Putting the record straight: rock art and shamanism. (Debate).

Lewis-Williams, J.D.

Alice Kehoe (2002: 384-5) proposes divided camps in the study of rock art and contrasts a "popular" interpretation, which ascribes rock art to shamanism, with an "emerging trend" which is more circumspect and reflexive. Such a dichotomy is both unfair and unhelpful. In the "popular" category, she makes free with my name and ascribes views to me, but, interestingly, does not cite any of my publications. She is prodigal with emotive words like `primitivist' and `racism', and her attempt to characterise the targets of her criticism in a persona! way (`Lewis-Williams and his followers') is indicative of sloppy scholarship: the `followers' are independent thinkers who can make up their own minds and she should accord them the attention they deserve. In these respects, Kehoe's response, unlike Ross's more thoughtful article (2001: 543-8), is injurious to rational debate.

She begins by creating the spectre of `Lewis-Williams' one-size-fits-all assertion that hunter-gatherer shamans created rock art to record their trance visions.' Nothing could be further from the truth. As a reading of my publications would have shown, I have considered only the San of southern Africa and the people of Upper Palaeolithic western Europe, though I have cited other writers on North American rock art. Nowhere have I claimed that all hunter-gatherer rock art is shamanistic; I can speak only for those arts that I have studied. Within southern Africa itself there are rock art traditions other than that of the San; I have not studied them in depth, but I very much doubt that they have anything to do with shamanism. Nor do I argue that the only reason for making rock art images was to record visions:

 The shamanistic explanation does not propose that hallucinations
 experienced in trance
 account for the entire corpus of San rock art. Nor does it propose
 that the images were
 made by people who were actually in a trance state.

 Further, it is necessary to retain qualifiers such as `essentially'
 because no one can know
 what was in the minds of all San painters and because of the as yet
 unplumbed polysemy
 of certain categories of paintings. Qualifiers are essential if we
 are to avoid being driven
 into the unnuanced monolithism that conceals the allusiveness (and
 elusiveness) of San
 thought. The shamanistic explanation certainly proposes a focus on
 diverse shamanistic
 beliefs and activities, but it does not deny other meanings. What we
 need to study is how
 and what other meanings are encoded in the images (Lewis-Williams
 1998:87; emphasis
 in original).

What, then, does the shamanistic explanation for San (certainly not all) rock art propose?

 The making of San rock paintings was essentially (or `principally')
 associated with a
 range of shamanistic beliefs, rituals and experiences and was
 situated within a tiered
 shamanistic cosmology and complex social relations. The images
 comprise symbols (or,
 more emically, concentrations) of supernatural potency (e.g.,
 paintings of eland), images
 of trance dances, `fragments' of trance dances (e.g., single figures
 in the arms-back posture),
 `processed' (recollected and formalised) visions (e.g., the capture
 of a rain-animal),
 transformed shamans (including the so-called therianthropes),
 monsters and beings
 encountered in the spirit world (e.g., fighting off malevolent
 spirits of the dead), and
 `scenic' groups (loosely called `compositions') made by one or more
 painters, and complex
 groupings, including superimpositions, of many images that, in a
 range of ways, show the
 interdigitating of the spirit realm with the material world. The
 spirit world was, in some
 conceptual circumstances, believed to lie behind the walls of rock
 shelters (Lewis-Williams
 1998:87).

All these observations are based on carefully assessed nineteenth- and twentieth-century ethnography and have been argued in detail, image by image, not in broad assertions about `the art'; all broad-sweep rock art explanations that do not deal with individual images and image categories should be treated with caution--as should broad-sweep criticisms, such as Kehoe's (e.g., Lewis-Williams 1981, 1986, 1987, 1992, 1995a, 2001; Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1999).

If there are other meanings in San rock art, what are they? At first, I believed that the art embraced images referable to girls' puberty rituals (the Eland Bull Dance), boys' first-kill rites, and marriage, as well as shamanistic extracorporeal travel, rain-making and so forth (Lewis-Williams 1981). But empirical work in hundreds of rock shelters eventually showed that, in fact, very few, if any, images can be persuasively tied to the rites of passage; on the other hand, there are abundant images that are clearly derived from shamanistic beliefs and experiences (Lewis-Williams 1995b). This is really not surprising when one recalls that the well-documented healing (or trance) dance is the overwhelmingly most important San ritual, the one that brings all the people together and that dramatizes their entire religion and cosmology.

How, then, are other meanings conveyed by the art? Take images of eland as an example. This antelope, the most frequently painted in many regions, is prominent, in one way or another, in all three rites of passage and in shamanistic activities (Lewis-Williams 1981), but the contexts of the painted images (adjacent images and the rock face itself; Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1990) focus on one segment of the eland's wide semantic spectrum (its supernatural potency (n/om, !gi:, //ken) that is used in shamanistic activities). Other associations were probably present penumbrally, and they probably lent affective impact to the images (Lewis-Williams 1998). The art is polysemic, though in a focused way.

Is this `primitivism'? For many years I have been at pains to emphasise the complexity of San beliefs and life. Explicitly, I have contested the popular (and in southern Africa one can most certainly say `racist') view that the San were little more than animals who had no land rights at all, as well as the romantic stereotype of them as living idyllically in close communion with `Nature'--a view associated with Laurens van der Post. As long ago as 1976, I wrote:

 A profound misunderstanding of the hunter-gatherer's way of life is
 evident in the records
 of many of the early settlers. Far from being the
 `innocentplaythings' of disgusting savages
 the South African rock paintings are a highly sophisticated
 signifying system concerned
 largely with social relationships (Lewis-Williams 1976:32, 41;
 1995c; 2000; Dowson
 & Lewis-Williams 1992 (reprinted in 1994); on the complexity of
 San mythology
 see Lewis-Williams 1996 and 1997a [reprinted in Lewis-Williams
 2002a]).

Can the word `shamanism' be used in the context of the San? Like other researchers whom she cites, Kehoe commits the elementary error of confusing a word with a thing. It is not clear if she is objecting to what she sees as a misuse of the word `shamanism' in certain specified contexts or to the understandings of some rock arts which it has been used to designate. Perhaps, if amicable discussion were possible, we could agree to find some other word (though I do not see the need; better definition is what is required), but the nature of San beliefs and practices and my understanding of their images would remain the same. If we are to use the word `shamanism' we need to say what we mean by it, and this is what I have done:

* Hunter-gatherer shamanism is fundamentally posited on a range of institutionalized altered states of consciousness.

* The visual, aural and somatic experiences of those states give rise to perceptions of an alternative reality that is frequently tiered (hunter-gatherers believe in spiritual realms above and below the world of daily life).

* People with special powers and skills, the shamans, are believed to have access to this alternative reality.

* The behaviour of the human nervous system in certain altered states creates the illusion of dissociation from one's body (less commonly understood in hunting and gathering shamanistic societies as possession by spirits).

Shamans use dissociation and other experiences of altered states of consciousness to achieve at least four ends. Shamans are believed to

* contact spirits and supernatural entities,

* heal the sick,

* control the movements and lives of animals, and

* change the weather.

These four functions of shamans, as well as their entrance into an altered state of consciousness, are believed to be facilitated by supernatural entities that include:

* variously conceived supernatural potency, or power, and

* animal-helpers and other categories of spirits that assist shamans and are associated with potency.

In listing these ten characteristics of hunter-gatherer shamanism I have excluded features that some writers consider important, if not essential, for the classification of a religion as shamanistic. I do not, for instance, link shamanism to mental illness of any sort, though some shamans may well suffer from epilepsy, schizophrenia, migraine and a range of other pathologies. Nor do I stipulate the number of religious practitioners that a shamanistic society may have; some societies have many, others very few. Some shamans wield political power, others do not. Nor do I stipulate any particular method or methods for the induction of altered states of consciousness. Still less do I attend to diverse concepts of the soul, spirit and subdivisions of the tiered cosmos.

In addition, I wish to emphasize the diversity of altered states of consciousness. If we focus, as some writers have done, too much on the word `trance' and imagine `altered states' to be restricted to deep, apparently unconsciousness conditions, we shall miss the fluidity of shamanistic experiences, and even fail altogether to notice the presence of altered states of consciousness in religious practices (Lewis-Williams 2002b:125-6; for an earlier, equally full, statement see Lewis-Williams 1997c; see also Lewis-Williams 1991).

The way in which I have defined shamanism is deliberately broad enough to accommodate the variations that exist between shamanistic communities. Kehoe and some other writers may disagree with some of these points, especially the importance I accord to altered states of consciousness. Still, I am not alone in this emphasis. For instance, Vitebsky (1995: 64) writes: `Some sort of trance is fundamental to both shamanism and possession, but a shamans trance, unlike that of a possessed person, is mostly highly controlled.' Such observations could easily be multiplied. The notion that some form of altered consciousness is not integral to shamanism is way off the mark.

Can, then, the San practices be termed `shamanistic'? Mathias Guenther, who has long studied San communities first-hand, writes:

 with altered states of consciousness, as well as outer-body travel
 as his principal modus
 operandi, and curing and hunting as his main spheres of ritual
 activity, the Bushman
 trance dancer falls in line, more or less, with shamanistic figures
 in other parts of the
 world (Guenther 1999:7).

I agree with him, but the use of the word is less important than what actually happens on the ground. `Shamanism' need not obscure differences any more than `Christian' conceals differences between Russian Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, the Episcopalian Church, Southern Baptist churches, charismatic house churches, and African Zionism. Of course, emphasising differences is necessary; no one would deny that (Lewis-Williams 2002b: Chapters 5 and 6). But, in doing so, we should not lose sight of commonalities.

Though some will disagree in rational, constructive debate, and that is their right, I argue that a human core is the necessity for all communities to `domesticate' the shifting nature of human consciousness, to divide up the spectrum of consciousness into recognized and evaluated segments (Lewis-Williams 2002b). Some common agreement on what, for instance, dreams are is unavoidable. This `domestication' frequently leads to social differentiation. The divided spectrum is socially contested, not supinely accepted (Lewis-Williams 1997b; see also 1987). This contestation was, I argue, one of the driving forces in west European Upper Palaeolithic communities (Clottes & Lewis-Williams 1998; Lewis-Williams 2002b), and the shifting ways in which this happened through the millennia of that period, and the ways in which the caves became instruments of social discrimination, may be termed `shamanistic'. But, again, let us not confuse the word with the thing.

Kehoe rightly points out that today numerous researchers are interested in the distribution of rock art sites on the landscape. This line of enquiry has nothing to do with the possible shamanistic context of an art, but, clearly, knowing something about the meanings and associations of the images will contribute to a better understanding of their placement on the landscape. One cannot induce the `meaning' of an art from its geographical locations. To attempt to do so would be to fall into the well-known trap of empiricism: one cannot logically induce rock art explanations from supposedly theory-free data (Lewis-Williams 1983, 1984). In the parts of southern Africa where I work, I have been unable to discern any distributional pattern beyond the self-evident observation that the painted sites were important points on the landscape. Many years ago, long before `landscape' became a buzz-word, Patrick Carter and Patricia Vinnicombe argued that the densely painted areas of the Darkensberg and its foothills were summer aggregation places where rituals were performed (Carter 1970; Vinnicombe 1976). Their work remains valid. Iconographic and ethnographic research has since shown that the rituals that produced the Drakensberg rock art were overwhelmingly, not necessarily entirely, shamanistic--in the sense that I use that vexatious word.

References

CARTER, P. L. 1970. Late Stone Age exploitation patterns in southern Natal. South African Archaeological Bulletin 25: 55-8.

CLOTTES, J., & J. D. LEWIS-WILLIAMS. 1998. The shamans of prehistory: trance and magic in the painted caves. New York: Harry Abrams.

DOWSON, T. A., & J. D. LEWIS-WILLIAMS. 1992. Myths, museums and southern African rock art. South African Historical Journal:. Reprinted in T. A. Dowson & J. D. Lewis-Williams (eds), 1994. Contested images: diversity in southern African rock art research: 385-402. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.

GUENTHER, M. 1999. Tricksters and trancers: Bushman religion and society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

KEHOE, A. 2002. Emerging trends versus the popular paradigm in rock art research. Antiquity 76: 384-5

LEWIS-WILLIAMS, J. D. 1976. Myth and message in Bushman art. Lantern 15 (4): 32-41.

--1981. Believing and seeing: symbolic meanings in southern San rock paintings. London: Academic Press.

--1983. Science and rock art: introductory essay. South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 4: 313.

--1984. The empiricist empasse in southern African rock art studies. South African Archaeological Bulletin 39: 58-66.

--1986. Cognitive and optical illusions in San rock art research. Current Anthropology 27: 171-78.

--1987. A dream of eland: an unexplored component of San shamanism and rock art. World Archaeology 19(2): 165-77.

--1991. Wrestling with analogy: a methodological dilemma in Upper Palaeolithic art research. Proceeding of the Prehistoric Society 57(1): 149-62. Reprinted in Whitley, D. (ed.) Reader in Archaeological theory: post-processual and cognitive approaches, 157-75.

--1992. Ethnographic evidence relating to `trance' and' `shamans' among northern and southern Bushmen. South African Archaeological Bulletin 47: 56-60.

--1995a. Seeing and construing: the making and `meaning' of a southern African rock art motif. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 5: 3-23.

--1995b. Perspectives and traditions in southern African rock art research, in K. Helskog and B. Olsen (eds), Perceiving rock art: social and political perspectives: 65-86. Oslo: Novus Forlag.

--1995c. Some aspects of rock art research in the politics of present-day South Africa, in K. Helskog and B. Olsen (eds), Perceiving rock art: social and political perspectives: 317-37. Oslo: Novus Forlag.

--1996. `A visit to the Lion's house': the structure, metaphors and sociopolitical significance of 19th century Bushman myths, in J. Deacon and T. A. Dowson (eds) Voices from the past: /Xam Bushmen and the Bleek and Lloyd Collection, 122-41. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.

--1997a. The Mantis, the Eland and the Meerkats: conflict and mediation in a nineteenth-century San myth, in P. McAllister (ed.), Culture and the commonplace: anthropological essays in honour of David Hammond-Tooke: 195-216. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, African Studies Special Issue 56(2).

--1997b. Agency, art and altered consciousness: a motif in French (Quercy) Upper Palaeolithic parietal art. Antiquity 71: 810-30.

--1997c. Harnessing the brain: vision and shamanism in Upper Palaeolithic western Europe, in Conkey, M. W., O. Softer, D. Stratmann and N. G. Jablonski (eds),-Beyond art: Pleistocene image and symbol: 321-42. San Francisco: Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences, No. 23.

--1998. Quanto?: The issue of `many meanings' in southern African San rock art research. South African Archaeological Bulletin 53: 86-97.

--2000. Stories that float from ajar: ancestral folklore of the San of southern Africa. Cape Town: David Philip; College Station: Texas A & M University Press.

--2001. Southern African shamanistic rock art in its social and cognitive contexts, in N. Price (ed.) The archaeology of shamanism, 17-39. London: Routledge.

--2002a. A cosmos in stone: interpreting religion and society through rock art. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.

--2002b. The mind in the cave: consciousness and the origins of art. London: Thames & Hudson.

LEWIS-WILLIAMS, J. D., & T. A. DOWSON. 1990. Through the veil: San rock paintings and the rock face. South African Archaeological Bulletin 45: 5-16.

--1999. Images of power: understanding San rock art. Cape Town: Struik Publishers.

Ross, M. 2001. Emerging trends in rock-art research: hunter-gather culture, land and landscape Antiquity 75:543-8

VINNICOMBE, P. 1976. People of the eland: paintings of the Drakensberg Bushmen as a reflection of their life and thought. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.

J.D. Lewis-Williams, Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa.