Michel Barbaza. Les Trois Bergers. Du conte perdu au mythe retrouve. Pour une anthropologie de Part rupestre saharien.

Bahn, Paul G.

MICHEL BARBAZA. Les Trois Bergers. Du conte perdu au mythe retrouve. Pour une anthropologie de Part rupestre saharien. 2015. 270 pages, 206 colour and b&w illustrations. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Midi; 978-2-8107-0335-7 hardback 35 [euro].

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There is a vast literature on Saharan rock art, including many outstanding and beautifully illustrated books. With Les Trois Bergers, Barbaza presents not just a book but an ambitious attempt to establish an "anthropology of Saharan rock art" (p. 16), combining archaeology, palaeoecology, palaeoethnology and ethnography in pursuit of an interpretation of rock art based on mythology. Does it succeed?

When the 'shamanic' red herring was slapped onto rock art studies in the 1990s, some of that theory's adherents went so far as to deny that any rock art depicted mythology. For example, Whitley (1994) stated that the rock art of the North American West "does not depict myths or their principal actors; indeed, the art has no direct connection with mythology whatsoever". Such a claim was obviously indefensible. Barbaza, however, has gone the other way, asserting in the first sentence of the book that the great majority of rock art depicts ancient mythological tales; later passages claim that all rock art is the graphic expression of myths. This is a welcome contrast to the previous view, and almost certainly closer to the truth, but nevertheless seems equally dogmatic and unjustified, especially in an area such as the Sahara where we have no ethnographic support for any interpretations of its prehistoric rock art.

One problem here is that, despite the many citations of the work of Levi-Strauss and others, the approach taken is insufficiently anthropological--a problem identified in another recent, similarly flawed book on rock art (cited approvingly on p. 16) of which a different reviewer has observed that "neither of the authors is trained as an anthropologist. Both specialize in rock art, and as such their forays into ethnography lack depth and theoretical grounding" (Kelly 2014: 638).

There are a number of problems with the approach adopted in this book: for example, "narrative" is equated with "mythological" (p. 19), and yet it is claimed that Saharan rock art is an exceptional resource for the study of everyday life (p. 236). Barbaza criticises those who choose a myth and look for evidence in rock art to support it; he, instead, seeks (Pan-African) regularities in compositions and forms, and deduces information from them about their nature and functions. In practice, however, it is hard to see the difference between these approaches. "Sacrifice", "dances" and even "ritual dances" are discussed as important mythological subjects, but it is not made clear how these can be safely identified in rock art. Another issue is that only a few of the rock art recordings in the book have been produced by the author--for the vast majority of illustrations he relies on tracings by others, and the accuracy and completeness of these recordings are often uncertain.

One of the book's major problems is its lack of organisation. There are no chapters, rather it is divided into four parts: 'For a multidisciplinary approach to Saharan prehistoric art', 'Seeking meaning', 'Tales in fragments: unity and variability of a few essential themes' and 'The myth rediscovered'. Each of these is filled with sub-sections and the text moves from topic to topic without apparent structure or sequence. To give a couple of examples: the important topic of chronology suddenly appears (p. 78) only to be followed directly by a section on the perspective and psychology of art, and a section on "peace or war" (p. 224) introduces a series of scenes depicting wild and domestic animals together. This problem of structure is amplified by the lack of an index; in this regard, the author has not been well served by the publisher. (On a related note, sections of text on pp. 196 and 197 are on the wrong pages, disrupting the flow.) Combined, the confusion of argument and lack of structure make this book difficult to follow. This situation is reflected in the final three pages of the volume, entitled 'Towards an anthropology of rock art'--even here there is no clear statement of what is proposed.

Where the book's striking and enigmatic title, "The Three Shepherds", is concerned, Barbaza has attached some importance to trios of humans in a small series of sites and panels, yet they occupy only a brief part of the book (pp. 156-67), and are so varied in appearance, shape and size that it is hard to understand why they have been grouped together. Some are indeed with sheep, but others are with cows and some are "meeting someone"--i.e. they are four! To be fair, the many problems and uncertainties involved in any interpretation of prehistoric rock art are discussed throughout the text--alas, most have nevertheless been ignored in the eagerness to identify the Three Shepherds myth. In doing so, Barbaza has created a myth of his own.

doi: 10.15184/aqy.2015.114

References

KELLY, G. 2014. Review of 'Des images pour les dieux: art rupestre et art tribal dans le Centre de 1'Inde' by J. Clones & M. Dubey-Pathak. Journal of Anthropological Research 70: 637-38.

WHITLEY, D.S. 1994. Ethnography and rock art in the Far West: some archaeological implications, in D.S. Whitley & L.L. Loendorf (ed.) New light on old art: recent advances in hunter-gatherer rock art research (Institute of Archaeology UCLA Monograph 36): 81-93. Los Angeles: Institute of Archaeology, University of California Los Angeles.

PAUL G. BAHN

Freelance researcher

(Email: pgbahn@anlabyrd.karoo.co.uk)