Rock Art of South Africa

Rock Art of South Africa

San is a Khoekhoen word used to describe the oldest of the indigenous people of South Africa. San is an alternative for the word Bushman because of the unflattering connotations of the word Bushman. It is a word from the Nama language and is a plural of the word Sa which means a person who forages for food, in other words, a hunter gatherer.

The San were an indigenous South African people who lived by hunting, fishing and foraging or gathering. Human skeletal remains found in the Southern Cape suggest that a similar people to the San lived in the continent 120 000 years ago.

The history of the San people is recorded in part by the rock paintings at the places where they lived. We also get some idea about what they believed from these rock paintings and engravings. It is only recently that the code of these paintings were unraveled and it was discovered why they were done and what they mean. Once the meanings of the rock paintings were understood, it was realized that these San were no ordinary people.

We now know that most of these rock paintings are related to the religious experience of the San. San religion is centered around the desire for supernatural power. Shaman or medicine people learned how to receive this power and how to use it. The Shaman used this power received during trances for three main purposes. One was to heal people. The other was to make rain. The third was to allow the Shaman's spirit to go on a out-of-body travel. During this experience the Shaman will seek out and control game animals or find and observe about friends and relatives. When entering such a state, the Shaman would take the form of an animal such as a lion, or may feel as though he was flying or traveling through water or underground. It is these experiences of the Shaman that were recorded in the thousands of rock paintings all over South Africa.

Travel with us through the annals of time and experience how these people lived, hunted and gathered food, how they danced and told stories and raised their children. This is an educational experience you will never forget. We will go on trails and search for their paintings and learn how to interpret them while enjoying the beauty of the South African landscape and wildlife.