Sacred spaces: rock paintings of the Komati-LiGwa study area, Mpumalanga
Date
2021
Authors
Maseko, Mduduzi
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Abstract
This dissertation identifies 27 painted sites in central Mpumalanga Province, in areas adjacent to
the Komati and LiGwa (Vaal) Rivers. It finds that the locations of the painted sites overlap with the
social landscape of historically and ethnographically recorded BaTwa (San/Bushmen) in this region,
particularly the Tlou-tle (//Xegwi), whose descendants were studied by linguists and anthropologists
in the early and mid-1900s. The dissertation also identifies patterns between site placement and
places in the landscape that the Tlou-tle attached ritual importance to, and finds that the placement
of diverse images in the same spaces, and the continued use of sites by temporally separated painters,
shows ideological similarities and continuities in the conception of space. Engagement between
diverse rock arts in the Komati-LiGwa Study Area (KLSA) shows that the ritual landscape was
characterised by different ‘ways of doing’; the extent to which interactions happened between
painters of diverse origins cannot be discerned, but the art shows that worldviews met and blended.
At some sites, ‘geometric’ paintings take on the technique of fine-line painting and also appear to
‘interact with the rock face’—both aspects predominantly associated with foragers. Figurative
paintings are also executed in the finger technique at some sites and, later (as is indicated by the
subject matter), a combination of finger and rough-brush techniques is used. Two factors are
proposed to explain the variability of the art and its co-occurrence at sites—similarities in the
conception of ‘place’ and the common experience of colonialism. With regards to the latter, historical
records show that indigenous peoples in this region were subjected to farm labour since the middle
of the nineteenth century, and hence previously independent communities possibly blended on
colonial farms, and created new communities. Indeed, some of the rock art shows that it was painted
in the colonial period, and from the symbols, and painting technique used for this art, we can see
that changes in the art were consistent with changes and increasing complexity in the social
landscape. These changes were brought, it is argued, also through responses to contact with multiple
waves of ‘newcomers’, including the painters of ‘geometric’ art, all of whom contributed to the
collective identity of ‘BaTwa’ in this region
Description
A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in in Archaeology to the Faculty of Science, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021