Motivation in African rock art
PATRICIA VINNICOMBE
Within the last two years there has been published a plethora of books on the rock art of Africa
in general and of Southern Af&a in particular. The author of this review article, who holds a
Research Fellowship at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, discussesfour of these, which
are listed belonu.*
A very wide field of African rock art, both
paintings and engravings, is covered in Burchard Brentjes: African rock art, with special
reference to South Africa, Rhodesia, the
Sahara, North Africa and Egypt. Because of the
general nature of the book, there is little
attempt to be comprehensive or conclusive, the
aim being more to foster an appreciation and
awareness of the art than to solve problems or
place it in an archaeological context.
Although the book is good value for money,
there are many shortcomings. Influences from
Asia as well as from Crete and Greece and
later, from Egypt, are postulated for much of
the art of Libya and Algeria, but with little
evidence and even less bibliographical support
for the claims. Heavy reliance is placed on
verbose quotations from early German literature, and while it is useful to the English
reader to have portions of these works translated, not all the information incorporated is
strictly relevant.
The illustrations by Hans-Ulrich Herold,
* African rock art by Burchard Brentjes. First
published, Leipzig, I 965. Revised edition translated
by Anthony Dent. London: Dent, z969. 115 pp.,
25 pls. ( 3 in colour), 56 jigs., I map. E2.60. Rock art
of Southern Africa by C. K. Cooke. Cape Town:
Books of Africa, ~ 9 6 9166
. pp., 41 photographs ( z 8
in colour), 6 figs. and maps. R. 3.50. Art oa the
rocks of Southern Africa by D. N. Lee and H. C,
Woodhouse. Cape T o m : Purnell, Z970. 165 pp..
248 pls. (majority in colour), 39 figs., endpaper map.
R. 10.00. The hunter and his art: a survey of rock
art in Southern Africa by Jalmar and Ione Rudner.
Cape Town: Struizk, 1970. 278 pp., 60 colour pls.,
87 figs., 3 maps, 3 tables. R. 15.00.
based on published photographs and drawings‘
all too often fail miserably to do justice to the
original paintings and engravings, and no
indication whatever is given of scale.
It is also unfortunate that a book on rock art
should reflect political views to such amarked
extent (the author is lecturer in archaeology of
the Middle East at the University of Halle,
East Germany). The rock pictures are made to
testify to ‘the splendour and misery of the
African past, to African talent and subjection’,
but despite the peoples of Africa having
suffered physical hardship, economic deprivation and cultural sterility at the hands of
unscrupulous western exploiters, ‘the “African
personality” and African nationalism have their
part to play in the rediscovery of African rock
art, in which they will also find an affirmation
of their goals’ (pp. I, 8, 23,94,97, etc.).
The magico-religious aspect of the rock art
is stressed, both with reference to hunters and
later peasant communities, and although I
agree with the author in these views, the evidence as he presents it is far from systematic,
objective or convincing.
In C. K. Cooke: Rock art of Southern AjGca,
brief mention is made of the rock art north of
the equator and in East Africa. Zambia,
Rhodesia and South Africa are dealt with in
more detail, and both paintings and engravings
are set within an archaeological framework.
Regrettably this book too, has suffered from
political concepts. Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (the author is Director
of the Historical Monuments Commission in
MOTIVATION I N AFRICAN ROCK ART
Rhodesia), had an adverse effect on the possibilities of publication in Britain, with the result
that the typescript was entrusted to a publisher
with but little experience in academic printing.
Maps and figures do not always appear near the
relevant text, and since the illustrations are
neither listed nor numbered, the reader is left
to flounder about looking for the figure referred
to. Such statements as, ‘Perhaps it is wrong to
think of these primitive artists as having
thoughts similar to those of modern rnan . ’
(p. 26), and ‘. I believe that the symbols used
are the natural outcome of a primitive
people having the urge but not the artistic skill
to draw more than simple basic patterns’
(p. 151, with reference to the schematic and
geometric art of Zambia), perhaps reflect an
attitude no longer acceptable.
A further shortcoming is the frequent lack of
specific references, and the deduction of positive
statements from very slender evidence. This is
particularly evident in the identification of
polychrome paintings of humans with ‘aliens’,
a conclusion based on an unsubstantiated concept of sympathetic magic. Paintings of fattailed sheep are associated with these polychrome ‘aliens’, as also elements of agriculture,
which Cooke deduces from paintings of gourds,
pottery or baskets, and quern-stones (pp. 49,
105). The possibility is nowhere considered
that the sheep-herders and users of gourds and
quern-stones, etc., could have been the ‘huntergatherer’ painters themselves during a period
of acculturation. It is postulated that the
migratory routes followed by the ‘aliens’ and
their herds followed surface water supplies and
suitable grazing through tsetse-free belts westwards to South-West Africa, and then southwards to the Cape. Although a plausible
hypothesis, a great deal more archaeological
work will have to be done in the intervening
areas before it can be accepted.
Compiled by two Johannesburg businessmen, D. N. Lee and H. C. Woodhouse, with a
passion for photographing rock art, Art on the
rocks of Southern Africa, makes no pretentious
academic claims, and sets out to be first and
foremost a pictorial record of paintings (no
engravings are included), from sites over a wide
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area of southern Africa. The photographs,
many of them close-ups of specific details, are
excellent, but not always well reproduced; plates
133-41, for example, are very poorly registered. The text, although informative, is often
racy and journalistic in approach, and is
sprinkled with such captions as ‘It shows that
the way-out dance steps of today are really old
hat’, and ‘When getting dressed for a dance it
is always nice to have someone to help you do
up those hard-to-get-at zippers and poppers’,
etc. (p. 106). This may or may not appeal to
the layman, but the style of presentation and
complete lack of references will no doubt jar
the more serious scholar. There is, nevertheless,
much of value in the book. Attention is drawn
to details of clothing, headdress and facial
detail in the paintings, and the recurrence of
features such as decoration of the penis, line
decoration on faces, buck-headed human
figures and the strange ‘acrobatic’ relationship
between humans and eland antelope in some
scenes is emphasized. Although practically
every known motivation for creative art is
listed as a possible explanation for the wide
variety of subject matter, the validity of
‘sympathetic magic’ is queried, and ‘art for
art’s sake’ favoured.
The hunter and his urt, by Jalmar and Ione
Rudner, an enthusiastic couple whose hobby
over the past 20 years has been the recording
of art and archaeological sites in Southern
Africa, is aimed to catch the interest of both
layman and specialist. The result is a variability
of style and content ranging from almost childlike simplicity to comparatively technical discussion. It is a sumptuous-looking book,
attractively presented, but marred by lack of
consecutive numbering of the plates which
renders the relation of illustrations to text
difficult and irritating.
Both paintings and engravings are treated
under regional headings covering the area from
Angola and Rhodesia to the southern Cape,
with attention drawn to similarities and differences between the various regions. The illustrations (all tracings and no photographs), are
described and discussed in detail, with special
reference to physical type, clothing and
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weapons. Attention is also paid to the archaeological associations of the art sites, and an
ambitious but not altogether convincing attempt
is made to identify particular painting styles,
to relate these to different stone age cultures
and then to ascribe their origin to two separate
cultural groups, the Bushmen and the Hottentots. From the evidence of available carbon
dates, of which a table is appended, the Rudners
suggest that the invention of the bow and
arrow and the art of painting and engraving
may have developed in southern Africa, and
that this knowledge then diffused northwards
rather than southwards as is usually propounded. (See s. Afr. Archaeol. Bull., 1972,
for a more detailed critical review.)
The motivation of the art is ascribed to a
wide variety of reasons, but the indiscriminating
and uninformed use of mythological and
‘spiritual’ interpretations is criticized, while the
popular view that a picture was created merely
for pleasure is accepted without question.
These four books again focus attention on the
tremendous wealth of rock art contained within
the African continent, but also highlight the
imprecise nature of our knowledge, the lack of
objectivity, and the dearth of any systematic
corpus of material on which to base an analytical
study. For these reasons, it is difficult to reconstruct on a factual basis the motivation underlying the art. It is hardly surprising therefore,
that the views on motivation expressed in the
above books are so often conflicting both within
themselves and with each other.
The terms most frequently used with
reference to motivation of the art are ‘sympathetic magic’ and ‘art for art’s sake’. Before presenting a synthesis of the views therefore, it is
perhaps as well to define the meaning of the
terms.
‘Sympathetic magic’ is based on the premise
that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause. When applied to the art of hunter
peoples, it is thought that depictions of particular animals were motivated by the desire to
control or otherwise influence real animals
upon which the hunters preyed; injury done to
the picture could cause corresponding injury to
the subject, etc. The hypothesis inherent in
magical interpretations is that the representation in itself was the only thing that had meaning, on the occasion of the performance only,
and that once the animal was killed the drawing
had no further significance. It is therefore
essentially ‘functional’ art related principally to
the quest for food (Ucko and Rosenfeld, 1967,
124-5, 176; Brentjes, 1969, 8).
By contrast, the term ‘art for art’s sake’
implies that human beings have an inherent and
instinctive desire to express themselves artistically. An unharrassed existence surrounded by
material plenty is usually regarded as a prerequisite of this approach-‘leisure was the
nourisher of the arts’-and man therefore had
time for ornamentation and time to enjoy his
creations on a purely aesthetic level (Ucko and
Rosenfeld, 1967, 117-19).
AIthough admitting the possibility of magical
intent, Lee and Woodhouse, Cooke and the
Rudners favour the ‘art for art’s sake’ interpretation in varying degrees, while Brentjes unequivocally states that the majority of paintings
were used as part of a hunting ritual which
depended on the principle of sympathetic
magic, and he applies this principle to both
human and animal paintings (pp. 7, 14, 96).
Cooke, on the other hand, accepts sympathetic
magic as an explanation for stylization of
human figures, but rejects its application to the
more naturalistic animal representations (p. 29).
This is in accordance with the fear that realistic
representation of human beings would give the
artist power over human life, and to permit this
would obviously be detrimental to the tribe.
The result was a tabu against naturalistic
representation of human beings (Willcox, 1956,
57-8; 1963, 84). Brentjes (p. 69) hints that the
introduction of domestication eventually broke
the tabu, as evidenced by the detailed portraiture associated with paintings of the Bovidian
period in the Sahara. This is an hypothesis
which may have wider application, for Cooke
(pp. 30, 107) also associates greater detail
among human representations with paintings
of domestic sheep. However, by applying the
concept of sympathetic magic to the more
realistic human paintings found in the later
phase of Rhodesian paintings, Cooke claims
I 26
MOTIVATION I N AFRICAN ROCK ART
that the humans must represent immigrants
rather than indigenes. Conversely, with reference to animal paintings, which all represent
local species, Cooke argues that the paintings
and drawings were executed only for pleasure
or as a record (pp. 74, 149).‘The whole art as it
has come down to us, appears to be based on
the simple principle of “that is a buck”, or
“that is a human”, or even “that is a lovely
picture”
(p. 74). ‘It was in the main “art
for art’s sake”, an endeavour by the artist to
record scenes and events, . but more often a
scene of beauty remembered for its aesthetic
qualities’ (pp. 149-50).
Lee and Woodhouse (pp. 68, 85) question
the assumption that stylization of human
figures was an intentional distortion to avoid
the influences of sympathetic magic. While
admitting certain conventions whereby the head
was drawn as a blob or with a protuberant
‘snout’, many of their close-up photographs
reveal remarkably naturalistic facial features.
Some of these definitely portray Bushmen in an
area where the artists are known to have been
Bushmen. I n their view only ‘food‘ animals were
naturalistically portrayed, which they interpret
as reflecting a close association between artist
and those animals of economic importance to
the community. To these authors, however, the
quest for food is not necessarily associated with
sympatheticmagic. ‘The sense of movement and
sheer perfection of so many rock paintings of
animals in southern Africa in itself suggests
that they were not drawn for the purpose of
exerting sympathetic magic over them, nor to
indicate some mysterious ritual. If the artists
had been interested in the animals purely as
food, then a simple outline drawn to the
accompaniment of an intoned prayer to the
tribal goods would surely have sufficed. Such
ceremonies would hardly have required the
immaculate attention to detail seen in so many
of the paintings, which lends strength to the
contention that at least some of the paintings
are an expression of art for art’s sake’ (p. 30).
Cooke (p. 74)shares this opinion: ‘If one wishes
to kill a kudu or a wildebeest, it is scarcely
necessary to draw several in different positions,
or a whole family.’ Brentjes (p. 14)in following
...
. .
the dictum, ‘The better the resemblance, the
better the magical efficacy’, takes the opposite
view: ‘The animals are shown as individual
portraits, as if the pictorial magic were directed
against individual specimens.’ (See also Ucko
and Rosenfeld, 1967,134.)
Still further confusion is expressed by the
various authors on the role of predators such as
lion, leopard and other dangerous animals in
rock art. All agree that by comparison with
other animals, predators are relatively rare in
the pictorial records, but this is where consensus
ends.
Cooke (p. 31) draws attention to the exaggerated size of feline in proportion to humans,
which he suggests may have been engendered
by a fear complex. Lee and Woodhouse (p. 25,
pls. 36-53),in referring to the recurrent theme
of hunters chased by feline at a number of sites,
remark that the feline are usually badly drawn
or stylized to varying degrees. By way of
explanation they suggest that carnivores were
not only of little dietary importance to the
Bushmen, but also competed with the hunters
for food. Brentjes (p. 7), on the other hand,
makes the point that some Bushmen made use
of lions by taking over their quarry after a kill,
and that they were therefore careful not to
injure the predators that acted as food-providers. He claims that leopards, in contrast to
lions, cannot be forced to leave their prey, and
because of their cunning nature and silent,
slinky habits, are regarded by many Africans as
an embodiment of supernatural power.
Kalahari Bushmen, among others, believe that
wizards can change themselves into leopards
and in this shape bring disaster and death to
enemies, ‘and so no pictures of these dreadful
beasts are found, since their representation is
in some way their creation, conjuring up something whose presence is feared’. While this may
be an interesting viewpoint on motivation, the
statement is unfortunately not based on fact,
for paintings of leopards occur throughout the
central mountainous areas of southern Africa
(e.g. Rosenthal and Goodwin, 1953, pl. 40;
Willcox, 1956, pl. 54; Lee and Woodhouse,
1970,pl. 14; cover: S. Afr. Archaeol. Bull.,
XVI (64),etc.), and the Rudners (p. 181)report
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four shelters with leopard pictures from the
Brandberg in South West Africa.
Yet another postulate on beasts of prey was
advanced by the AbbC Breuil, who suggested
that hunters may expect to gain the qualities
of a predator through its image, and in this way
to become endowed with its skill in catching
game (see Ucko and Rosenfeld, 1967, 130).
Thus paradoxically, paintings of predators may
be engendered through fear or through a desire
to emulate, because they are undesirable food
competitors or desirable food providers; they
may be badly drawn or altogether avoided
because they were not desired as food, or
because they were regarded as an embodiment
of evil.
In short, sympathetic magic may be the basis
for all of the art, some of the art, or none of the
art. Sympatheticmagic may inflict damage or it
may imbue desirable qualities, it may destroy
or it may create, it may be used positively to
gain control over animals and humans, or it may
be used negatively in that likenesses were
avoided in order to avoid the possibility of
control being exercised. I n this way it can be
argued that both naturalistic and stylistic
paintings reflect the concept of sympathetic
magic, and different subjects may reflect either
the positive or the negative approach. The
subject matter may be made to fit any point of
view or, conversely, any point of view may be
made to fit the subject matter. And the subject
matter itself is selected and therefore not representative of the art as a whole, while the points
of view are largely subjective and prejudiced
judgements. The whole realm of interpretation
could hardly be surrounded with more confused
speculation.
I n an attempt to eliminate as far as possible
the subjective approach to rock art, and to
assess the validity of the claim that human
figures are conventionalized while the animals
are naturalistic, a claim on which so much interpretation is based, the content of 150 fully
recorded sites from a limited area of the
Drakensberg in southern Africa has been
analysed (Vinnicombe, 1967, and in press).
The results clearly show that both human and
animal paintings have a strong tendency to
elongationwith proportionately small heads, and
that both are subject to unrealistic colour conventions. Admittedly facial features were shown
in 6 per cent of the 3,606 animal paintings and
in only z per cent of the 4,530 human paintings,
but details such as tail-tufts, back-stripes or
cloven hoofs among animals are more than
compensated for by often meticulous details of
dress and ornamentation on human figures. I
would therefore concur with the observation
first made by Dorothea Bleek, that although
animals appear to be better drawn than men,
the difference is not so great as it seems. We
are better acquainted with men than with
animals, and notice any lack of proportion more
quickly (Stow and Bleek, 1930, xi). Bleek goes
on to point out that, on the basis of superposition, the earlier paintings of humans are less
detailed than the later, and suggests as a reason
that when only one race lived in the land, any
caricature of a human being would be sufficient
to represent it, whereas when the black and
white races entered the scene, greater detail in
portrayal was necessary to make the distinction.
Here then is an alternative down-to-earth
explanation of the greater detail incorporated
into human figures with the progress of time.
Such an explanation contrasts markedly with
that of sympathetic magic.
In following the lead of Miss Bleek, the protagonists of a secular explanation of paintings
all advocate the ‘art for art’s sake’ interpretation,
but this too is a blanket term that covers almost
everything and smothers further probing of the
problem. The subjectivity of approach is exemplified in the following excerpts: ‘As far as
the paintings are concerned, we cannot escape
the feeling that they are often “art for art’s sake”
and that it was merely a pleasure for the artist to
picture the animals he saw in the veld-not
only those he hunted-as well as the people
around him, and to decoratehis shelter’ (Rudner,
1970, zro; see also Willcox, 1963, 34), and ‘If
we can discount the ideas of hunting magic or
ritual as having been the purpose of such a
proliferation of paintings of certain animal
species (and it seems most probable that we
can), we are left with the conviction that the
motivating force was an inspired expression of
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MOTIVATION I N AFRICAN ROCK ART
art for art’s sake, which resulted in some
singularly beautiful home decorating’ (Lee and
Woodhouse, 1970, 28).
It is strange that despite these statements,
both authors make the point that not all the
painted shelters were dwelling places (Rudner
1970, 216; Lee and Woodhouse, 1970, 17).
Such evidence poses a number of problems.
Would artists intentionally cover earlier paintings to create a muddled visual effect if they
enjoyed the paintings as a form of decoration?
Would people go to the bother of decorating a
shelter for aesthetic reasons if they did not live
in it? Is there any appreciable difference
between the content of art in the habitation
sites as opposed to those not associated with
domestic activities? (see Ucko and Rosenfeld,
1967, 172.) Unfortunately, no objective study
of this facet has yet been applied to African
rock art, but Cooke (p. 25) draws attention to
the fact that in Rhodesia, the main painted
galleries appear to be subjected to a more
rigorous conformity to conventionalized style
than outlying and isolated sites where the
artist could indulge in free and creative
expression.
While some paintings are undoubtedly casual
and others are certainly intended to have a
visual effect, the fact that the principal art sites
reflect styles more or less rigidly governed by
convention, and that overpainting repeatedly
occurs, would seem to me to suggest ritual
practices known to be frequently associated
with repetitive and rigid convention. As a
further caution against the ‘art for art’s sake’
theory, one could quote the comments of Ulli
Beier in connexion with West African sculpture,
another field of art which evokes aesthetic
eulogies from outside observers. Despite a long
and intimate knowledge of the people and the
country, Beier claims never to have heard any
aesthetic comment among the Yoruba themselves about their sculpture. Discussion rather
centres round the subject matter and the
symbolism. In Beier’s opinion, ‘African art is
highly symbolic, and it is the nature of a symbol
that it allows more than one interpretation, and
that it can arouse one thing in the person who
creates it, and another in the person who looks
...
at it.
The creation of a piece of sculpture is
in itself a religious act. Its completion and
dedication may cause great joy. I have seen
people dancing and singing for a new work of
art-but
its merits as art are not normally
discussed’ (Beier, 1963, 6, 9). I n my opinion,
the creation of a painting or engraving was also
in itself, more often than not, a religious act,
and herein lies the crux of motivation.
There are many opinions on the distinction
between religion and magic, but it is generally
agreed that religion entails the propitiation or
worship of non-human or sacred objects, while
magic is the manipulation or control of such
objects. In practice the two attitudes may
mingle or alternate; certain participants in a
rite may conceive it in the religious mode,
while others may understand it magically.
(Scharf, 1970,31-5). The main point, however,
is that ‘sympathetic magic’ can at best be but an
insignificant and somewhat trite expression of
religion, and by dwelling on the magical and
aesthetic aspects of the art, we are detracting
from the far more complex and sophisticated
ideas which form the basis of the artists’
beliefs.
As examples of the complexity surrounding
what are at face value relatively mundane
representations, one may cite the myth-andritual basis of Dogon rupestral art in the West
African republic of Mali (Griaule, 1938; 1950)
and also of the hypothesis concerning the
connexion between Saharan Bovidian paintings
and the cosmology of the pastoral Fulani
(Dieterlen, 1966).
Although the possible association between
paintings, mythology, and initiation or other
rituals or ceremonies is conceded by most
authors on African rock art, it is usually mentioned with diffidence and without supporting
evidence (Lee and Woodhouse, 1970, 1 6 7 ;
Rudner, 1970, 209-15; Brentjes, 1969, 35;
Cooke, 1969, 20, 72, etc.). This caution is
indeed preferable to the extravagant and illdocumented claims made by a previous writer
who associated various animal paintings with
cosmic symbols, and who drew far-fetched
analogies between the art of Europe and Africa,
based on the conviction that the whole of
ANTIQUITY
Eurafrican art has a common mythological
foundation (Holm, 1961). It is nevertheless my
own opinion that some of Holm’s proposals
could well be subjected to a more detailed and
analytical study before being discounted as
worthless. The potential importance of mythology in relation to African rock art is also
appreciated by Brentjes who quotes long
excerpts from myths and legends, but who
makes no attempt to interpret their significance
or to associate them with the art. Lee and
Woodhouse (123-37) link paintings of hippopotamus-like creatures and other spotted
animals with rain-making ceremonies described in mythology, and suggest that unusually
postured winged figures with buck heads may
represent spirits. The Rudners (pp. 205-9) on
the other hand are critical of such interpretations.
Throughout these books there is an apparently
indiscriminate and interchangeable use of the
terms ‘myth’ and ‘legend’, and although there
is again much dissension as to the dividing line
between these anecdotal forms, myths usually
incorporate certain moral implications or metaphysical truths that provide a charter for the
present, whereas legends and folk-tales are told
principally for entertainment and need have no
deeper significance (Cohen, 1969). Mythology,
therefore, is closely bound to religious concepts,
whereas legend is not. Religion, in turn, is
usually closely associated with ritual, and myth
and ritual are often, but not necessarily, interconnected. It is my contention that recent
objective analyses of rock paintings lend
strength to the ritualistic interpretation of much
of the art.
The first published quantitative analysis of
South African rock art focused attention on the
fact that human figures outnumbered animals,
which suggested that hunting magic was not an
important motive in the art. Whereas most
animals portrayed in the paintings would have
formed part of the diet of the painters, the
proportions of the different species did not
necessarily reflect their relative importance as
food. Analysis of bone debris from archaeological deposits in rock shelters shows that the
bones of smaller mammals predominate, where-
as in the paintings, the larger mammals, and in
particular antelope, predominate to the virtual
exclusion of smaller animals (Maggs, 1967).
This finding was corroborated by evidence
from Rhodesia (Cooke, 1964; 1969, 32).
In July 1969, the results of further rock
painting analyses were presented at a symposium
on rock art held at the annual congress of the
South African Association for the Advancement
of Science, and the findings to a large extent
bore out the conclusions drawn by Maggs. A
sample of 1,935 paintings from western
Lesotho showed 96.5 per cent of the animal
paintings to be of antelope, of which the great
majority were eland (Taurotrugus o ~ y xwyx)
(Smits, 1969, in press). In the northern
Drakensberg, antelope constituted 77 per cent
of the 1,041animals portrayed, but the smaller
antelope (364) outnumbered the eland (302) by
a small margin (Pager, 1969, in press). Another
sample of 2,938 paintings in the southern
Drakensberg showed that antelope constituted
86 per cent of the 626 wild animals depicted,
eland making up 34 per cent, and the smaller
antelope 25 per cent (Vinnicombe, unpublished conference paper, 1969). Subsequently,
an analysis of 8,478 paintings from 150 fully
recorded sites in the same area has been completed, which reveals an even greater overall
dominance of eland-35 per cent as against
18 per cent smaller antelope, which are second
in popularity (Vinnicombe, in ms.). My paper
emphasized that although wildebeest (Connochaetis gnou) were formerly prolific in the area
covered by the analysis, they were extremely
rare in the painted record. It was suggested that
this might be explained by a /Xam Bushman
legend in which wildebeest are presented as
interfering with a hunter’s bow-string and
arrow-heads to make his aim inaccurate and
ineffectual (Bleek, 1924, 58). Wildebeest might
therefore have been associated with ill luck in
hunting (Vinnicombe, in press). This point
was taken up by Lee and Woodhouse in their
subsequent publication, in which they also
draw attention to the rarity of paintings of kudu,
zebra, quagga, giraffe and springbok in areas
where these were formerly plentiful. As a
possible explanation of the lack of springbok
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MOTIVATION I N AFRICAN ROCK ART
paintings they quote an extract from /Xam
Bushman hunting observances-that hunters
do not eat the flesh of springbok since this
would have the effect of making slower animals
as fast and restless as the springbok (Lee and
Woodhouse, 1970,257).
The Rudners have also incorporated material
from these quantitative analyses in their book,
together with additional lists for areas for
which they give no source (Rudner, 1970,
Schedules I and 2, 267, 268). The tables are
presented in such a way that valid comparison
is difficult, because absolute figures rather than
percentages are used. The size of the sample is
in each case different and in some cases it is
very small. Because of the lack of uniformity in
presentation of results by the various field
workers, some facts are misrepresented by the
Rudner tables. For example, paintings of fish,
birds, wild pigs and mythical animals are
found in the southern Drakensberg sample, but
because of their comparative rarity, were listed
jointly, for the purposes of the symposium,
under the heading ‘Other wild animals’, a
category eliminated from the Rudner list.
Similarly, the heading ‘unrecognizable animals’
from the Drakensberg and south-western Cape
samples has been left out. In an effort to
minimize these limitations, I have listed in
percentage form, with some corrections, the
quantitative data on animal pictures which
provides the facts on which further discussion
is based (Table I).
The table clearly reflects a high degree of
selectivity in the subject matter portrayed by
the hunter artists, with an accent on different
animals in different regions that is not necessarily related to the predominant animals
formerly found within those regions. The
problem is to know how this selectivity should
be interpreted.
The dominance of large antelope in southern
African rock art has been related to such factors
as high meat yield, dietary preferences, and
relative ease of hunting (Rudner, 1970, 182;
Lee and Woodhouse, 1970, 27, etc.). Brentjes
(p. 7) introduces a socio-economic explanation;
he claims, without quoting any supporting data,
that the necessity of hunting large animals, and
therefore the preference for painting large
mammals, was prompted by the fact that the
size of the Bushman group was governed by the
number of people that could make a meal off
one of the larger antelope. Lee and Woodhouse
(27,50) suggest a similar motive for the proliferation of eland paintings-that the large carcase
would have provided the most economical
quantity of food for an average sized band.
They also suggest that the prolific and regular
rate of breeding among eland may link eland
paintings with a fertility cult, and that when
eland were plentiful and subsistence easy, the
task of hunting may have become associated
with an element of ceremonial akin to bullfighting. This is by way of explaining the
repeated scenes in which humans are shown in
a close and distinctly non-hunting association
with eland. In my view, the association goes
far deeper than this. No matter how good the
animal may have been to eat, it was, in the words
of Levi-Strauss (1966)also ‘good to think’. And
in Bushman thought, the eland was ritually
closely identified with their creator deity. This
is clearly emphasized in eland creation myths
which have been preserved from among the
southern Bushman group where eland are
dominant among the paintings, and a similar
structure is reflected in Gemsbok creation
myths from the more northerly desert regions
where gemsbok predominate among the antelope paintings (Table I). The full argument in
support of this hypothesis is detailed in a forthcoming publication (Vinnicombe, in press).
A suggested model on which to base the
interpretation of selectivity in rock art has been
set out by Levine (1957): ‘We are presented
with a rich corpus of art. The “missing link” is
what these early men thought and believedhow they perceived reality, what they valued
and what they took as problematic. . . If we
can make a reasonable case for the idea that a
people’s art is patterned by the point of view
of their culture, if we can suggest the ways in
which art exhibits this patterning, we might
hope to make a plausible reconstruction of the
attitudes and outlook of a prehistoric people.’
By combining a systematic, sensitive study of
the art with judicious use of ethnographic
.
ANTIQUITY
and quantitative methods of data retrieval, it
remains for future workers in the field to move
on from such naive and particularist explanations, and to explore instead the realm of structural thought reflected in the significance of the
subject matter selected for portrayal.
parallels, Levine points the way to narrowing
down the field of plausible explanation even if
patent demonstration is out of the question.
T h e works reviewed present a large body of
rock art unfortunately collated in an unsystematic way and analysed in a very simplistic
manner. With the increasing use of objective
BEIER, u. 1963.African mud sculpture (Cambridge).
BLEEK, D. F. 1924. The Mantis and his friends:
Bushman folklore (London).
BRENTJFS, B. 1969.African rock art (London).
COHEN, P. s. 1969.Theories of myth, Man, IV
337-53.
(3),
c. K. 1964.Animals in Southern Rhodesian
rock art, Arnoldia, I (xi), 1-22.
1969.Rock art of Southern Africa (Cape Town).
DIETFXLEN, G. 1966.Les fresques d‘bpoque bovidienne
du Tassili n’Ajjer et les traditions des Peul:
hypophksis d’interprktation. J. SOC.Afr., (I),
COOKE,
141-57.
GRIAULE, M. 1938.Masques
HOLM, E. 1961. Rock art
Dogons (Paris).
of South Africa in (ed.
H. G. Bandi et al.) The art of the Stone Age
(London).
LEE,D. N. and H.c. WOODHOUSE. 1970.Art on the rocks
of Southern Africa (Cape Town).
WINE, M. H. 1957. Prehistoric art and ideology,
American Anthropologist. LIX, 949-64.
LEVI-STRAUSS, c. 1962.La pensde sauvage (Paris).
Table
AREA KEY
I
Rhodesia
I. Mashonaland,
2. Matabeleland,
33 painted shelters
g painted shelters
South West Africa
3. Twyfelfontein, open engraving site
4 Brandberg, 23 painted shelters
Northern Cape
5. Biesiespoort, open engraving site
6. Bessiesfontein, open engraving site
Note: The high percentage of domestic animals in
group XI,Drakensberg, can be directly related to
stock-raiding activities by Bushmen in that area
between 1840 and 1872. Because the presence of
domestic animals confuses the percentage of wild
animal species depicted, domestic animals in all the
groups have been eliminated from the percentage
calculations. Absolute numbers are given for each
domestic species, and then the total number of
o’c. 1967.A quantitative analysis of the
rock art from a sample area in the Western Cape.
S. Afr. J. Sci., LXIII (3), 100-4.
PAGER, H. In press. The rock art of the Ndedema
gorge and neighbouring valleys, S. Afr. J . Sci.
ROSENTHAL, E. and A. J. H. GOODWIN. 1953. cave
artists of South Africa (Cape Town).
RUDNER, J. and I. 1970. The Hunter and his art
(Cape Town).
SCHARF, B. R. 1970. The sociological study of religion
(London).
SMITS, L. G. A. In press. The rock paintings of
Lesotho, their content and characteristics, S.Afr.
J. Sci.
STOW, G. w. and D. F. BLEEK. 1930.Rock paintings in
South Africa (London).
UCKO, P. J. and A. ROSENFELD. 1967. Palaeolithic cave
art (London).
VINNICOMBE, P. 1967.Rock painting analysis, S. Afi.
Archneol. Bull., MII (88), 129-41.
In ms. People of the Eland.
WILLCOX, A. R. 1956.Rockpaintings of the D r a h b e r g .
1963.
. - The rock art of South Africa (London).
MAGGS, T. M.
(see opposite)
Cape Province
7. S.W. Cape, 46 painted shelters (Maggs, 1967)
8. E. Cape, 26 painted shelters
9. S. Cape, 39 painted burial stones
Drakensberg
17 painted shelters (Pager, in
press)
11. Underberg and Mount Currie districts, 62
painted shelters (Vinnicombe, 1969, unpublished conference paper)
10. Ndedema,
domesticates is expressed as a percentage of the
whole painting sample. An ‘unidentifiable’ category of
animals from group I I, consistingof 130 fragmentary
paintings, has been excluded from the Table because
there is no way of knowing whether they should be
included in the ‘wild’ or ‘domestic’ categories. O n
the other hand, fragmentary animals in areas where
domesticates are very rarely painted almost certainly
fall within the ‘wild’ category.
M O T I V A T I O N I N A F R I C A N ROCK A R T
Rhodesia
Area
I
South West Northern
Africa
Cape
3
4
4
28
I3
3
I4
16
7
2
5
cap”
Province
6
7
8
3
6
-9
-
I
I
-
-I
Ddensberg
9
10
11
Antelope
Eland
Gemsbok
Kudu
Sable and Roan
Hartebeest
Wildebeest
Other and unspecified
Small antelope
Total
Other wild animals
Elephant
Giraffe
Rhino
Hippo
Buffalo
Zebra, etc.
Pig, etc.
Baboon
Feline
Other carnivore
Other (general)
Unrecognizab1e
Total
Birds, Fish, etc.
Ostrich
Other birds
Fish
Crocodile
Snake
Insects
Mythical
Total
Number of domestic animals
Cattle
Sheep
Horse
Dog
Total
Domestic percentage of sample
Total number in sample
3
8
3
5
3
5
12
4
4
6
6
4
1
4
I
3
-
o
-
16
-
-
-
-
-
5
5
3
3
5
3
5
7
30
-
7
1
2
I8
-
o
-
-
o
0
40
23
13
12
32
29
-
11
-
-
I
-
:
-
15
-
-
43
-
-
-
2
4
9
3
I
1
37
-
I?
3
-
2
9
-
31
58
-
44
61
34
o r 4
35
-
-
9
-
-
-
30
-
2
-
o
9
I
2
I
-
1
5
-
-
-
-
I
2
I
-
I
-
-
3
3
-
9
-
~0
22
1
I+I?
I?
142
-
I
-
30
I
-
1
-
-
70
2
o
-
3?
1 7
-
-
29
3)
_
I
3
I0
47
- 2? - - 5
- - - - - - - - - I
- I? 3 - Z? 6
1 7 -
I
4
I
o
o
I
+
64
6
I9
2
I
2
I
-4
43
-
3
3
-
48
3
3
3
4
I
I0
-
-
12
-
I
I
14
-
I
430
85
23 1041 1029
39
~~
Table r (see opposite). Distribution of animal pictures in the rock art of southem Africa expressed in
percentages to the nearest whole. The figure ‘0’ is inserted where no information is available.
‘33