This San rock art site at Game Pass Shelter in Kamberg Drakensberg is one of the best preserved and most important rock art sites in South Africa if not the world. This meaning is encoded in these big, fat, potent eland moving across the rock face…..Dr. Sven Ouzman, archaeologist and rock Art expert.
San myths and beliefs speak of eland as animals of power. Their painted images are reservoirs of power radiating into the shamans who danced in the rock shelter, carrying them off into the spirit world where they could perform such feats as healing the sick, making rain and guiding antelope towards hunters. Painting one eland on top of another was a way of increasing the animal’s power.
The above is an extract from the documentary ‘Cave Gallery Route’,
filmed by Tekweni TV Productions in 2001. tekweni@iafrica.com
