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Theatres of Imagery: A performance theory approach to rock art research
David M. Witelson
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This monograph applies performance theory to rock paintings in the Stormberg mountains of South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province-a rich rock art area to the southwest of the Drakensberg mountains. The Stormberg’s rock paintings offer a unique opportunity to develop a novel set of theoretical ideas in relation to rock art sites.The research draws on performance theory to argue that an extinct rock painting practice was, in many respects, similar to San (Bushman) performances recorded in documentary sources and ethnographies. This approach helps us to better understand the nature of hunter-gatherer rock art at both regional and site-specific scales. The performances in which rock art images participated were not isolated, but instead belonged to an irreducible aggregate of interrelating performances that constituted society itself.
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Cover
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Title page
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Copyright page
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African Archaeology
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Titles in the Series
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Of Related Interest
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Dedication
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Acknowledgements
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Contents
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List of figures
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List of tables
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Abstract
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Epigraph
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1. Setting
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1.1. The Wodehouse District
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1.2. Towards a plexus of performances
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2. Performance: a coordinating theory
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2.1. Performance theory
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2.1.1. Definition and contestation
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2.1.2. Features of performances
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2.2. Performance in rock art research
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2.3. Totus mundus agit historionem
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2.4. Operationalising performance theory
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3. San performances
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3.1. Context and content
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3.2. Healing
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3.2.1. Healing dances
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3.2.2. Healing as display
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3.2.3. Southern San healing practices
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3.2.4. ‘The initiated’ and ‘secret things’
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3.3. Southern San rock paintings
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3.4. Principles of healing
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4. Storytelling
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4.1. Narrative performances recorded in text
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4.2. Two versions of a narrative
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4.3. Principles of storytelling
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5. Observations of image-making
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5.1. Documentary sources
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5.1.1. ‘A young San man called Sam’
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5.1.2. George Stow’s records
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5.1.3. The Reverend Dornan’s writings
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5.1.4. BaSotho, BaThembu and BaPhuthi accounts
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5.1.5. Maqoqa and Sister Mariya
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5.2. Image-making communities
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6. Contested images?
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6.1. Criticisms and counter-criticisms
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6.2. Art-historical approaches
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6.2.1. Art-historical approaches in practice
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6.3. Anthropological approaches
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6.4. Principles of rock painting
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6.5. Performances of image-making
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7. The painted sequence
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7.1. The wider Maloti-Drakensberg sequence
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7.2. The Wodehouse District sequence
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7.2.1. Shaded polychrome phase
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7.2.2. Late shaded polychrome phase
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7.2.3. Hard-edged phase
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7.2.4. Colonial-era rock arts
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7.3. From shaded polychrome to hard-edged
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7.3.1. Two hypotheses
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7.4. Signs of the times: a changing social landscape
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8. A changing audience
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8.1. Changing notions of alterity
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8.1.1. Alterity before contact
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8.1.2. Alterity in a changing world
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8.1.3. Three contact scenarios
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8.2. Novel subject matter in the Wodehouse District
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8.3. New images, new performances
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9. Bloody binders and a new colour palette
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9.1. Pigments and binders
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9.1.1. Binders: the visual effects of fat and blood
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9.1.2. Ethnohistorical evidence
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9.1.3. New opportunities
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9.2. A new colour palette
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9.2.1. A question of fire?
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9.2.2. Geological sources of yellow pigments
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9.3. People, pigments and paints
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10. Meaningful colours and the hard edges between them
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10.1. Red and yellow pigments
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10.2. Cross-cultural engagements
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10.2.1. Mines and commodities
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10.3. ‘Gold’: trade in yellow pigments
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10.3.1. Hunter-gatherer trading partners?
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10.3.2. An ancient trade network?
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10.4. A new way of seeing
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10.4.1. Boundaries: social, conceptual and painted
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10.5. Cui bono?
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11. Painted emphasis: ‘ǂkainjatara was yellow; Yolk was yellow’
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11.1. Rock paintings of felines
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11.2. Historical distributions
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11.3. Polysemic pairs: felines and antelope
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11.4. Yellow felines, yellow antelope
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11.4.1. Felines in thought and belief
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11.4.2. A leonine world
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11.5. The meaning of yellow
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11.5.1. Yellow felines
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11.5.2. Yellow antelope: honey-coloured animals
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11.6. Cui bono?
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12. Rainmaking performances
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12.1. Rain: water, animal, personified
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12.1.1. Rain-animals: male and female
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12.1.2. !Khwa:’s creatures and women
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12.2. Formal and informal rain practices
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12.2.1. ǀXam rain rituals
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12.2.2. Informal rain practices
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12.3. Using n!ao: passive ability and influential force
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12.4. Performative ‘magic’
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13. Painting the rain
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13.1. Rock paintings of one-horned rain-animals
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13.2. A series of repeated features
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13.3. Rainmaking scenes from the Wodehouse District
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13.4. Hunting the rain: separation from the herd
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13.5. Image-making and n!ao
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14. Rock paintings and a plexus of performances
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14.1. An extraordinary panel
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14.1.1. The first conceptual set: dancing and trancing
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14.1.2. The second conceptual set: girls’ puberty and healing
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14.1.3. The third conceptual set: lines, snakes and rain
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14.2. A place for everything
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14.3. Performance: participation and manifestation
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14.3.1. Image-making performances
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References
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Appendix One
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Appendix Two
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Index
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Back cover
Citable Link
Published: 2023
Publisher: BAR Publishing
- 9781407356198 (paper)
- 9781407356808 (ebook)
BAR Number: S3149