A closer look at ritual, music and movement

ROCK art is widespread across southern Africa and includes a wide range of depictions such as human figures, animals, dots, handprints and other painted or engraved imagery on rock surfaces.

- JOSHUA KUMBANI and MARGARITA DIAZ-ANDREU

The rock art tradition of paintings was made by San hunter gatherers over thousands of years.The first dance scenes in southern African rock art were documented 100 years ago. But there has been some confusion as to whether certain scenes could indeed be interpreted as a dance.

Dance can be simply defined as intentional and organised bodily movement. It also functions as an expression of mood and a form of nonverbal communication. In southern African cultures, dance is also performed during moments of celebration and in ritual contexts. Sometimes dancers go into a trance.

Scholars in the past have interpreted the dances in San rock art as ritual dances, mainly trance dances. But ethnography (the study of living people) points to the fact that San communities also danced for leisure and entertainment. Hence the need to systematically examine and categorise dancing scenes in the rock art.

We are archaeologists with a special interest in sound and music in rock art. In a recent study, we examined selected dancing scenes in rock art from four of South Africa’s provinces: the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape.

The aim was to categorise the different types of dances depicted and to explore whether all dancing scenes represent ritual performances or whether some might reflect entertainment or leisure activities.

We concluded that some of the performances depicted were likely undertaken for leisure and enjoyment rather than ritual purposes.

Sources and categories

Our article examined selected dancing scenes through a literature review and by consulting the African Rock Art Digital Archive database curated by the Rock Art Research Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand.