The Ritual Hunt: Parallels between Ethnological and Archaeological Data

Pager, Harald

doi:10.2307/3888640

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It is a picture of a hunt, where humans are on "attacking" the large bull. But it is not a ritual hunt in the usual ethnographic meaning: the simple 'narration' is of the hunt, not of a ceremony connected to hunt as they were known by the Bushmen Kxoé and their representations [Pager 1983]. It is definitely a hunt, but a mock hunt, a fake hunt, where the humans play the hunters, but never really hunt.…”

Section: Palaeolithicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Harmony With Algebra: Collected Papers in Memory of Yakov Abramovich Sher

Chugunov¹

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Сборник посвящён памяти выдающегося российского археолога Якова Абрамовича Шера (1931–2019). Большинст- во публикуемых статей связано с анализом первобытного и древнего изобразительного искусства, изучение которого всегда было доминантой исследовательских интересов Я. А. Шера и являлось основным направлением его научной деятельности. Книга предназначена для археологов, историков, искусствоведов, музейных работников.

show abstract

Section: Palaeolithicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Harmony With Algebra: Collected Papers in Memory of Yakov Abramovich Sher

Chugunov¹

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…They would also have been well aware of the different desirabilities of types of rain. On the one hand, the hard (masculine) rain of torrential downpours, 16 that pummels people and land alike to cause great movements of topsoil across the landscape and violent flash floods in dry river beds and that, ouroborus-like, takes us back to the first key theme we identified in this section, wherein "snakes can fill the country with water". And on the other hand, the soft (in Khoekhoegowab tsaura) sustained rain, associated with the fecund, female and water-loving python, and that sinks into dry soil to bring out the green flush of grasses that is so attractive to grazing animals.…”

Section: Rhebok Men Ie Men With the Heads Of Rhebok (Cf Figure 1mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…78-9). 16 Associated by /Xam informants with the embodiment of !Khwa as rain, water in waterholes, eland, rain bull, rain animal and attracted to secluded menarcheal females, see summary in Solomon ([12], p. 5).…”

Section: Conclusion-what An Extraordinary Snakey World We Live Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shades of the Rainbow Serpent? A KhoeSan Animal between Myth and Landscape in Southern Africa—Ethnographic Contextualisations of Rock Art Representations

Sullivan

Low²

2014

Arts

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The snake is a potent entity in many cultures across the world, and is a noticeable global theme in rock art and inscribed landscapes. We mobilise our long-term ethnographic research with southern African KhoeSan peoples to situate and interpret the presence of snake motifs in the region's rock art. We contextualise the snake as a transformative ontological mediator between everyday and "entranced" KhoeSan worlds (those associated with "altered states of consciousness"), to weave together both mythological and shamanistic interpretations of southern African rock art. Ethnographic explorations of experiences of snakes as both an aspect of natural history and the physical environment, and as embodiments of multiplicitous and mythical meaning by which to live and understand life, shed light on the presence of snakes and associated snake-themes in southern African rock art. By drawing on ethnographic material, and in conjunction with review of literature, we highlight a dynamic assemblage of extant associations between snakes, rain, water, fertility, blood, fat, transformation, dance and healing. We suggest that these extant associations have explanatory potential for understanding the meaning of these themes in the rock art created by the ancestors of contemporary KhoeSan peoples. Our paper contributes to a live debate regarding the interpretive relevance of ethnography for understanding rock art representations from the past.

show abstract

Trivial pursuit? Interpreting San rock art in terms of the mystical bond between hunter and prey

Dederen

Munyai

2021

pharosjot

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

For more than three decades now, researchers supporting the mainstream theoretical orientation in the field of rock art studies, the shamanistic model, have largely ignored the possibility that the idiom of the hunt could contribute meaningfully to the task of deciphering the often complex and enigmatic masterpieces of the San hunter-gatherers. They may have been mistaken all along. This paper argues that a good deal of the art produced by the hunters related intimately to the hunt, even though this may seem, to some, too obvious or inconsequential an objective to pursue. Importantly, the alternative vantage point on the paintings of the San which is introduced here aligns itself with the spiritual thinking of the creators of the art. While it is not the intention of the authors of this paper to present a systematic critique of the leading paradigm, they feel strongly that the discussion will benefit from a dialectical engagement with the latter. A selection of five rock art panels is first examined conventionally, i.e. in terms of the shamanistic model. The very same art works are revisited subsequently in order to explore them from an alternative, animistic perspective. It is concluded, tentatively, that the artists’ visual language emphasized the significance of the narrative focus of their work, namely the various manifestations of hunter-prey sociability, the spiritual grounding of which characterized, if not defined life in traditional hunting communities across the globe.

show abstract

The Ritual Hunt: Parallels between Ethnological and Archaeological Data

Cited by 3 publications

References 5 publications

Measuring Harmony With Algebra: Collected Papers in Memory of Yakov Abramovich Sher

Measuring Harmony With Algebra: Collected Papers in Memory of Yakov Abramovich Sher

Shades of the Rainbow Serpent? A KhoeSan Animal between Myth and Landscape in Southern Africa—Ethnographic Contextualisations of Rock Art Representations

Trivial pursuit? Interpreting San rock art in terms of the mystical bond between hunter and prey

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About