspects of trance performance. So far, though, I have ignored what is perhaps the most curious and allusive symbol in the group; the man who bleeds and wears the eared cap bends forward and reaches out to a strange animal which likewise stands on the red line.

Both this fantastic creature and the man are shown with nasal blood; the creature holds decorated dancing sticks and has red lines on its face, as do many of the men. To explain the imperspicuous relationship between the man and the animal I turn to a more readily understood painting at Fulton's Rock, Giant's Castle (Fig. 2). Like the Cullen's Wood scene this is also only a part of a large, crowded panel. At Fulton's Rock a man and an eland face one another and are related by a red line with dots in a way which recalls the Cullen's Wood pair, although here the man also grasps the line. Like the man at Cullen's Wood he bleeds from the nose, wears an eared cap and bends forward.

The Fulton's Rock man and eland share some of a set of features associated with the death of animals, especially eland, and also with medicine men who are 'dying of !gi:'. Both eland and medicine men tremble, sweat, stagger, lower their heads, bleed from the nose and finally fall to the ground unconscious. The hair of dying eland, furthermore, stands on end (Metzger 1950: 57), and trancing medicine men are frequently depicted similarly hirsute. In the present example most of these features are omitted, but the stance of the eland by comparison with numerous other more detailed paintings leaves no doubt that it is dying. The dying eland is, in a sense, analogous to the trancing medicine man painted next to it.

A dying eland juxtaposed with a 'dying' medicine man is a frequent feature of the art, and the less obvious pair at Cullen's Wood can now be seen as a variation of this theme: both are



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- ~~~~~~~~~~~Fig. 2. Fulton'i Rock, Giant's Castle.|




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Fig 3. Fetcani Bend, Barkly East. mr I

'dying of !gi:'. The man bleeds from the nose and bends forward; the animal also bleeds and even has erect hair, as does another but incomplete creature in the upper part of the painting. It also has two forked 'streamers' attached to its back. In a discussion of the so-called flying buck I have tried to show that this widely painted feature represents potency entering the spinal column of a trancing man (Lewis-Williams 1981). The unidentifiable creature may, therefore, be a man who has 'died of !gi:' and who has been transformed through the 'deeds of !gi..,

The juxtapositions at Cullen's Wood and Fulton's Rock, together with numerous other paintings, bring together two elements between which the southern San discerned an important metaphorical relationship: dying eland and 'dying' medicine men. The significance of this relationship is clarified by a statement given to Orpen in 1873 by Qing, a San man who lived in the Malutis. Although Qing did not refer specifically to paintings of the line, his remarks cast considerable light on the feature. Asked to explain the paintings of men with antelope heads, he is said to have replied:

They were men who had died and now lived in rivers, and were spoilt at the same time as the elands and by the dances of which you have seen paintings (Orpen 1874: 2; his emphasis).

I have argued in detail elsewhere (Lewis-Williams 1980) that this complex statement does not mean that the antelope headed figures are subaquatic spirits of the dead, as has been supposed; rather, it is a conflation of a series of responses given in reply to persistent questioning on a topic which Orpen did not understand. Trying to make himself understood through interpreters, Qing used three metaphors all of which refer to entry into trance; they are 'to die', 'to be under water' and 'to be spoilt'. Each of these three metaphors is still used by the !Kung to mean 'to enter trance' (Biesele, pers. comm.). Orpen, not recognising the equivalence of Qing's replies, put them together to form this factitious and misleading statement. Qing was actually saying, in more than one way, that the therian- thropes depicted medicine men in trance. The part of the statement which particularly concerns us at present claims that both the medicine men and the eland were 'spoilt' at the same time and by the dances. This, I suggest, means that the potency generated by the dance caused both men and elands to behave in an analogous way - to exhibit the characteristics of 'death'. The men 'died of !gi:', were 'spoilt' and, through trance, were able to control the eland so that they would fall to the hunter's arrows and die physically.

The Fulton's Rock painting depicts in a very remarkable way the concepts expressed in Qing's metaphors: both the man and the eland are 'dying' at the same time, and they are linked by the !gi: of the trance dance, here symbolised, as at Cullen's Wood, by the red line.

But that crucial understanding does not exhaust this rich metaphorical relationship. Eland were considered to possess extreme potency, /ko:6de. !Kung like to dance 'eland n/um' after a successful eland hunt; the men will dance 'eland n/um'

next to the carcass even without the women being present to clap and sing, so strong and effective is the potency at this time (Lewis-Williams & Biesele 1978). The dying eland, like the bees at Cullen's Wood, is therefore probably also a symbol of potency which can be harnessed by the dance.

Juxtaposed with this complex painted metaphor (Fig. 2) are other related or supplementary depictions; detailed reconstruc- tion of the order in which these paintings accumulated is, however, not possible. The hartebeest, just above the eland, was also believed to have /ko:6de and is therefore a further but varied symbol of potency. The man holding the red line is echoed by two other human figures also wearing caps with antelope ears: his grip on the line is a more explicit statement of the /ki concept suggested by the caps. The man who holds out his hand to an eland's nose implies /Ai, but by a different iconographic convention which is repeated at other sites: he is possibly 'charming' the eland to render it tractable (Vinni- combe 1976: 340). The white dots which fall from him and two other human figures probably represent sweat which was thought to have such potency and was closely associated with the trance dance. These and other juxtaposed paintings beyond the confines of Fig. 2 are thus readily understood as deve- lopments or reinforcements of the concepts being treated by the panel: 'dying of !gi:', the /ko:eode of 'strong' things, and /ki, the control of antelope.

The porcupine, which also stands on the red line, may at first seem irrelevant to these painted concepts of potency and trance, but that is not so: there is ethnographic evidence that it is as important as any part of the composition. The !Kung say that the porcupine and the eland are remarkable animals because they have an exceptional ability to metabolise their food into fat (Wilmsen, pers. comm.). Both creatures are indeed noted for their fat, and fat is not only a greatly desired food, it is also said to have considerable potency. It is therefore highly valued as a ritual object in the trance dance, girls' puberty rituals, boys' first-kill rituals and marriage obser- vances (Lewis-Williams 1981). In addition to the possession of much fat, eland and porcupine are associated in another and, for this discussion, even more significant way. A ! Kung medicine man is expected to eat parts of various animals and plants as part of his training; only when he has eaten all is he considered a fully accomplished curer. Two of the required animals are porcupine and eland (Wilmsen, pers. comm.). The ! Kung explain their importance by commenting again on their exceptional quantities of fat. The porcupine is therefore in a sense an equivalent creature to eland and in the painting it is appropriately linked to the eland by the red line of potency. Far from being irrelevant it is a further development of the principal concepts of the compostion.

Other somewhat unexpected animals are associated with a red line at Fetcani Bend, Barkly East. Fig. 3 shows all the paintings preserved in this part of the shelter. The red line is here in two parts, one on either side of a fairly deep crack in the rock face not shown in the copy. No white dots have been preserved on the left hand portion of the line, but they are present along the more protected length to the right. In this



The South African Archaeological Bulletin 11

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group two felines, one with a fantastic tail, and a baboon are associated with the line.

Both felines appear to be moving along the line as if it were a path. This aspect of the painting recalls the /Xam belief that medicine men resembled lions (Bleek 1935: 7) and often, but not invariably, accomplished /xau in feline form. One /Xam informant spoke of his aunt, a springbok medicine woman, who could turn herself into a lioness to go on out-of-body travel to find out if her relatives were well; on her return she would tell the people about her journeys (Bleek 1935: 44). A man who had the same ability feared that he might kill someone if he were provoked while on out-of-body travel: but he reassured his people that he used his incarnation as a lion only to protect them by driving off malefactors. Unfortunately, he eventually killed a farmer's ox while he was a lion and was consequently mortally wounded by the owner (Bleek 1936: 131-133). A /Xam informant further explained: 'It is the medicine man's custom to walk at night; he lies asleep by us, his //ke:n walks about' (Bleek 1935: 30-31). Similar beliefs are still held by the Kalahari San. Some! Kung speak of the ability of a man to turn into a pawed creature, especially a lion (Biesele, pers. comm.). and !K7 informants spoke of a man leaving the camp in his feline form to 'mix with' a pride of lions (Heinz 1975: 29). All these beliefs suggest very strongly that the two felines at Fetcani Bend are medicine men on out-of-body travel and that the red line is, in this case, the !gi: or //ke:n which sustains them while their spirits have left their bodies.

This part of the Fetcani Bend painting is very like that portion of the Cullen's Wood group (Fig. 1) which shows two men running along part of the red line. The felines and these running men are two versions of /xau beliefs: one painter showed a human form holding a fly-whisk and in the context of a trance dance; the other, in a more metaphorical composition, depicted the transformation of a man into a feline. Both artists used the symbolic red line to signify the !gi: which made the feat possible.

Although the Cullen's Wood group is more explicitly a medicine dance, trance is also clearly suggested at Fetcani Bend. Near the feline with the fantastic tail is a kneeling man whose head has not been preserved; on the other part of the line is a small white figure also kneeling. Both have their arms in the backward or extended posture adopted by many !Kung medicine men when they receive n/um; the man on the right has the penniform attachments on his arms often associated with trancing figures (Lewis-Williams 1981). Both figures symbolise 'dying of !gi:' and are therefore equivalent to the dancers at Cullen's Wood where there is another but fragmentary arms- back figure in the lower part of the painting.

The baboon which leaps above the small white kneeling figure also has features associated with trance. Like many of the figures at Cullen's Wood and elsewhere it has red lines on its face and like many medicine men it bleeds from the nose. The red dots along its back are less easy to explain, but they may imply the boiling sensation experienced by a trancer in his spine. Close to the baboon's arms is a decorated stick similar to

the two held by the fantasy creature at Cullen's Wood and by dancers in numerous paintings. The /Xam saw their dances as comparable with baboons' antics and believed that 'it was a baboon who taught people the # gebbi-gu' (Bleek 1931: 176). This word puzzled Lloyd and she was not sure whether it meant dance, game or tunes. An examination of the passages in which it is used suggests that 'medicine song' would be an appropriate translation. An informant described how a woman started singing the ? gebbi-gu and then others joined in (Bleek 1931: 177). Whatever the specific reason for the presence of the baboon, the points I have noted show that it, like the felines, is in some way associated with the manipulation of !gi: in the experience of /xau.

As with the Cullen's Wood and Fulton's Rock paintings the source of the !gi: being used by the feline medicine men and the trancing baboon is symbolised by juxtaposed paintings. Here the three white eland are probably the 'strong' things whose /ko:6de is being exploited by the trancers. It is not possible to tell whether they were painted before or after the depictions associated with the red line, or, indeed, if they were done by the same artist. If they were painted first, the red line group might have been added as a development of ideas implicit in the eland; if they were painted later, they were probably a gloss defining the !gi: implied by the kneeling, arms-back figures and the /xau group on the red line. Either way, the composition juxtaposes complementary symbols.

In depicting the exploitation of potency, the artist or artists at Fetcani Bend (Fig. 3) created a composition that is more symbolic and less literal than the dance and running figures at Cullen's Wood (Fig. 1), while at Fulton's Rock (Fig. 2) the painter's imagination produced a subtle congeries of inter- acting symbols all associated with aspects of trance performance. Each of these three paintings is a personal insight into those beliefs which were the foundation for southern San religious ritual.

One of the most idiosyncratic depictions of these beliefs that I know is at Reedsdell, Barkly East (Fig. 4). It is painted on a narrow pediment and my copy includes all the paintings in the vicinity. Between the pair of large figures there are two ill- preserved depictions.

The kneeling figure on the left recalls the posture of depictions at Cullen's Wood, Fetcani Bend and many other sites illustrated in the literature (Woodhouse 1971). This posture and the 'extrusions' at the chest are associated with many flying buck and trance dancers (Lewis-Williams 1981). The coxcomb-like heads seem to be an exaggeration of the heads of dancers at various sites: at Cullen's Wood one of the clapping women has this feature.

The kneeling figure on the left is linked to the one on the right by the red line which leaves its nose, crosses over the other creature before forming a small loop and then contacting its hoof. This line differs from the others I have illustrated in that it is not fringed by white dots; instead it has only a few dots painted directly on it. Although much of this painting is pure fantasy, the relationship between the two figures so connected




Fig. 4.L v

R edsde , B akly East.

Fig. 4. Reedsdell, Barkly East.

recalls the way in which men dance and finally sit or kneel close together to care for and protect each other. In this stage, when the spirit is out of a man, he is particularly vulnerable and, if not looked after, it is feared he may physically die. During these caring rituals potency is transmitted from one man to another and may be symbolised here by the red line. At Cullen's Wood the men are joined by the line along which they dance; here, at Reedsdell, the men are more intimately linked in an advanced stage of trance by the transmission of protective !gi:.

The second fantastic figure is especially interesting. Figures with both human and antelope characteristics are not un- common in the art, but here the painter has combined hoofs, a hand and what is probably a paw: the creature is a fusion of the taxa hoofed creatures, pawed creatures and men. Perhaps the artist was trying, by a leap of the imagination, to express the anomalous status of medicine men. Unlike other men, they are of two worlds, this world and the beyond, which they 'die' to enter and from which their !gi: enables them to return. They also pass, as the Fetcani Bend painting (Fig. 3) so clearly shows, from human to animal form: they participate in the animality of powerful creatures and so transcend the limita- tions of ordinary people. The medicine man's anomalous status gives him, and through him society as well, unique experience of the symbolic system which encodes information about relationships between social groups and between society and the environment. Paintings which combine animal and human attributes are, I suggest, symbols of the transcendence which grants society access to the sustaining symbolic system.

Although this bizarre painting from Reedsdell is unusual in a number of ways, it is still simply a personal interpretation of widely held San beliefs. The San accept considerable variation in religious belief: one man's vision is never considered inferior to another's (Biesele 1978: 938). The red lines in Figs. 1 to 4, together with all the others in the literature and the rock shelters, are demonstrably individual expressions of the concepts I have described. Contradictions and differences notwithstanding, each depiction is a valid personal revelation created within the constraints of the overall, socially controlled metaphysical system.

Although the medicine men might have told painters about these revelations and insights, it seems more likely that the medicine men were themselves the painters. Dornan (1917: 49) was, in fact, told of a Masarwa San named Nshimane who was both a painter and 'a great rain doctor'. Moreover, some paintings depict supernatural events, like the expulsion of sickness from a spot at the base of the medicine man's neck, which can be seen only by the curers themselves (Biesele 1978: 929). It therefore seems probable that the paintings I have considered are first-hand records of San beliefs and that at least some medicine men were esteemed not only for their superna-

tural activities, but also for their ability to depict their experiences and the associated symbols of trance.

Conclusion The four paintings I have illustrated are notable for their

diversity and their uniformity: the Reedsdell fantasy is very different from the more realistic red dancers at Cullen's Wood; yet the red line with its dots at Fulton's Rock is indistinguish- able from the line 200 km away at Fetcani Bend. Woodhouse (1975: 125), struck by this uniformity within diversity, has suggested that the red line might have derived directly from the mind of a single painter. Even though the feature occurs over so wide a geographical area, I too cannot believe that it could have been independently conceived by different artists. It is more likely that its origin was similar to that of medicine songs among the modern Kalahari San. They believe that god gives a new song to an individual in a dream; the recipient then tells the members of his or her band about the vision and sings the song for them. In a comparatively short time a new song can spread over an extensive area as it passes from group to group (Biesele 1975 I: 5). The red line might have been part of a comparable revelation experienced by a southern San man or woman and then handed from band to band in the course of normal social exchanges.

Such a vision probably also revealed the significance of the two distinctive elements of the feature, the white dots and the sinuous line; their widespread occurrence leaves little doubt that they had some meaning which the artists could have explained. Perhaps the line symbolised, in some but by no means all instances, the trajectory of a man on out-of-body travel and the white dots either drops of sweat like those falling from the trancers at Fulton's Rock (Fig. 2), or even the footprints of a medicine man moving along the route. These suggestions are, of course, speculative, and we may never be able to explain these details; certainly I have found no ethnographic evidence for a funiform object fringed with white feathers: all depictions are, I believe, purely symbolic.

Whatever the meaning of the two elements (the line and the dots), the feature must have owed its popularity and spread to its ability to signify graphically and effectively the abstract and multifacetted concept of trance: it made sense of diverse experiences. Essentially, these experiences consisted in a movement from this world to the beyond, a movement accomplished by the 'strong' metaphors of animals: it is animals, imbued with !gi: and possessed by medicine men, which have the power to transform (Biesele 1978: 930-931), and trancers are therefore often joined to animal metaphors by the red lines. Once the medicine man has, by the animal metaphor, transcended the restrictions of ordinary people, he can cure the sick, /ki animals and experience /xau. All these supra-normal experiences are sustained by !gi: which is derived



The South African Archaeological Bulletin zz 13

from the zoomorphic metaphors of potency and activated by the dance. In attempting to depict these experiences of !gi: many artists painted, in one way or another, the red lines fringed with white dots. I therefore suggest that it may be appropriate to refer to the red lines as '!gi: lines'. (Readers lacking the necessary facility may dispense with the alveolar- palatal click.)

These !gi: lines symbolise the elusive concept of potency which is paramount in San religion and ritual. In reaching this conclusion I have tried to show that there is a concordance between the ethnography, properly understood, and the paintings. The metaphors used by the nineteenth century San to speak about their experiences of potency were translated into graphic symbols by the artists: the art and the ethnography are, in a sense, saying the same thing. By a process of graphic representation the rock art became a repository of wisdom and insights accumulated over the centuries: people could turn to this vivid record of personal religious experience for reas- surance that the medicine men did indeed maintain contact with the beyond to ensure the well-being and continuity of the southern San social formation.

Acknowledgements I thank Dr Megan Biesele-Lambert, Professor W. D.

Hammond-Tooke, Professor T. N. Huffman, M. 0. V. Taylor and Dr T. Volman for kindly commenting on a draft of this paper; Professor Ed Wilmsen for valuable discussions; H. C. Woodhouse for giving me directions to the Cullen's Wood site; the Librarian, Jagger Library, University of Cape Town, for permission to quote from the Bleek collection; and Mrs D. Gelling for typing successive drafts.

Notes

1. Johnson (1979: plates 71, 89 and 92) has illustrated three examples from the western Cape which, though not identical, are in many ways similar to the paintings considered in this paper.

2. 'Medicine man' has been widely used in the San literature; Bleek and Lloyd preferred 'sorcerer', and others have used 'shaman' (Hewitt 1976), 'magician' (Schapera 1930:195) or n/um master (Katz 1976).

3. Sinuous lines, though without the white dots, are also associated with rain animals, but I do not discuss them in this paper. For a full account of rain-making see Lewis-Williams (1981:103-16).

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Documents

The Thin Red Line: Southern San Notions and Rock Paintings of Supernatural Potency