Meta-tourism, sense of place and the rock art of the Little Karoo
Date
2008-12
Authors
Rust, Catharine
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
Abstract
The subject is the rock art within the region known as the Little Karoo in the Western Cape that lies
between the coastal plain and the Greater Karoo, penned in geographically by the Langeberg in the
south and the Swartberg in the north. During a ten year site survey of 150 sites with rock art,
content and details of the rock art images have been recorded on site forms and where possible
traced on polyester film and photographed. The sites tend to be small with, on average, fewer than
50 images, but then 7 sites have more than 100 images per site. The sites are located mostly in
ravines in the mountainous areas. Few sites with rock art have occupation deposits. Human figures
in the rock art, predominantly male, are most commonly represented. Other images are animals,
such as eland, smaller antelope, elephants, felines, canids and therianthropic figures of half-human,
half-animal forms. Finger dots, handprints and geometric or non-representational marks are present
in the rock art sample as well.
The art can be linked to shamanistic experiences in altered states of consciousness. A number of
depictions are interpreted as part of rainmaking ritual and the significance of the symbolism of
water. There are resemblances in content and style to the rock art in the Hex River Valley, the
Cederberg, and south of the Langeberg, on the coastal plain, but some imagery point to a variation
more specific to the Little Karoo. These are rare rock art depictions of a combination of human head
and upper torso with ichthyoidal lower limbs, at times reminiscent of bird-like human figures.
Verbatim accounts recorded of stories and sightings of numinous watermeide (water maidens) at
waterholes and rivers of the Little Karoo and correlations drawn with research on similar folklore in
the Northern Cape and elsewhere make a traditional link between these regions. The myth of the
watermeide takes on a therianthropic nature in form, that of half-human half-fish, reminiscent of the
well-known westernized mystical concept of mermaid features; a description popular in the
vernacular. The described form of the watermeid espouses a connection to the uniqueness of the
rock paintings of therianthropic figures with distinctive fishtail and human shoulders, head and
arms. A connection with explanatory accounts of rock paintings and folklore recorded in the
Oudtshoorn district more than a hundred years ago, recorded information of stories and myths of
mystical water creatures in the Northern Cape, and verbatim accounts of the watermiede, is made to
suggest a basis for interpretation of the therianthropic nature of some of the rock art imagery in the
Little Karoo. The rock art is produced in a space and a time frame that may be related to that of the
current stories of the watermeide.
Description
Thesis (DPhil) (Geography and Environmental Studies))--Stellenbosch University, 2008.
Keywords
Rock art, Meta-tourism, Post-modernism, Interpretation centre, Dissertations -- Geography and environmental studies, Theses -- Geography and environmental studies