Drakensberg Bushman Rock Art
Bushman Rock Art is most definatly a reason
to visit the Drakensberg Mountains. Our recommendation
is Game Pass Shelter at Kamberg. The excellent
video presentation before the 3 hour guided
tour at Kamberg gives
a great explaination of the history of the
people as well as the rock art at game pass
shelter. The rock art at Giants Castle at the
main caves is also good and is a very easy
walk. The Didima Rock Art Centre at Cathedral
Peak offers a great presentation although the
paintings are reproductions. All rock art must
be viewed with a guide.
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The Drakensberg mountains in Kwa-Zulu-Natal
have the greatest concentration of San Bushman
rock art in South Africa, much of it in remote,
supremely beautiful surroundings. Royal
Natal National Park offers an easy walk along
the upper reaches of the Tugela River, starting
from the park visitors' centreand heading into
the Sigubudu Valley, to reach some of the rarest San
paintings in Drakensberg. The majestic
Cathedral Peak area has a lot of well-preserved
paintings in the Ndedema Gorge which are
unfortunatly not easily accesible. Among the
most accessible Drakensberg
rock art sites is the open-air Bushman
Cave Museum, in the Giant's Castle Reserve.
A short walk takes you to the cave, which
features 500 rock paintings, some of which
are 800 years old.
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Some of the best Drakensberg Bushman
paintings are in remote caves, out
of bounds to hikers, and world authorities
on rock paintings hold that San Bushman art
is the most prolific and strangely sophisticated
in the world.
In the Little Berg in the south of the range
the Garden Castle area has many of the most
famous Bushman caves. These Drakensberg
rock art sites are not mapped, and hikers have
to find them on their own. The hotel at Bushman's
Nek gives directions to some of the caves,
and also has a display of rock art. From the
Garden Castle Natal Parks Board office a steepish
walk of about 5km takes you to Bushman's Cave.
Sleeping in any of the caves which contain
Bushman roack art anywherein the Drakensberg
is forbidden.
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The Drakensberg has over 35 000 individual
recorded images at over 600 sites making
up 35% of all of South Africa's San rock art
sites. It was partly the significance of these
rock art sites which led to the Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg
Park being declared a World Heritage Site in
2000.
It is a great sadness that Bushmen art will
not last forever. At least not in situ, where
we can stand where the artist stood and feel
his world around us. Natural deterioration is
quite fast, and already some of the famous paintings
are known only from photos or copies made when
they were first discovered. Although the pigments
used in the paintings are quite strong, and
reasonably colour-fast, the rock faces slowly
crumble. Missing pieces of paintings attest
to this. Nor have the paintings been properly
cared for since the departure of the Bushmen.
In the early history of the reserve visitors
were allowed to camp where they liked, and often
built fires near the paintings. Some had the
Victorian attitude of scorn towards alien art,
especially “primitive” pictures
of naked people, and fired shots at the pictures.
Others tried to collect the pictures, always
unsuccessfully, by chipping them off. The first
law protecting the paintings was passed in 1911,
but enforcement is difficult. People still scrawl
graffiti across them.
A concluding note clarifies our use of the
term “Bushman”. For long the usual
name, it fell into disrepute as being mildly
disparaging, implying a country yokel. San
seems appropriately Sanitised, but originates
with those Khoikhoi people who are not hunter-gatherers.
It actually means “those who own nothing”,
and really is an insult. Real Bushmen prefer
to be referred to as Bushmen.. |
