Engendering San rock art: masculinity and femininity in the rock art of Zimri Shelter and the Cederberg region, Western Cape, South Africa

Abstract

The San rock paintings at Zimri Shelter and those of nearby sites in the Cederberg mountains form the focus of this investigation. The aim of this thesis is to interpret the images at Zimri Shelter and other sites in terms of gendered social relationships. The thesis draws on the theoretical insights of third wave feminism and considers a range of socially constructed gender categories amongst diverse San communities and how these might be represented in the rock art of the Cederberg. In doing so, the thesis seeks to find meanings in the images beyond those developed by the dominant paradigm, which consider the religious symbology of the rock art. It also seeks to advance current gendered understandings of San rock art beyond a narrow search for women in the rock art to a position where we can consider the mutual construction of masculinity and femininity in the iconography. To accomplish this, I interrogate illustrated human and animal bodies at Zimri Shelter and other Cederberg rock art sites and expose how the art is concerned with bodily transformations, liminality and ambiguity. These three elements are encapsulated in San life-cycle rituals and are deeply intertwined with San ideas of supernatural potency. I argue that these social processes are metaphorically represented through embodiment in the rock art at Zimri Shelter and elsewhere