“Rock Painting”
By Jack Cope
A group of dancing figures, rock art near Salem.
Photo by Stan Galloway. Please do no use without permission.
Jack Cope’s poem can be
found in The Paperbook of South African English Poetry, page 138.
Notes and photos:
The hunters mentioned in
stanza 4 and the arrows from stanza 5 are typical of the Bushman life.
In stanza 5, the eland is
the mightiest of the antelope and was a symbol of strength and life.
The rain mentioned in stanza
5 is essential in Bushman life. Sometimes,
based on the theory that snakes leave their holes when it rains, and not
distinguishing between cause and effect, the Bushmen might paint a “snake”
coming out of a hole in a rock as a way to encourage the rain to come. The broad red line coming from the crack
near the bottom of this photo is thought to be one such depiction.
Sometimes the rock artists
will paint people with the heads of animals.
In their folklore, people and animals were once a common group, but now
the animals no longer talk with people.
There are also stories of intermixed people with animal parts such as
the antelope man featured here.
Not all rock art is the same
size. The rock art at Hellspoort, for
example is much smaller, probably a quarter the size or less of the art at the
Salem site. Note the fingers for scale
in this photo.
The dancing, and chanting,
and art all see to be a part of the socio-religious culture of the
Bushmen. The figures are nearly always
elongated, which is thought to be an indication of the trance-state of the
artist at the time of the painting.
