Great places to see them – among many, many others – are at the Giant’s Castle Reserve in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site; in Kimberley at theWildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre; the Kamberg Rock Art Centre in KwaZulu-Natal; the Origins Centre at Wits; or at South Africa’s oldest museum, the Iziko Museum in Cape Town, which has a fabulous collection of rock art.

But although the spiritual connotations of the art are now much better understood and much of the San cosmology has now been revealed, particularly by Wits Professor David Lewis-Williams, many mysteries still remain.

For example, although we now know how important – both spiritually and physically – the eland is to the San and to the artists who recorded their culture, and also that many of the mystical images (now known as "therianthropic") are images perceived by shamans when in a trance state, little or nothing was known about the "formlings" – mysterious patches of paint often joined by long lines, which range in shape from spherical and circular, to oblong and ovoid.

Mguni takes us on a personal journey of exploration, beginning when he was a boy in Zimbabwe’s Matopo Hills, "curiously searching the pasts of the land of my birth", through his stint as a researcher in the Cederberg, his studies in the Cape and at Wits, to his final startling conclusions. The title gives much away as he reveals how the "formlings" represent associations with "God’s House" in San cosmology.

Superb photographs, great maps and illustrations reinforce his final conclusion.

"I feel confident that I have uncovered certain hidden mysteries of the San spiritual universe as reflected in rock art and ethnography," he says.

"However, given that San expressive culture spanned many millennia and manifested itself in varying ways across different regions and times, I have likely only partially uncovered the possible layers of symbolism ..."

This is a lovely, fascinating book. If you are interested in indigenous history and culture, a collector of Africana, an admirer of rock art, or just someone who enjoys reading about Africa, then it should be on your bookshelf.

From: South African Net

by Kate Turkington