Symbiotic Interaction between Black Farmers and South-Eastern San.

Studies of San rock art have generally assumed the existence of a structurally uniform ‘pan-San’ cognitive system from at least 2,000 years B.P. to the present all over southern Africa. It is suggested here that the assumption of continuities in San religious ideology and ritual practice has resulted in insufficient attention to the possible influence of the ideologies and ritual practices of encapsulating black farming communities on the cosmologies and ritual life of their San neighbours and the expression of this influence in the rock art. In the light of recent studies demonstrating the profound effects of contact on hunter-gatherers in southern Africa and elsewhere, the possible expression of southern Nguni and Sotho religious concepts and ritual practices in the rock art of the south-eastern mountains of southern Africa, as a result of symbiotic interaction between south-eastern San and black farmers, is investigated bere. Some of the implications of such symbiotic interaction for the use of ethnographic analogy to interpret rock art and other iconography, as well as some of the implications for debates surrounding the cultural identity of hunter-gatherers in Africa and elsewhere, are discussed. Investigates the possible expression of southern Nguni and Sotho religious concepts and ritual practices in the rock art of the southeastern mountains of southern Africa. Symbiotic interaction between southeastern San and black farmers; Explanation of the overt content and underlying symbolism of San rock art; Paintings in Melikane and Upper Mangolong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]