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San Rock Art Paintings
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One of the San shaman's tasks was to make rain. The San thought of the rain as an animal. The shamans would capture this imaginary animal, lead it to the place where they wanted rain and kill it. Its blood and milk would then become rain. This painting, from the KwaZulu-Natal Drakensberg, shows a group of trancers in the process of capturing the "rain-bull".
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Moving away from Drakensberg, to other areas of South Africa images of the dance remain common. This painting from the Eastern Free State is one example. The central figures are dancing, supported by dancing sticks. The dancer often bends forward during the dance as his potency begins to 'boil' in his stomach. In this position he supports his weight on one or two dancing sticks. The women on the left hand side are depicted in a characteristic clapping posture.
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Nasal bleeding, hand-to-mouth postures, and the arms-back posture are all signs of depictions of trance experience in San rock paintings. Paintings of dances often depict blood flowing from the noses of shamans whose ecstasy has reached a climax. Nineteenth-century San who spoke of this phenomenon say that shamans smeared their nasal blood on people in the belief that its smell (that is, its power), would protect them from arrows-of-sickness. A hand raised to the nose is a typical, widely-painted shamanic feature.
RARI Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
