Toto went to a couple of outdoor art museums, one in South Africa and another in Namibia, which is a country just north of South Africa. These museums were actually cliffs where, 400 to 6000 years ago, the San People painted and etched art into the rocks. I had read about cave paintings before, but had never seen them up close. It made me feel like the artist had just been there, even though he or she died many centuries ago.
San People used to be referred to as the "Bushmen," since they lived outside among the bushes. Their descendants still live today in Africa and preferred to be called by the proper name of their tribe, San. Historically, they were nomads, which means they wandered from place to place in search of water, food or shelter, based on the seasons and the natural movements of the animals they hunted. They had incredible knowledge on how to live off the land, which many of their descendants still possess today. It's no surprise that so much of their art contains pictures of animals. This is a painting of a baby zebra.
There are two types of San People rock art that have survived until today. The first are paintings, and the second are etchings into the rocks. However, what we see today is not what the artists painted 400 to 6000 years ago. You can imagine how much the weather might erode these rocks over that time. Eroding happens when rainwater, wind-blown sand, and the sun's heat wears down the rock, sometimes turning it into smaller rocks and sand. As a result, anything on that rock disappears, including paintings. Fortunately, San People painted in is a desert, where there is little rain. Most of the surviving paintings are under the rocks and cliffs that have protected the paintings from the weather, like this one I had to crawl on my back to see.
The reason you don't see any stripes on the zebra above is that the San People used different types of handmade paint. The red was made from a mineral called "ocher," which they ground up into a powder. It actually stained the rock and has remained, the way fine red dirt can stain your clean t-shirt. The white color was often made from egg whites and other pigments that did not stain the rock. Those other colors have eroded away, leaving only the red stains. Sometimes this meant I saw an antelope without a head. We think that means the head was painted with a color that did not remain, while the red body did. I also saw some yellow paintings of big elephants, but they were very faint, so the yellow must not have stained the rock as well as the red ocher.
The second type of art, etchings, were made by taking another rock and scratching a picture into a big rock or cliff. Here is an interesting example of an etching. No one knows what the circles represent. They could be waterholes, which were obviously very important to the San People as they wandered the desert. They needed the water to survive, and often they found the animals they hunted at waterholes, too.
That is the interesting thing about art—it often tells us a lot about how the artists lived and what might have been important to them. Certainly from this etching, you know the San People saw giraffes! Occasionally, I saw hand prints on the rocks, including some children's hand prints. So we know that sometimes, at least, the artists' kids helped them paint.
San People Art Travel Questions:
- When did the San People create this rock art?
- What were the two types of rock art the San People made?
- What does it mean that the San People were "nomads"?
- Define the verb "erode."
- List two of the things you saw in the photos of the art above.
- Why did the red ocher paint do to the rock that the white and other colors did not?
- Often people paint what is important to them. Why does Toto think the circles in the etchings above represented waterholes?
Global Nomad Questions on Rock Art:
- Draw a painting of some San People Rock art. What is the story you are trying to tell?
- Research how people made paints in the old days, before they had art stores where they could just buy them. Describe the process.
- There are also cave paintings in other parts of the world, like France. Do a cyber search about these and write a paragraph explaining about those cave paintings.
- Double click on this photo to see a larger version of it. Write what you see in this image.
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