ROCK ART PAPER - No 1. - PAGE 2
Maarten van Hoek December 2003| HOW TO DRAW ATTENTION
ANOMALIES IN ANIMAL ORIENTATION: METHOD AND MEANING IN ROCK ART STUDIES Text and graphics copyright by Maarten van Hoek 2. THE DEGREE OF DEVIATION When it is a 100% certain that the depiction of an animal or a human figure shows an intentional deviation, the second step should be to establish the degree of divergence. A model that can be used conclusively is presented here. Such a model is necessary, as terms like upside-down, reversed and tilted often are ambiguous and not always clarifying. For instance, does inverted mean mirrored or rotated? In the first case, if you vertically mirror an animal that is walking to the right, the result will be an inverted animal that is still looking to the right. However, when you rotate the same animal 180º, the result is an inverted animal that looks to the left. Also the terms used in the German language are often inadequate. Hallier (1992) often uses the term 'hochkant stehend' for animals that are in a 90º position, whereas Scherz (1986) describes such positions as animals 'auf (dem) Schwanz sitzend' (sitting on the tail), but neither description clarifies in which direction the animals are 'walking'. It is also not sufficient to label animals with a directional anomaly according to the direction they are looking in. Notably, animals can be depicted looking backwards, e.g. to the left, while walking to the right. Even more confusing is the purple-red painted image of a kudu on a vertical (?) rock wall in Namibia (Scherz 1986: Tafel 24.2). It appears in a rotated 90º position in respect to ground level. However, in the painted position (Figure 4) the kudu still looks to the left, whereas it would be walking to the right and looking up when it would have been depicted on all fours, the normal natural position. When rotating the painted kudu further up, it would look down and would look like an apparently dead animal with the legs turned upwards. To avoid any confusion in this respect, I decided to identify two general groups of animals (Figure 2), and as an animal in rock art can never be convincingly depicted walking backwards, these two groups are solely based on two normal, natural walking direction. I distinguish the L-group: animals walking to the left, and the R-group: those walking to the right, assuming that each animal is first rotated back to its 'normal' position (N) before deciding to which group it belongs. Consequently, I constructed two groups of rotating animals that, together with the degrees indicated, offer a conclusive model to determine the degree of directional anomaly in animals in general. The normal position has been assigned the letter N, or, in degrees, 0º, indicating that no directional anomaly exists at all. All other positions deviate in degrees from the N-position. Altogether 16 different animal-positions emerge, but not all those positions indicate an anomaly. Only the positions from 90º up to 270º are regarded to represent true directional anomalies. Excluded as anomalies are naturally the two normal positions (N in Figure 2), and quite often also the four near-normal positions (NN in Figure 2) immediately adjoining the normal position, as the deviation is often too small. However, it also depends on the species depicted whether an NN position should be admitted as an anomaly. It is notably quite acceptable to regard many animals, like springbok (Scherz 1986: Abb. 315), in those positions as jumping. This does not mean that every anomaly of springbok paintings expresses a natural position. For instance, one of the springbok at the Maack Cave, Brandberg, Namibia, clearly has been painted in a deliberate L315º position. However, the posture does not show any dynamism; the animal is depicted almost motionless. Perhaps the downward direction of the animal was more important. In this respect, it resembles the situation of an L315º animal engraving at Rosario, Chile, for which I suggested (Van Hoek 2002: 313) that it had been depicted as if it were guided by the adjoining human figure to the supernatural world. There are also animals (like antelope) that are clearly depicted in a half-erect position standing on the back legs only, as if eating from a bush or tree. But again, such a position is species-specific. A rhinoceros in a 45º position looks unnatural (except perhaps when in a mating position). Also the L90º rhino, painted on a rock wall in the Erongo Mountains, Namibia, seems to be in an impossible position. However, Ouzman (2001: 245, referring to Skead 1976), states that rhinos may rub themselves against trees and rocks to get rid of ectoparasites and, according to Ouzman (2002: pers. comm.), rhinos can thus be in 90º positions. If indeed it was this specific position that inspired the manufacturer, the actual reason for the rhino's behaviour might have escaped the artist. The specific performance of the rhino might have been interpreted in a completely idiosyncratic way. Many writers notably think that the San (and possibly many other peoples) regarded the rock surface as a 'veil' suspended between the ordinary world and the Spirit World (Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1990: 14; Whitley 1998: 16; Ouzman 2001; see however Skotnes 1998: 327) and that a shaman was able to penetrate that veil during trance, often transformed into an animal form. The upright painted rhino might therefore depict a shaman or spirit being in animal form, 'dancing' on its hind legs like a human, while emerging from the Spirit World existing behind the 'veil' of the rock face it was rubbing against. It can also be reasoned that animals in the two near-normal positions have often been executed that way in order to add special dynamism and/or direction to the rock art scene. For that reason, many rock art scenes, especially paintings, show rows of animals in non-horizontal positions. For instance, two rows of wild dogs in a Namibian rock painting (Scherz 1986: Abb. 151) clearly have intentionally been depicted in respectively R315º and R45º positions; the effect possibly enhanced by intentional perspective, as the last animal in the row is smaller than the front one. Although, in general, engravings are far more static than paintings, the engraving of an L45º horse with rider in the Aïr Mountains of Niger (Lhote 1987: 177) may be interpreted as a staggering horse, in which case it should be excluded as an anomaly. As staggering is not performable for a rhinoceros, it may be concluded that, in general, any imaginable directional anomaly is also species-specific. FIGURE 2. Model for establishing the degree of directional anomaly for animals in rock art. L = left; R = right; N = normal; NN = near-normal. |
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