The photographs in this section are to be used in a ground-breaking book, written by archaeologist, Janette Deacon, who has been researching /Xam history and rock art since 1985. The text next to the photographs is written by Janette.
	The Arts and Culture Trust are thanked for their grant towards the completion of this book.
	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)	1. Fire in the Sky Patterns like these are typical of trance experience. Universally, people who hallucinate report seeing luminous dots, sunbursts, stars, grids, wavy and zigzag lines, concentric circles, vortices and nested u-shapes. As Koba, a Ju/'hoan woman from Namibia, described her experience of tara (trance) to Megan Biesele in 1989: "When you tara, the stars are shimmering above you and you can't tell where anything is. The fire can be up in the sky."
	2. Seeing in the Dark Shamans, also called sorcerors and medicine-people, are found in many societies throughout the world. Their task is to help people, either by curing the sick, making rain, resolving conflict or allowing the spirit to travel away from the body. Shamans usually practice at night when the distractions of the daytime allow them to focus on non-ordinary reality and 'see' in the dark.	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)
	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)	3. Lion Alight /Xam San accounts of lions include tales about their powers and what people should do to avoid close contact. A fire was kept alight all night if lions were about. Children were taught not to call the lion by its name, but to use avoidance words like 'hair' or 'pawed creature'. Dia!kwain told Lucy Lloyd: "We who are children do not say 'lion' to it at night; but we call it 'lighting in'. ... for we feel that it walks at night after lying asleep while the sun was up." The power of this engraving was in its metaphorical meaning. A healer was said to 'take the lion out of the patient' or to 'sneeze the lion out' when he cured him or her. Medicine-people with a lot of potency could turn themselves into lions if they wished. The flywhisks and the man with an animal head on the right indicate a close connection between the lion and the medicine-man.
	4. The Water-bull In May 1875, Dia!kwain drew a picture for Lucy Lloyd of the water-bull or rain animal that is similar in form to this engraving. He and other /Xam rain-makers explained that when the rain-maker worked, or 'dreamed', his spirit would leave his body and search for and capture the rain animal. He would lead it to where he wanted the rain to fall and would cut it and kill it there.	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)
	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)	5. Loosening the Thong for a Big Rain An 1878 account of rain-making in the Northern Cape by /Han#kass'o, a /Xam San man, to Lucy Lloyd: "People say, when there is a big rain, that the sorceror has gone to loosen the thong. Then the rain falls and increases ... The rain liquid it is which comes from the clouds. It is that that people call the rain's leg, when it does not rain everywhere."
	6. Magic at Night This photograph recreates with light painting some of the magic of the night in the Northern Cape. Dia!kwain told Lucy Lloyd that: "When a sorceror dies, his heart comes out in the sky and becomes a star. His heart feels that he is no longer alive ... Therefore his magic makes a star ... for a sorceror sees things which we do not see. ... He is watching the doings that occur at night, for he wants to protect people from the things which come to kill them ... For it is the sorceror's custom to walk at night ... on a magic expedition ... The magic power goes where the sorceror sends it, it goes to do what the sorceror makes it do."	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)
	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)	7. Springbok Rain During an account of rain-making in the Northern Cape by //Kabbo, a /Xam San man, he told Lucy Lloyd in 1872: "I will cut a she-rain which has milk. I will milk her, then she will rain softlhy on the ground, so that it is wet deep down in the middle. Then the bushes will sprout and become nicely green, so that the springbok come galloping."
	8. The Healer's Nose These strange creatures, part elephant, part shrew, part lizard to some, are an artist's memory of a trance experience. The full meaning is not known. As they seem to emphasise the nose, they may be linked metaphorically with /Xam healers. In 1870, //Kabbo told Lucy Lloyd about the sorceror whose custom it was to walk at night with his magic to cure people with his nose. He and his contemporaries called this method of healing 'snoring': "The sorceror sniffs at a person with his nose, as the man lies; then he beats the air. He bites people with his teeth ... the others hold him down and rub his back with fat ... when he is snoring a person with his nose [to cure the person]. Lion's hair comes out on his back, people rub it off with fat ... Then the patient gets up because he is well."	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)
	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)	9. Droves of Eland The hartebeest and the eland were both believed by the /Xam to have magic power or potency and were said to be things of the deity /Kaggen, sometimes called the Mantis. As one /Xam man said "Our parents used to say that the Mantis sits between the eland's horns." While some of the engravings in this panel are realistic depictions of these animals, the cross-hatching between the images and the exaggerated tail of the lion are typical of non-naturalistic things 'seen' or superimposed on ordinary images in trance visions. The woman in a long dress at top left is a recent addition.
	10. Elephant Country It is hard to think of this landscape supporting elephants, but they used to come southwards from the Orange River after good rains. There are many engravings of elephants in the region suggesting that they were important in /Xam San beliefs.	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)
	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)	11. Elephant Dance The dancing figures surrounding the elephant and her calf are not ordinary people. A few have animal heads, some with birdlike heads are flying above the elephant, and most carry flywhisks which were used during trance dancing to deflect the arrows of sickness. In most San communities, healing dances and the songs that accompany them are created by individuals who receive the inspiration for them from a deity or spirit. The dances are usually named after an animal and the song and actions simulate the movements or sounds of that animal. Dia!kwain, when asked to comment on a rock painting depicting a dance, said: "He is dancing, teaching sorcery to the people ... for when a sorceror is teaching us, he first dances the //ke:n dance, and those who are learning dance after him as he dances."
	12. Elephant Family San communities like the Ju/'hoan in Namibia regard elephants as being similar to people because of the close bonding of family groups. Elephants are seen to nurture and teach their young in the same way that people do.	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)
	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)	13. A powerful place The placement of rock engravings in the landscape changes the significance of the place irrevocably. The supine shaman and the eland are a potent reminder of thousands of years of rain-making and other rituals.
	14. Eland-shaman Potency In San thought, the eland is the metaphor for religious potency. Medicine-people believed that they could become eland to obtain that potency. This finely detailed engraving emphasises the close relationship between shamans and eland, clearly showing characteristics typical both of trance experience (sometimes referred to as 'dying') and a dying eland. These include the eland's hair standing on end along its nose and the lowered head, juxtaposed with the collapsed animal-headed shaman and 'arrows of sickness' that 'kill' the eland.	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)
	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)	15. Sorceror's Things Animals beyond our ken may be seen by shamans or medicine-people. As a /Xam San man, Dia!kwain, explaied: "a sorceror sees things which we, who are not sorcerors, do not see."
	16. Leading the Hippo Paintings and engravings of hippo and hippo-like animals are commonly associated with rain-making rituals and symbols in San art. Note the grid pattern on its face and the two short lines from the nose. EJ Dunn, a geologist working in the Northern Cape, recorded an experience he had in 1872. After leaving the Orange River on their way to Kweekfontein, they saw an engraving of a hippo being dragged across the veld by several people by means of a rope attached to its nose. He was told that this was probably connected with the drought. The short lines from the nose of this engraved hippo may indicate that it, too, was 'led across the veld.'	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)
	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)	17. Rain Cloud Seen as part of the landscape, engravings like this one emphasise the significance of the work of rain-makers. As Dia!kwain explained to Lucy Lloyd: "Mother used to say, that people pull out the water-bull in order to lead it over their place, that the rain may fall upon their place and the wild onions sprout there, so that they may live. If the rain did not fall, they would starve. Therefore the medicine men shall go and kill the water-bull on their land."
	18. Supernatural Wildebeest Some features of this engraving are reminiscent of a wildebeest, although the teeth are those of a reptile or insectivore. Perhaps the conflation is drawn from the supernatural experiences of a shaman. The wildebeest was said by the /Xam to interfere with the hunter's bow-string and blunted the arrowheads, making them inaccurate and ineffectual. In /Xam mythology, the wildebeest resorted to subterfuge and lived amongst other animals under false pretences.	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)
	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)	19. A Shaman's Dream Creatures that combine characteristics of different animals are commonly seen during trance dreams. The artist would have seen them himself, or may have been told about them by the dreamer. The dark rain cloud on the horizon is reminiscent of the warning given by /Han#kass'o who said that the rain wants to kill us when it is angry. If someone has made the rain angry he "is the one whom the wind first lifts up, and blows into the sky. Then he goes floating about in the sky, then floats out of the sky and drops down into a pond, then he stays in the pond and becomes a frog."
	20. Capturing the Water-Bull Dia!kwain spoke to Lucy Lloyd about rainmaking: "The rain-maker waits at a spring where the water-bull is known to be. The medicine -men catch it at night when it is grazing. The rain medicine man throws a thong over its horns and the other men hold onto the thong so the water-bull cannot get away. They put buchu on the water and the thong to calm the water-bull so that it will go quietly without struggling."	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)
	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)	21. For Love of the Rain A /Xam San woman, /Xabbi-an, told a story to her son /Han#kass'o about the power of the Rain. The personification of it is resonant with sexual metaphors. Briefly: "The Rain formerly courted a young woman ... The Rain scented her and went forth ... while the place became misty ... And she lay, smelling the Rain's scent, while the place was fragrant ... She mounted the Rain; and the Rain took her away ... The young woman took out buchu, she rubbed him with it. Then the Rain went to sleep, on account of it."
	22. Making She-Rain //Kabbo, an elderly medicine-man who belonged to a /Xam group known as the Flat Bushmen, told Lucy Lloyd: "I will take up the rain to the mountain on top of which I always cut the rain. It is high, so the rain's blood flows down for the Flat Bushmen live on the plains. The rain-maker must not arouse a rain-bull, but you must make a she-rain, which is not angry, which rains gently ... For people are afraid of a he-rain, when they hear it come thundering, as it gets its legs."	Click here for a larger image (under 50K)

 

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