On the Body in Rock Art of the Khomas Region

Abstract

In many cultures, the body is regarded as a representation and reflection of their society or community. The body appears in the visual archive of rock art and takes on highly symbolic meanings. Individual organs are associated with certain emotions: the heart, the head, the nose, the womb, the penis, the stomach, hands, blood, bodily emissions and so forth. Aspects of culture were imagined to reside in the body. This type of symbolism also holds true for San culture and spirituality, where the heart,
the liver, the hands, the nose, the womb, the penis, the blood, the stomach and other body fluids are important metaphors of emotional and material conditions of shared social experiences and beliefs of culturally related people – whether these refer to witchcraft, or to special capacities and agency, charismatic or healing qualities, contagious infections, love, rain-making, anger or symbolic communion or specific rituals such as initiation ceremonies. Of all body parts, the genital organs are invested with the greatest symbolic meaning. Representations of the vulva and the phallus are to be found in many variations all over the world and have been submitted to various interpretations. The widely-held idea that the rock art ‘illustrates’ the folklore and myths is not viable. Research over the past four decades, shows that the practice of making images was essentially concerned with different types of engagement with the supernatural realm and its beings. San image-making, as Lewis-Williams (2017:150) reminds us, “… was a ritual practice in its own right, not a secondary, merely illustrative appendage to San mythology or anything else”. While it is undoubtedly meaningful to view rock art within a landscape framework to identify primary and secondary resource nodes as Lenssen-Erz (2004), Breunig (2019) and Kinahan (2020), among other archaeologists suggest, rock art could also be seen as a modification of the landscape and a construction of living social and cultural spaces, through altered states of consciousness, dreaming, folklore, rituals and visions. The field of cognitive archaeology is widely associated with altered states and entoptic phenomena – altered states of consciousness induced by hallucinogenic substances – (Lewis-Williams, 1991 & 2002) and Whitley (1994), but other aspects of the mind are also important. One of these concerns the body and bodily experience. In initiation practices, girls and boys are prepared for their gender-specific roles in society. Particular attention is paid to sexual education. Because of the perceived relationship between the body and the social order, the coherence of its parts and the harmonious communication of its members is the basis of the well-being of the community. There are numerous rock art sites in the Khomas Region and elsewhere in the country, that have images of bodies in the trance or medicine and rain dance; the most important ritual for all San groups (Lewis-Williams & Pearce, 2012). The dance promotes psychological well-being and social cohesion and is about the use of nǀum to achieve, !ia (also spelled !khia). Nǀum has variously been translated as ‘medicine’, ‘energy’, ‘potency’ or ‘power’. The term has many meanings and refers to herbal medicines, healing, menstrual blood, pregnancy and ejaculation, among others (Lee, 1984:109).