Culture, the Artistic Process and Nature

Author: Nigel Brett

Contents:

	Introduction *
	Cultural Approach to Nature *
	How the ‘process’ connects the artist, group or culture to nature *
	Summary *
	References/Sources *
	Appendix 1. San Myths *

Introduction

This report explores the San, or Bushman, culture of southern Africa and how they express their relationship with nature.

Three of their key arts are: storytelling, music and painting.

  Contents

Cultural Approach to Nature

San live mainly in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana and Namibia. In the past, the San have been called Bushmen by southern African whites.

Although many of them have become settled, many still live as hunter-gatherers organised in small groups, or bands, of about ten nuclear families. Each group has exclusive rights to an area of about 775 sq km and usually moves homes about once a month as the food supply in an area is exhausted.

The San live in an unforgiving environment.

All of San culture seems to be related directly to their harsh environment. So closely linked that it is reported in several places that San women become sterile during periods of long drought when the land cannot support any more children.

Art seems to be one of their key survival tools, not just helping them physically but also to enjoy and participate fully in their world.

Their imaginary world is as real as their physical world. It is sometimes phrased that "there is a dream dreaming us".

Contents

How the ‘process’ connects the artist, group or culture to nature

It does not seem that the San separate "art" from their life generally, but three categories of art can be identified: Painting; music; and story telling.

Other activities, such as hunting, tool making or personal decoration, often using ostrich shell beads, probably do not class as art in the western sense, although they most clearly directly reflect and express the relationship of the culture to nature.

 Story telling

"The story is like the wind." a Bushman called Xhabbo said. "It comes from a far-off place and we feel it" [3]. Some examples of their stories are given in Appendix 1.

The San live in an unforgiving environment. Their stories influence key actions for their survival, especially the hunt, and their appreciation of the animals they kill, or that will lead them to food and water.

The San speak Khoisan languages, which are characterised by click sounds.

Laurens Van Der Post recounts listening to San voices fluid, vivid & with a great variety of tone that often needs no translation [1]. They will illustrate their stories with realistic sound effects of the animals involved.

 Music

Their survival tools, bows and digging sticks, are used as musical instruments. The music is a haunting weave of rhythms, which seems to resonate with unworldly longing.

Songs and dance are often performed to thank any game they have just killed. Laurens Van Der Post [1] reports on a dance in honour of an eland. He contrasts it to other "primitive" dances that display communal, bold, often violent and fairly obvious patterns. The San dance had a curious, tender, weave and rhythm to it, turning & twisting, swirling and eddying. They danced all aspects of the being of the eland, the herd, the cows, love-making, growing old & being challenged by younger bulls.

Some dances also may lead to healing where alien spirits can be drawn out.

 Painting

All materials for San painting comes from what is to hand, and literally by hand much of the painting is done.

Here is how Laurens Van Der Post described one painting [1] in chapter 8 The Spirits of the Slippery Hills

  "I was looking at the wall and part of the ceiling of what had once been a great cave in the hills, safe above the night-prowl of the bush, with an immense view into the activities of the flat Kalahari beyond. Some yellow stone from the dome of the cave was tipped precariously on the edges of the ledge, other fragments were toppled into the red sand at the base. But what held my attention still with the shock of discovery was the painting that looked at us from the centre of what was left of the wall and dome of the cave. Heavy as were the shadows, and seeing it only darkly against the sharp morning light, it was yet so distinct and filled with fire of its own colour that every detail stood out with a burning clarity. In the focus of the painting, scarlet against the gold of the stone, was an enormous eland bull standing sideways, his massive body charged with masculine power and his noble head looking as if he had only that moment been disturbed in his grazing. He was painted as only a Bushman, who had a deep identification with the eland, could have painted him.

-Moreover, it seemed that he had been painted at a period before the Bushman’s serenity was threatened, for the look of calm and trustful inquiry on the eland’s face was complete. I was greatly moved because it seemed to me that this was the look with which not only the eland but the whole of the life of Africa must have regarded us when first we landed there. On the left of the bull, also deep in scarlet, was a tall female giraffe with an elegant Modigliani neck. With the tenderness of a solicitous mother she was looking past the eland towards a baby giraffe standing shyly in the right of the picture. In the same right-hand corner of the canvas below them the artist had signed this painting on the high wall with a firm impress of the palms of both hands, fingers extended and upright. The signature was marked so gaily and spontaneously that it brought an instant smile to my face. It looked so young and fresh that it mocked my recollection that rock-paintings signed in this manner are among the oldest in the world."

  Contents

Summary

The San use stories, music and dance to explain all that they experience in their world and to establish their relationship to it. They also create rock art to illustrate these stories.

Art for them is not separate from their life, and their life is not separate from their myths, dreams or nature.

Contents

References/Sources

1. The Lost World of the Kalahari, Laurens Van Der Post ISBN 0-14-001716-x
2. Feather fall, Laurens Van Der Post ISBN 0-7011-4403-3
3. A Far-off Place, Laurens Van Der PostISBN 0 14 00.4164 8
4. Creation Myths -- African Bushmen Creation Myth http://www.cs.williams.edu/~lindsey/myths/myths_14.html
5. ITC Virtual Exhibition Artisanal products, Bushmen hairs http://artisanet.org/virtexib/botswana/botshair.htm
6. !Kung San Family Level Foragers. http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/abeltd/san.htm
7. !Kung San Page (Lephoto and Yarnell, Lawrence University, WI) http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/anthropology/kungsan/kungsan.html
8. Microsoft Encarta Encyclopaedia 99
9. Microsoft Encarta World Atlas 99

Contents

Appendix 1. San Myths

Animals and Insects

Bushmen's knowledge of the wild animals around them has no equal in the world; no naturalist can compete with them when it comes to understanding the habits and peculiarities of the creatures that mean the difference between life and death to these unique people.

Shape changing, assuming the form and nature of a beast, is commonly accepted witchcraft practice among Bushmen, and there are many tales of girls who change themselves into lions and baboons that can adopt the appearance and speech of a man.

One of their favourite characters is the praying mantis, the Bushman counterpart to Brer Rabbit and Reynard the fox. Tuk-tuk, mantis, is the ‘chief’, or first god of the San.

The mantis can turn himself into a loquacious beggar or even (as in one of their popular tales) a dead hartebeest! In this tale, the hartebeest has been skinned and laboriously cut up by the children who found it, but annoyingly succeeds in putting itself together again, and chases the confused and terrified children into their huts for refuge.

Sometimes, before the chase, Bushmen pray to N'go, the caterpillar, to make their poison strong, as it is from him that they distil one of the poisons for their arrowheads. The arrows are carried in a quiver usually made from the bark of a species of euphorbia known in South Africa as the kokerboom, or quiver tree.

The First Bushman

Water in a desert country is so precious that for those who depend on it, it can assume divine properties. To the Bushman water is the ancient symbol of life. In it he can revitalise himself and make a fresh start. His legendary hero, Mantis, appears at the time of the beginning of the world, when the face of the earth was covered with water.

Mantis was carried over the tumult of the dark and turbulent waters by a bee (bees, as honeymakers, are an image of wisdom). The bee, however, became wearier and colder as he searched for solid ground, and Mantis felt heavier and heavier. He flew slower and sank down towards the water. At last, while floating on the water, the bee saw a great white flower, half-open, awaiting the sun's first rays. He laid Mantis in the heart of the flower and planted within him the seed of the first human being. Then the bee died. But as the sun rose and warmed the flower, Mantis awoke, and there, from the seed left by the bee, the first Bushman was born.

Contents

Copyright © 2000 webNB   webnb@BTInternet.com
Last modified: March 21, 2000