Painting postures: body symbolism in San rock art of the North Eastern Cape, South Africa

[摘要] Certain postures and gestures of the human body recur in fine-line San rock art.Students of southern African rock art are introduced to a number of classic posturesand features of human figures during the trance dance. The movement and postureof the human body is significant during the ritual trance dance, yet the reasons forpainting certain postures over and over again have not been discussed often. Thisdissertation examines the symbolic meaning behind painting certain recurringpostures in the Maclear and Barkly East Districts of the north Eastern CapeProvince. This thesis examines sets of similar pointing and gesturing postures of thehuman body in rock art, and also examines the symbolic role of recurring posturesin both the ritual trance dance and rock art. I argue that the painters used thesesimilar sets of images (and others) in rock art to actively maintain and negotiate theflow of supernatural potency from the spirit world into the body of the shaman toutilise in this world and that the images were not static depictions of fragments ofthe trance dance, and did not only represent the process, but were viewed as activelyparticipating in this process.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand