Item IZI-HT-01-16HC.jpg - IZI HT 01 16HC

Brief description of site: Unlike most southern African rock-painting sites, this is not a 'shelter' but a cave, proper. 35 m wide, up to 10 m high and 39.72 m deep, The site has cathedral-like proportions. The cave also has two tiers with the lower tier being composed of a mostly level to slightly sloping sandy floor. The upper tier is composed of a rock ledge that runs along the cave's northern and southern walls. A natural spring burbles out from the back of the cave. RSA BUL1 faces East North East - North East and is situated in a tributary of the Kraai River, which is less than 1.2 km to the South East. Curiously, for such a huge cave, The site is secluded and is not visible until one is almost upon the cave. The sight also has excellent acoustics both within the cave and the echo down the valley.

The site was obviously a favoured location for the San or 'Bushmen' of times past. Underneath the dung overburden is archaeological deposit that is at least 0.5 m deep. This deposit is mostly sandy and loose. There are numerous patches and even 'carpets' of lithics (stone tools) on the cave floor. These lithics are made from opalines (also known as crypto-crystalline silicates), which are volcanic fine-grained gemstone-like rocks that get washed down from the basalt mountains into streams and rivers. There are also some hornfels (also known as indurated shale or lydianite) stone tools. Hornfels is the rock that makes up river pebbles. The whole range of stone tools and stone tool manufacture is visible at the site. There are chips, chunks and cores, which indicate that stone tools were made in the cave. These tools are also present in their finished form. For example, there are sidescrapers and endscrapers - used to work leather; adzes - used to work wood; and flakes - used as general purpose cutting tools. Further there is evidence of the preservation of bone and there is plenty of charcoal, from human made fires, veld fires and vitrified dung from when the stock's dung internally combusted. A single ostrich eggshell fragment was noted. There are areas on the rocks, which have been used as lower grindstones to grind seeds and ochre. There are also some grooves used to sharpen or straighten metal objects. Small fragments of grit-tempered undecorated pottery are also present. This pottery is probably not San but relates to Black farmers' and herders' occupation of the cave. The cave has numerous stone walls and structures - those with right angle corners being made by White farmers, those with round angles being made by Black farmers and herders.
Brief description of art: Snakes. Graffiti.

There are in excess of 300 individual San rock-paintings in the site. These paintings occur in two giant panels on two tiers. The size, quantity, quality and variety of the imagery shows that the site was not only used as a practical living shelter, but also a locus of great spiritual importance to the San. The paintings are too numerous to discuss individually and I highlight certain image clusters:

Upper tier: Dominating this upper tier is a painted herd of over 40 eland (Tragelaphus oryx) painted in very nearly every conceivable pose and perspective. These eland are painted in red, white and red or orange ochre. Some of the eland are shaded, some are bichrome and some are polychrome (many colours). These eland are shown from above, below, upside-down, on their side, lying down, standing, resting, galloping and so fort. Interestingly, behind the lying down eland is a figure that most people have identified as an ostrich (see cover of 'major Rock Paintings of Southern Africa', attached). This is, however, incorrect as Mr Sephton of Pitlochrie correctly points out, it is an eland the artist got in a tangle over. Notice the black pads on the legs. At the far left of this giant panel are two exceptional therianthropes. These therianthropes - part-human and part-animal beings - are exceptionally large at 880 mm tall. Look closely at their feet and you will see they have hooves and even leave a trail of eland spoor. This entire panel is visually dominant and strikes one immediately upon entering the cave. The focus on eland, human figures and therianthropes gives this panel a tight conceptual unity. Given the visual appearance of the pigment and imagery, it would appear that this panel was painted by one or a small group of individuals in no more than three painting episodes. This is thus comparable to a work like Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel work.

Lower tier: The lower tier has a more varied subject matter and evidently the paintings belong to different periods, building up over centuries, even millennia. Again, there are numerous eland, including some with a more blocked and angular appearance as well as eland whose lines flow and blend with the rock. There is a curious red one-horned 'moose'-like animal. Two of the more orange eland have orange zigzag lines coming off their chests - like the zigzag line off the chest of the human figure at RSA FET. There is a curled up snake with tusks painted in white and ochre. Also an antelope-equid like animal in red with erect black hairs on its back. There is a knees up, bending-forward human figure in red, white and black bleeding from the nose or mouth and having tusks. There are numerous very delicate Mountain rhebuck (Redunca fulvorufula) painted in a variety of poses. There are also two therianthropes imitative of the large threrianthropes on the upper tier. There is clear 'contact' imagery with a clear yellow horse, two white Friesland cattle and black-painted figures with red earrings and shield - probably representing early Xhosa warriors.

History of the collection

The Tongue collection is currently split between two Institutions. The final colour copies, just over 100 in total, including those that were exhibited and published, are stored at the Iziko Museums of Cape Town. Tongue's original tracings and line drawings (some derived directly from Stow copies) are housed at the Rock Art Research Institute. A large number of these had originally been donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford in 1921, but these were returned to the Rock Art Research Institute in South Africa in 1990s thanks to the farsighted vision of Professor Ray Inskeep. Read Less
Background of the Recorder

M. Helen Tongue was a school teacher at Rockland Girls' High during the 1890s and 1900s in the town of Cradock in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It was here that she met Dorothea Bleek, daughter of famous San linguist and ethnographer, Wilhelm Bleek. The two travelled widely visiting rock art sites in the region. Tongue developed a direct contact tracing technique to record each image (both painted and engraved) in its exact proportions and in its relationship to other images as they appeared on the rock surface. In this way, she took an important step beyond the pioneer recording work of George Stow. Tongue's Eastern Cape copies are her earliest. Her first copy was made on a farm in Molteno District. In this early work, she worked alone. But, the bulk of her copies were made during three longer fieldtrips beyond the Eastern Cape border, together with Dorothea Bleek. At the beginning of 1906, Tongue and Bleek made a train trip from Cradock to Bloemfontein and Ladybrand (Free State), where they recorded various rock art sites. Most of the sites visited were located by using the descriptions of George Stow. A second expedition in the summer of 1906/07 took them through the Eastern Cape and into Lesotho. Their third and final expedition was by train to Fauresmith (Free State) and wagon to Luckhoff in the Karoo (Western Cape). In 1908 a selection of Tongue copies were exhibited at the South African Public Library in Cape Town and then at the Royal Anthropological institute in London. In 1909 a series of copies were brought together in a handsome portfolio of 54 plates and an accompanying book with two collotype plates and eight black-and-white photographs. Helen Tongue wrote descriptions for each site and each plate, Dorothea Bleek contributed "Notes on the Bushmen" and Henry Balfour wrote a preface. The book was titled "Bushman Paintings", it was Tongue's first and only rock art publication