IDNO

D.47663.

Description

Drawing of a |Xam (San; Bushmen) rock art piece from Ladybrand, showing a Trance Dance with five shaman figures surrounded by fourteen woman either dancing or standing clapping. [JD 30/9/2009]

Place

S Africa; South Africa; Freestate; Ladybrand

Cultural Affliation

San

Named Person

Photographer

None

Collector / Expedition

Date

Collection Name

Source

Format

Painting

Primary Documentation

Other Information

There were 21 assorted packets of photographs which were numbered alphabetically from (a) to (u), and considered as batch 132. This batch has been now numbered C154/ and the alphabet series re-numbered from 1 to 21.

The envelope which was consigned as batch 132 (o) is now re-numbered C154/15/. It contained:
P.47638 to P.47662;
P.47665 to P.47666;
P.47671 to P.47679;
D.47663 to P.47664;
D.47667 to D.47670;
D.47680 and D.47699.

Place: The Place field was previously recorded as being “?Europe
?Africa”, but the drawing is annotated as ‘LAdybrand’ [previously transcribed as ‘Ladyhand’], which is a historical San rock art site in Freestate, South Africa. The Place field has been amended accordingly.

Publication: Photographs of the site are published online by Maarten van Hoek, witht he following text:
“This very detailed scene of a trance dance features a large number of women and five shamans. It clearly depicts one of the two types of trance dance still practiced by the Kalahari San. The first type involves women sitting around a central fire singing and clapping while the men and an occasional woman dance in a circle around them. The second type, depicted here, features shamans who dance in the centre, while the women stand in a circle around them, clapping and singing. Inset: Human figure bending backwards and with arms behind the back; another trance position.
Close-up pictures of the same trance dance show some interesting details. The brown arrow points at the women clapping with splayed hands; the green arrow shows a squatted figure that may have a nasal bleeding; the red arrow points at the uppermost shaman (12 cm in length) who seems to be floating during trance. All the five shamans are bending over and have to use sticks to be able to continue their trance dance. The shamans are wearing shamans' eared caps. The orange arrow indicates a much larger human figure that seems to bending over, the hands raised to the nose, an indication of a possible nasal bleeding. This figure has been painted over with the clearer and smaller figures. This may indicate a lapse in time, but equally it may point to an intentional addition to a similar graphic statement.” [Source: http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/vhra/web/sapaint1b.html, JD 30/9/2009]