Termites of the Gods

Siyakha Mguni

Description

In Termites of the Gods, Siyakha Mguni narrates his personal journey, over many years, to discover the significance of a hitherto enigmatic theme in San rock paintings known as ‘formlings’. Formlings are a painting category found across the southern African region, including South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, with its densest concentration in the Matopo Hills, Zimbabwe.

Generations of archaeologists and anthropologists have wrestled with the meaning of this painting theme in San cosmology without reaching consensus or a plausible explanation. Drawing on San ethnography published over the past 150 years, Mguni argues that formlings are, in fact, representations of flying termites and their underground nests, and are associated with botantical subjects and a range of larger animals considered by the San to have great power and spiritual significance.

This book fills a gap in rock art studies around the interpretation and meaning of formlings. It offers an innovative methodological approach for understanding subject matter in San rock art that is not easily recognisable, and will be an invaluable reference book to students and scholars in rock art studies and archaeology.

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Histoire
• África
• Archaeology
• General officer
• History of Africa
• General
• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: WITS University Press
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781868147779
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 29 Mo

Extrait

TERMITES
OF THE GODSu
y
TERMITES
OF THE GODS
San c OSmOl Ogy in
SO THErn aF rican r Ock ar T
SIakha M Gun IPublished in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg, 2001
www.witspress.co.za
Copyright © Siyakha Mguni 2015
Published edition © Wits University Press 2015
Illustrations and photographs © Individual copyright holders. For source and
copyright of the illustrative material please refer to pg 188.
First published 2015
ISBN 978-1-86814-776-2 (print)
ISBN: 978-1-86814- 777-9 (digital)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher,
except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
Edited by Lee Smith
Proofread by Inga Norenius
Index by Clifford Perusset
Cover design by Hothouse South Africa
Book design and layout by Hothouse South Africa
Printed and bound by Paarl Media, South AfricaTo forgotten forebears of this landContents
Acknowledgements ix
Foreword x
Maps xii
Explanatory notes xvi
Preface: Searching the pasts xix
Introduction 1
CHAPt Er 1: Ancient mysteries on rocks 13
CHAPt Er 2: Meaning in San rock art 31
CHAPt Er 3: Tricksters, potency and dance 47
CHAPt Er 4: Ways of seeing San rock art 69
CHAPt Er 5: Probing deep into formlings 91
CHAPt Er 6: Formlings and San cosmological belief 121
CHAPt Er 7: Symbolic theatres of San cosmos 155
Notes 172
List of maps and fgur es 186
Pictur e cr edits 188
r efer ences 189
Index 197 Acknowledgements
I thank the University of the Witwatersrand for providing institutional and fnancial
support for this study. I am indebted to David Lewis-Williams who encouraged me
over the years. I also thank the late Peter Garlake, one of the frst professional rock
art researchers to support my formling interpretations. I am grateful to my early
feldwork mentors, the late Edward Sibindi and Kemesi Ncube, both of whom I
remember fondly. I extend my gratitude to other colleagues and friends for encouraging
my research interest, particularly Janette Deacon, David Morris, t ilman
LenssenErz, Catherine Namono, Selma Nangolo and Getrude Seabela. I thank especially my
deceased friend Edward Eastwood who encouraged me in my efforts over many years;
I recall with fondness several outings together to look for rock art sites and paintings
of formlings in northern South Africa. I had numerous enriching interactions with
many people over the years; although I do not have space to mention them
individually, I thank them sincerely. I extend my gratitude to various people who have helped
with various aspects of the preparation of this book.
Finally, I extend my heartfelt thanks to my family, amaZizi amahle, especially
my parents; Susan and Jacob; Norman, Bhekinhlanhla, Banele, Nobandile,
Sakhile, Sesuthu and Lwandle and others in my extended network for their unwavering
encouragement and support over the years. t hando Fuzane, thank you for being
my pillar of support. I reserve special recognition for an important fragment of my
lineage – the silent Bushman line that has ironically remained unknown by either
name or surname. I have heard a repeated family legend about my great-grandfather,
Mtshede Mzizi Mguni, who in his advanced old age lamented time and time again
when he was emotional or upset, that he missed his mother – a Bushwoman. He
would proudly and nostalgically exclaim: ‘Ngiyinkonyane yeSili!’ (I’m a Bushman
offspring). Although he said this with pride and reverence, the word ‘iSili’ (pl. amaSili) is
an inherited disparaging moniker with dubious etymology. However, its widespread
use in western Zimbabwe today as a generic KhoeSan ethnic appellation means that
it has been rehabilitated or has simply lost its negative connotations. In some ways
descendants of amaSili can be regarded as secret KhoeSan in Zimbabwe – few openly
embrace this identity because of the unfattering history associated with their
culture. Nevertheless, I trust in the belief that my great-grandfather and his San mother
would have been proud of the journey I have made in the study of their cultural
legacy. t his study has been a satisfying and academically worthwhile personal voyage
of self-discovery.
a cknowledgements ixm
i
Foreword
David Lewis-Williams
r ightly, Siyakha Mguni, the author of this beautiful and stimulating book, feels that he
has ‘uncovered certain hidden mysteries of the San spiritual universe’. Modestly, but
again rightly, he adds that he has ‘likely only partially uncovered the possible layers of
symbolism’ of his chosen foci – the so-called ‘formlings’ and trees, two hitherto little
understood components of a fascinating southern African art.
Insights of this importance do not come suddenly and out of nowhere. r ather, they
are milestones along a road with many ups and downs. Discovery, it is said, favours
the prepared mind. ‘Mind preparation’ itself is a long and sometimes arduous task.
Siyakha gives us glimpses of his journey, which began in 1978 in the Matopo Hills of
Zimbabwe, a beautiful region of southern Africa that has been marked by terror and
violent clashes as well as delicate images from a bygone age. He found that the ‘place
and its tranquil ambience evoke deep time’.
In such situations it is easy to surrender oneself to the contemplation of beauty
and also to the puzzles that the more enigmatic images imply. For some, it is almost
sacrilege to probe for and expose ‘hidden mysteries’. Are we trespassing on sacred
ground, intruding into the innermost thoughts of long gone people? Should we not
simply allow the mystery to endure?
Siyakha’s personal journey has enabled him to bridge what some people see as a
dichotomy. He can, and we feel it on page after page, marvel at the subtlety of thought
and beauty of line that we see in the paintings he has chosen for reproduction and, at
the same time, lead us to an understanding of what the images meant for those who
made them so long ago. Knowledge of how a fower ‘works’ botanically need not erase
our sense of wonder. On the contrary, our wonder grows as we learn more and more.
In this book, Siyakha’s ‘fowers’ are rock art images that are prominent in
Zimbabwe but enigmatic. Some are oval patches of paint, sometimes joined in long lines;
several have added details. t hese are the so-called formlings. Believing that the art
was a direct representation of what the San saw around them, some earlier writers
thought the oval forms depicted the Victoria Falls, grain bins, shields or other objects
that people saw daily.
Ter Tes of The GodsxIt is, however, in the rock art details that Siyakha fnds answers, as has been the
experience of other southern African researchers as well. t he art must be viewed close
up, not from afar as many Western paintings usually are. Close-up viewing raises the
issue of the difference between ‘looking’ and ‘seeing’. So many people look at San rock
art but see very little. t hey fnd its complexity and appar ent jumble on the rock face
alienating.
t his is where the ‘prepared mind’ should take over. Leaving behind Western
concepts of ‘art’ and composition, viewers should seek another perspective which is what
Siyakha does. He has prepared his mind by familiarising himself with the San way of
life and thought as recorded in the nineteenth-century Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd
collection of verbatim texts, and also with the more recent and abundant records that,
especially since the 1950s, have come from the Kalahari Desert. t he ‘ft’ between these
two sources of information is complex: they are not identical, but anthropologists have
drawn attention to areas of belief that, despite various differences, display remarkable
parallels. Setting San rock art in this San milieu is obviously essential. I emphasise
‘obviously’ because it is not obvious to some viewers of the images. For them the art
is interesting only in those ways in which they think (probably incorrectly) it parallels
Western art. San rock art must be set in the context of San thought and belief.
However, that is not all. Siyakha has gone further and explored relevant
zoological and entomological literature. Here he has found information that is unknown to
many modern viewers of the images. But it would have been familiar to the San. It
is commonplace today to say that the San ‘lived close to nature’. Yes and no. Animal
behaviour, the transforming lives of insects – all this would surely have been familiar
to them. But they were not ‘part of nature’, as the romantic view of them has it. t o
their detriment, they have been seen so much as a part of nature that their stature in
coping with our modern economic world has been ignored.
By bringing together a profound knowledge of San life and thought as well as
scientifc knowledge of those components of nature with which the San interacted,
Siyakha has been able to solve major puzzles. What are the mysterious formlings?
Why did the Zimbabwe San, unlike those further to the south, frequently depict trees?
And a major question: Do these two kinds of subject matter mean, as some have
thought, that Zimbabwe rock art is fundamentally different from that in South Africa,
Lesotho and Namibia?
Starting from his own youthful journeys to rock art sites, Siyakha takes us on an
intellectual journey into the mysteries of San rock art. As in crime fction, it is not for
the writer of a foreword to give away the answers and so spoil readers’ fun. Without
giving away too much, I therefore invite you to follow the clues and Siyakha’s
unravelling of them. His story is erudite, excellently researched and enthralling. Has he told
us everything there is to know? As he himself insists, there are further layers of
symbolism demanding research. Impa