Browsing by Subject "San"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Dancing with two sticks: Investigating the origin of a southern African rite
    (South African Archaeological Society, 2006) Jolly, Pieter
    Photographs of San descendants from Prieska, Northern Cape, form part of the Bleek Collection, Oppenheimer Library, University of Cape Town. They show some of the Prieska San performing a dance and were taken by Dorothea Bleek in late 1910, or possibly early 1911. A particular posture adopted by dancers in some of these photographs, stooped and supported by two sticks, is represented in San rock paintings. It has also been observed in the rites of some San-speakers, as well as those of some southern Bantu-speakers in South Africa. his article investigates the symbolism of the dancing sticks and whether the rites in which these sticks are employed originated with the San or whether they originated with southern Bantu-speakers. It is suggested that the sticks were used to support trancing San shamans, as has been proposed previously, but that in at least some cases they also symbolized the front legs of an animal into which a shaman was transforming. The rite probably had its origins amongst the San, but, in some cases, the meaning attached to it may have changed as San and southern Bantu-speakers exerted a mutual influence on each others' cultures.
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    Open Access
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    Open Access
    Therianthropes in San rock art
    (2002) Jolly, Pieter
    San paintings of therianthropes, beings that combine human and non-human features, are described and analysed in order to formulate a theory concerning the meaning of these paintings for the people who made and viewed them. The range of therianthrope paintings is described. Four explanations, or theories, concerning the therianthropes are discussed and evaluated in relation to San religious rites and beliefs and the physical forms taken by therianthropes in the art. These explanations or theories focus respectively on animal-masked/costumed shamans, shamans transformed into animals or other creatures while in altered states, the spirits of dead shamans and the human-animal beings of San myths. Physical as well as deeper, structural, conceptual correspondences between these classes of beings in San religious thought indicate that they are all related and relevant to the way in which we should interpret the therianthropes. The kingdoms are artificial constructions designed by human beings in an effort to cope with the tremendous diversity of the living world. They are not rules of nature. (Keeton 1972: 703).