Ancient scribbling
CHILDREN have been scribbling on the walls for at least 13 000 years, it seems. Archaeologists from Cambridge University, England, have identified pictures throughout a five-mile cavern network in Rouffignac, France, as being the work of children.
However, those children all those thousands of years ago would not have been scolded by their mums. The mums would not have got busy with warm water, soap and cloth.
The archaeologists believe the children's parents assisted them in their rock art, carrying them on their shoulders so they could reach the ceilings as well. I've never yet heard of any contemporary mum or dad encouraging their offspring to scribble on the ceiling.
The pictures of mammoths, horses and other animals were created by a technique called finger fluting, which allows the scientists to measure the size of the hands and fingers used. The child artists appear to have been aged between three and seven.
As well as animals, the children have painted cartoon-like human faces.
The scientists are unsure whether the children were simply being taught to paint, whether the activity had some sort of ritualistic significance or whether it was just something to do on a rainy day.
So be patient and forbearing next rainy day when Junior brightens up the home with some crayoned murals. It's been programmed into him for thousands of years.
KZN rock art
OF COURSE, KwaZulu-Natal is rich in rock art, especially in the Drakensberg. Some sites are well known and on the tourist map, others obscure. As a schoolboy I used to scramble up a cliff face on a farm near Estcourt to some small caves that had exquisite San/Bushman paintings – animals, hunting scenes and so on. But they were so inaccessible, I wonder how many people have visited them since.
Graffiti has been a big problem at the more well-known sites. Superb artwork has been disfigured by inscriptions, within a carved heart, such as "Frikkie loves Joeline" or "The Brakpan Bike Boys Were Here".
People have also thrown water on the rock art to make the colours temporarily stand out better, but this of course washes away the pigments and makes them fade.
This has been going on for many years, but at last something is being done about it. Amafa/Heritage KZN – the statutory body responsible for preserving the province's heritage – has started cleaning up graffiti at the rock art sites, a difficult and time-consuming task.
It has also introduced a permit system for the public to visit certain sites, but only when accompanied by a certified guide, selected from the local community and trained, who makes sure visitors stick to a code of conduct that rules out graffiti.
If people don't co-operate they will be prosecuted. Amafa already has two recent prosecutions successfully under its belt.
Not before time. Yobbism can't be allowed to destroy this artistic heritage.
Melancholy
THERE'S always something melancholy about a contemplation of San/Bushman rock art. What happened to these little people who lived so close to nature?
One version has it that they were exterminated by British settlers and the Zulus between them. But, when you think about it, that's a little far-fetched.
At school our Zulu master told us they died out because their women went barren. That seemed more credible though terribly sad – as if they had become like birds that refuse to breed in captivity.
The truth seems more complex. Some trekked away to Lake Chrissie, in present-day Mpumalanga. Some were absorbed into local clans. Some are still around in small pockets, keeping a low profile, not identifying themselves as San.
A few years ago I went to a gathering at a Drakensberg resort where anthropologists had managed to bring together a whole lot of the scattered remnants. There they were, bright as buttons, full of fun. The Drakensberg San are not extinct.
Well, not quite. And they smoked like chimneys non-stop, men and women. It was almost as if extinction was what they were really after.
Tailpiece
TWO cockroaches are munching garbage in an alley.
First cockroach: "Have you been into that new restaurant across the street? It's so clean. The kitchen is spotless, the floors are gleaming white. It's so sanitary the whole place shines."
Second cockroach (frowning): "Please! Not while I'm eating!"
Last word
Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
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