Picture-Writing of the American Indians: Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1888-89, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893, pages 3-822Mallery, Garrick
History
Picture-Writing of the American Indians: Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1888-89, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893, pages 3-822
Mallery, Garrick
Picture-writing, Indian
First of all, there are
fights and hunting scenes, in which white men (boers) play a part,
demonstrating the modern origin of these paintings. Next there are
representations of animals, both of domestic animals (cattle, dogs)
and of game, especially the various antelope species, giraffes,
ostriches, elephants, rhinoceroses, monkeys, etc. A special class
consists of representations of obscene nature, and, by way of
exception, there has been drawn in one instance a ship or a palm
tree.
Dr. Emil Holub (_a_) says:
The Bushmen, who are regarded as the lowest type of Africans,
in one thing excel all the other South African tribes whose
acquaintance I made between the south coast and 10° south
latitude. They draw heads of gazelles, elephants, and hippopotami
astonishingly well. They sketch them in their caves and paint them
with ochre or chisel them out in rocks with stone implements, and on
the tops of mountains we may see representations of all the animals
which have lived in those parts in former times. In many spots where
hippopotami are now unknown I found beautiful sketches of these
animals, and in some cases fights between other native races and
Bushmen are represented.
G. Weitzecker (_a_) gives a report of a large painting, in a cave
at Thaba Phatsoua district of Léribé, here presented as Fig. 142,
containing eighteen characters, with the addition of eight boys’ heads.
It represents the flight of Bushman women before some Zulu Kaffirs
(Matebele). The description, translated, is as follows:
[Illustration: FIG. 142.--Petroglyph in Léribé, South Africa.]
As usual, the Bushmen are represented as dwarfs and painted
in bright color as contrasted with the Kaffirs, who are painted
large and of dark color. The scene is full of life, a true artistic
conception, and in the details there are many important things to
be noted. For this reason I add a sketch of it, with the figures
numbered, in order to be able to send you some brief annotations.
I will premise that as far as the women are concerned, in the
small figures, no mistaken notion should be entertained in regard to
the anterior appendages which catch, or rather strike, the eye in
some of them. There is question simply of the pudendal coverings of
the Bushman women, consisting of a strip of skin, and flapping in
the wind.
_a_ seems to represent a woman in an advanced interesting
condition, who in her headlong flight has lost even her mantle.
She holds in her hand a mogope (disproportionate); that is to say,
a gourd dipper, such as are found, I believe, among all the south
African tribes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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