2008/09/16
ONE of the Eastern Cape’s oldest human treasures, San rock art, and the culture it represents, is in danger of being wrecked by vandals.
This invaluable artistic heritage is being defaced with graffiti or literally chipped off rock faces with a chisel.
The Dispatch@venture team this week discovered that nearly all the rock art sites in the southern Drakensberg showed signs of defacement, with one even having a swastika painted over it at a site which also served as a San burial ground.
On Saturday, the team saw what was arguably one of the San rock art sites in worst condition – or perhaps it was only because it came so highly recommended.
It was at Denorbin farm at the top of Barkly Pass between Elliot and Barkly East, and the only one where an entrance fee was charged .
Several people had said it was a “must see” and it was by far the biggest site in the district, 32 metres long.
While there were some beautiful little fragments, there was evidence of parts of the rock having been chiselled away.
The work is dominated by a large eland bull, or what’s left of it, b ehind which flows the herd. To the left and right are other scenes, figures and vignettes.
Some figures were bent over with spinal spasms and nosebleeds, which, in the current most popular theory, are indications of the trance state.
Denorbin farm owner Mark Green told us he had actually caught some academics with chisels in their hands.
We could see the marks of those chisels where a scene of beauty had once been, cutting short a story we wanted to know.
The best site was, without a doubt, two caves near Rhodes village on the farm of Vasie Murray.
After we had marvelled at the pristine paintings to the right of the cave mouth, he took us to a rock just to its left, which had fallen off the face of the cliff.
“Look hard, can you see anything?” he asked. We looked, and shook our heads. “Just a red blur.”
“Now look,” he said, and bent over so that his body cast a shadow over the rock. Exquisite tiny figures sprang into sharp focus all over its surface – white ones, black ones, red ones and, unusually for San paintings, one of a fish.
We reached the second site, this time in a tiny, low- roofed little cave, after dark. We crouched on the sandy floor and gazed at fairyland by torchlight.
Murray, who had sat by these minute, precise, exquisitely observed pictures as a boy, pored over them for hours and lost himself in the stories they told, exclaimed he was still seeing new things, because he had never seen them by torchlight before.
He showed us a whole scenario, which looked like a sport competition between Xhosa and San warriors. Two figures stood side by side throwing long spears at what appears to be a target.
There was no mistaking which were Xhosa and which were San from the body shapes. Further back, a figure sat on the ground. He seemed to be keeping score.
Another figure, looming larger than life near the back, was clearly the shaman, no doubt sending power to his team.
the Murray family has put fences in front of the caves to protect them from animals – both two- and four-legged. - By ALISON STENT and TEGAN BEDSER
|