155.My Geboorde !kwe Klip
The English version follows after the Afrikaans version
Saamgestel en in Afrikaans vertaal deur Gerald Batt
Hierbo is ‘n foto van so ‘n geboorde klip in my besit
My !kwe Boesmanklip
Vir geslagte lank praat mense in Suid-Afrika van sogenaamde “Boesmanklippe” – die afgeronde klippe met die netjies geboorde gate wat nog vandag op plase, in rivierlope en teen berghellings opgetel word. Hierdie geheimsinnige voorwerpe het deur die jare aanleiding gegee tot talle verhale, aannames en verklarings oor hul oorsprong en gebruik. Sommige sien dit as eenvoudige werktuie van ’n vervloë bestaan; ander verbind dit weer met rituele, jag, oorlewing en selfs geestelike betekenis. Hoewel die naam “Boesmanklip” diep in die volksmond gewortel is, vertel elke klip waarskynlik ’n veel groter verhaal van mense wat met geduld, vernuf en noue verbondenheid aan die natuur geleef het. Hierdie narratief poog om iets van daardie wêreld en die misterie van die geboorde klippe oop te vou.
Jare gelede het my oorlede pa eendag ‘n klip in die veld op ons plaas in die Agterveld, Koo opgetel en huistoe gebring – sien foto hierbo. Niemand was veel gepla oor die klip nie en die klip het maar net daar op die stoep gelê.
Daardie dae was dit natuurlik baie moeilik om navorsing oor die klip te laat doen, want daar was nie internet met al sy verskeie takke en intellegensie platforms soos vandag nie. Die Kaapse Museum was ook baie ver en die klip het maar in sy rustige lewe op die plaas bly voortleef.
Toe my ouers die plaas verkoop en verhuis het na Montagu, het ek gelukkig die klip gevat. Iets in my het net gesê dat ek nie die klip daar moet los nie.
Wel, vandag, na meer as vyf en sewenitig jaar of langer vandat Pa die klip gekry het, wil ek graag ‘n bietjie lewe in die ou klip blaas. Vandat ek kan onthou, was die klip maar altyd daar en my ma wou nooit van die klip ontslae raak nie. Miskien het sy geweet daar moet dieper geskiedenis agter die klip wees. Ek het geen idee wanneer my pa die klip opgetel het nie en het ook nie belang gestel nie, maar vandag wil ek weet wat die klip se storie is.
Ek het met die Argeologiese Departemente by UCT en die Kaapse Nasionale Museum ge-komminikeer en fotos vir hulle gestuur. Hulle was baie ge-intereseerd en het dokumente gestuur wat vertel van hierdie klippe en hoe dit gebruik was.
Die volgende inligting kom direk uit:
- “Bored Stones, Star Stones & Ancestral Stones”: A Sub-Saharan Perspective of the Ritualised Relationship between Humans and Bored Stones, deur Marlize Lombaard.
- “Bored Stones and a Stone Ring” and “The Digging Stick” – ISSN 1013-7521 van Augustus 2017 deur Ansie Hoff.
“In hul Studies oor ‘geboorde klippe’, identifiseer die twee navorsers die !kwe klip as ‘n multifunksionele gereedskapstuk van oorlewing en spiritualiteit.
1.Bored Stones, Star Stones and Ancestral Stones: A Sub-Saharan Perspective of the Ritualised Relationship Between Humans and Perforated Stones
deur die antropoloog Marlize Lombaard
Hier volg uittreksels uit haar navorsing:
Geboorde klippe is volop in Suid-Afrika en word oor ‘n groot deel van Afrika suid van die Sahara aangetref. Die meeste is oppervlak vondse, maar sommige is opgegrawe uit Pleistoseen-Steentydperk-afsettings wat dateer uit tussen ongeveer 11 000 en 45 000 jaar gelede. Ander word gevind in verband met laat Holoseen-Ystertydperk-boereberoepe en op sommige plekke is hulle gedurende historiese tye gebruik. Die verhoudings tussen mense en hierdie voorwerpe oorskry dus sosio-ekonomiese grense. Die klippe word meestal beskou as gewigte vir die grawe met stokke – maar sommige groepe in Afrika suid van die Sahara het ook ‘n rituele en simboliese verhoudings met die stokke gehad.
Hier ondersoek ek geboorde klippe in hul rituele en spirituele kontekste en steun grootliks op historiese verslae. Ek verskaf ook ‘n opsomming van argeologiese bevindings om die moontlike tyddiepte van sulke verhoudings te demonstreer:
In Suider-Afrika word klippe met mensgemaakte gate deur hul middelpunt ‘Ikwe-klippe’ in die /Xam San-taal (’n jagter-versamelaarsgroep van die Nama-Karoo, Suid-Afrika) of geboorde klippe in die algemeen genoem . Argeoloë assosieer hierdie artefakte dikwels met grawestokke (bv. Goodwin 1947, Mazel en Parkington 1981). Onder die San, wat verskillende groepe Suider-Afrikaanse jagter-versamelaars/voedselsoekers of hul afstammelinge verteenwoordig, staan geboorde klippe ook bekend as ‘sterklippe’ (Bleek 1875).
In die San oorvertellings “folklore”, verteenwoordig die sterre van die suidelike hemelruim mitiese persoonlikhede of wesens (Bleek 1875, Bleek en Lloyd 1911). Onder beide die /Xam en /Kung San (laasgenoemde is ‘n jagter-versamelaarsgroep wat nou meestal aan die westelike rand van die Kalahari-woestyn in noordelike Namibië, suidelike Angola en noordwestelike Botswana woon). Hulle glo dat vallende sterre geassosieer word met ‘n persoon se dood, waar, volgens /Xam-oorlewering, die ‘hart’ na die skepper in die lug gaan, maar die ‘spook’ gaan na ‘die groot gat’ ondergronds. Sekere sterre is mense van die vroeë ras’ of die antieke voorouers en skeppers van alle wesens (Bleek 1935, Marshall 1962 en Solomon 1997). Moderne San beskou hulself as verbind aan hul voorouers op baie verskillende maniere en al die deelnemers aan ‘n onlangse studie het aangedui dat sterre en stories oor die sterre belangrike elemente in so ‘n voorvaderlike verbintenis is (Binneman en Davis 2020). Sjamane of ‘towenaars’, wat genesings- of transdanse van die San lei, word beskou as ‘sterwend’ wanneer hulle diep toestande van veranderde bewussyn bereik.
Dia!kwain van die /Xam San het gesê dat in die San-vertellings, verteenwoordig die sterre van die suidelike hemelruim mitiese persoonlikhede of wesens (Bleek 1875; Bleek en Lloyd 1911). Onder beide die /Xam en !Kung San (laasgenoemde is ‘n jagter-versamelaarsgroep wat nou meestal aan die westelike rand van die Kalahari-woestyn in Noord-Namibië, Suid-Angola en Noordwes-Botswana woon), word vallende sterre geassosieer met ‘n persoon se dood. Waar, volgens /Xam-oorlewering die ‘hart’ na die skepper in die lug gaan, maar die ‘spook’ gaan na ‘die groot gat’ (ondergronds) en sekere sterre is ‘mense van die vroeë ras’ of die antieke voorouers en skeppers van alle wesens (Bleek 1935; Marshall 1962; Solomon 1997).
Moderne San beskou hulself as verbind aan hul voorouers op baie verskillende maniere, en al die deelnemers aan ‘n onlangse studie het aangedui dat sterre en stories oor die sterre belangrike elemente in so ‘n voorvaderlike verbintenis is – (Binneman en Davis 2020). Dia!kwain van die /Xam San het gesê dat: ‘‘Wanneer ’n towenaar sterf, kom sy hart in die lug uit en word ’n ster. Sy hart voel dat hy nie meer leef nie; daarom word sy liggaam daar, waarin hy geleef het, ’n ster, want dit voel asof hy vroeër ’n towenaar was. Daarom maak sy magie ’n ster, om sy liggaam waarin hy gewoon het, te laat rondloop. Want ’n towenaar sien dinge wat ons, wat nie towenaars is nie, nie sien nie. Dan skiet (val) ’n ster, want ’n towenaar wat tussen dinge rondgegaan het wat liggame is, het werklik gesterf. Sy towery skiet, want sy geeste het liggame. Daarom werk hulle toorkuns “magic’’ (Bleek 1935:24–26).
Die drie klippe links is Ikwe-klippe van Suid-Afrika wat hul grootte demonstreer. Die twee regs is van Tanzanië versamel. Al hierdie klippe word tans by die Universiteit van Kaapstad, Suid-Afrika, bewaar.
Foto: Marlize Lombard.
Vir my bydrae tot hierdie spesiale bundel oor ‘Voorvaderlike Stene’ en die herverbeelding van menslike verhoudings met klippe, ondersoek ek die verband tussen mense van sub-Sahara Afrika, geboorde klippe (sterstene) en die voorvaderlike geesteryke wat óf in die hemele bo óf in die grond onder kan wees. Hierdie artikel gaan nie daaroor om die moontlike alledaagse funksies van sommige geboorde klippe te betwis nie, soos om as gewigte vir grawestokke gebruik te word, maar om die reeks spirituele en rituele verhoudings wat verskillende Afrika-groepe met hierdie voorwerpe deur tyd en oor ruimte gehad het/gehad het, uit te lig. Ek begin met historiese verslae oor waar sommige groepe dink die klippe vandaan kom. Dan fokus ek op ‘n paar gedetailleerde rekords oor hoe die klippe in hul verskillende ‘voorvaderlike’ kontekste gebruik is. Laastens verskaf ek ‘n lys van gedateerde geboorde klippe uit argeologiese opgrawings, wat die diep oorsprong van die klippe demonstreer, wat ek spekuleer kan dui op kontinuïteit van die simboliese en/of spirituele verhoudings tussen mense en geboorde klippe in sub-Sahara Afrika. (Ek het nie die lys waarna sy verwys ingesluit nie – dit is te groot om hier in te pas).
Waar Kom Geboorde Klippe Vandaan?
In Junie 2002, terwyl ons ‘n rotsgraverings-terrein opgeneem het (van der Ryst et al. 2004), het ons die Tswana-sprekende dorpie Makwate in suidoos-Botswana besoek. Hier het ons mnr. Willem Bafidile, die dorpshoof, ontmoet wat oor die gebied en sy mense gepraat het. Geboorde klippe word gereeld in die dorpie en die landskap rondom Makwate waargeneem, en ons het Willem gevra of hy iemand ken wat hierdie klippe gemaak het. Sonder aarseling het hy geantwoord dat hulle nie deur mense vervaardig is nie, maar deur Modimo (god), lank gelede toe die rotse nog sag was. Volgens Tswana-mondelinge tradisie het Matsieng, ‘n eenbeen-reus wat die dienaar van die skepper Lowe was, uit ‘n watergat in die aarde te voorskyn gekom toe dit nog sag en nat was, gevolg deur sy diere en al die verskillende menslike stamme (Kirby 1940, Breutz 1952 en 1953 en Walker 1997). Toe ons mnr. Bafidile vra waarvoor die geboorde klippe gebruik word, het hy na die dorp se begraafplaas gedraai en vir ons gesê dat beide mans en vroue die klippe gebruik om oor die grafte van die voorouers te kyk om in die geesteswêreld te sien (Lombard et al. 2003:5). Hy het toe voorgestel dat hulle die plaaslike geneser of Ngaka, mnr. Dinyalo Lathang, besoek om meer te wete te kom.
By sy huis het Dinyalo vir ons vertel dat geboorde klippe deur die plaaslike inwoners as ‘Lentswe la Badimo’ bekend gestaan het, wat vertaal word as ‘klip van die voorouers’. Hy het Willem se vertelling bevestig dat Modimo die klippe gemaak het, maar volgens hom is dit deur die voorouers gebruik wat deur die gat gekyk het om te sien wat die mense in die dorp doen. Soms sou ‘n voorouer per ongeluk ‘n klip uit die hemel laat val en daarom kan hulle in die veld gevind word (Lombard et al. 2003).
Gerald: Nou wonder ek of dit is waar my klip vandaan gekom het – uit die lug geval?
Soortgelyke verslae is bekend van verder noord: byvoorbeeld, Sharpe (1901) skryf oor geboorde klippe van Tanzanië naby die suidpunt van die Tanganjikameer waar mense die klippe in die grond gevind het. Hulle weet nie waar hulle vandaan kom of wie hulle gemaak het nie, maar verwys na hulle as “miala ya rmlunga”, d.w.s. ‘klippe van god’ of bonatuurlike klippe.
Kaart van streke in Afrika suid van die Sahara, waar daar rekords is van geboorde klippe wat as voorvaderlik beskou word en in simboliese of rituele kontekste gebruik word.
Die opsomming toon dat mense van wat vandag Botswana, Ethiopië, Malawi, Somalië, Suid-Afrika, Tanzanië en Uganda is, ten minste sedert die 1800’s geboorde klippe op die een of ander manier as voorvaderlik beskou het en het hulle gebruik in geritualiseerde gedrag wat met die spirituele realm geassosieer word. Uit my eie ervaring, terwyl ek na Willem en Dinyalo (Lombard et al. 2003) geluister het, het die geboorde klippe ‘n tweerigting-kanalisering tussen die mense van die dorp en die spirituele wêreld vergemaklik. ‘n Patryspoort waardeur lewende mense ‘in die geesteswêreld kon sien’ en waardeur die voorouers na die mense kon kyk. Die SothoTswana-sprekende mense van Suider-Afrika is landbou-veeboere wie se voorouers minder as 2000 jaar gelede uit Wes-Afrika in die gebied aangekom het (bv. Choudhury et al. 2021 en Fortes-Lima et al. in druk). Die vraag is dus of hulle hul sienings oor geboorde klippe saamgebring het of hul idees verkry het van die plaaslike jagter-versamelaarbevolkings wat hulle teëgekom het en wat ‘n genetiese voorouer van meer as 300 000 jaar in Afrika suid van die Sahara het (Schlebusch et al. 2017, 2020).
Die ‘Moeder’ (soos sy genoem was), het my vertel dat die geesmense diegene was wat wildtowenaars was. Toe hulle gesterf het, het hul gedagtes, waarmee hulle towenaars was en tower bewerk het, voortgeduur. Alhoewel hulle gesterf het en ons hulle nie gesien het nie, het hulle steeds met het hul towerdade hier rondgegaan. Hul magiese dade is soos ‘n persoon wat altyd leef, hulle sterf nie – dus leef hy steeds in sy towery. Daarom het die ‘Moeder’ vertel dat sy by haar towenaars sou smeek wat wild besit het; wanneer sy die grond (met ‘n ronde of geboorde klip) geslaan het, dan het sy met hulle gepraat. Di Moeder het hulle nie gesien nie, maar sy het met hulle gepraat, want Moeder was seker dat hulle haar sou hoor. Want hulle was towenaars, hulle het dinge deur hul towery geweet, dit was wat hulle bewerk het. Daarom het Moeder dit gedoen, sy het die grond geslaan, sy het die towenaars vir wild gesmeek en toe sy die klip neerslaan, het sy gesê:
‘O my geesmense, dink julle nie meer aan my nie? Dit lyk asof jy jou rug op my gedraai het, dat jy nie meer dink soos jy vroeër gedink het toe jy nog liggame gehad het nie; jy het gepraat asof jy my werklik liefgehad het, maar dit lyk asof jy jou gedagtes van my af weggeneem het deur te sterf. Want jy gee nie altyd vir my man iets wat hy vir my kan slag sodat ek daarvan kan eet nie – dit lyk asof jy gesterf het’.
‘Aangehaal uit Hollmann (2004:286–292; oorspronklike notaboekverwysing L.IV.3: 3701–3737):’
Die Ou Vrou het haar grawestok met klip, (!kwe in oorspronklike transkripsie) in die aarde gesteek, sy het by die verkleurmannetjie (een van reën se dinge) gesmeek, en die verkleurmannetjie het na haar gekyk. Sy het vir die verkleurmannetjie gesê dat haar kinders dors is, hulle kon nie water kry nie, die verkleurmannetjie moes haar mense water gee, sodat hulle kon lewe, want haar kinders kon nie kos kry nie. Die verkleurmannetjie het na die grond gekyk en nadat hy na die grond gekyk het, het dit na die lug opgekyk en geweet dat die reën sou val. Die verkleurmannetjie het dan na die kinders gekyk (om te sien of die Ou Vrou waarlik oor hulle gepraat het) en toe weer na die Ou Vrou gekyk – die klein kindertjies het gelag, want hulle was bly.
Bo: ‘n Gepoleerde ronde klip, ‘n geboorde klip en ‘n falliese klip van Vrouenspan naby Rooiputs in die suidelike Kalahari (Noord-Kaap, Suid-Afrika), in die gebied waar Hoff (2011) haar navorsing gedoen het. Die artefakte word tans by die McGregor Museum, Kimberley, Suid-Afrika, bewaar.
Foto Marlize Lombard
Navorsing oor geverfde beelde uit die Suid-Afrikaanse Laat Steentydperk dui daarop dat teriantropiese sjamane (d.w.s. individue met mitologiese vermoë of aandoening om deur middel van vorm-verskuiwing, in diere of hibriede te verander) soms geassosieer word met geboorde klippe en met visse as ‘n metafoor vir hul vermoë om ‘n diep veranderde bewussynstoestand te betree wat as ‘onder water reis’ beskou kan word (Lewis-Williams 1984). Wadley (1997) interpreteer dus die vis in die geboorde klip wat saam met die Oakhurst-begrafnis gevind is as simbolies van die beswymings ervaring. Onder beide die /Xam en Ju/’hoansi San (laasgenoemde verteenwoordig ‘n jagter-versamelaarsgroep uit die Kalahari-woestyn op die grens tussen Namibië en Botswana) word ‘n beswymings-sjamaan (‘n spirituele praktisyn wat ‘n veranderde bewussynstoestand betree) beskou asof hy dieselfde dood ‘sterf’ as diegene wat begrawe word (Katz 1982; Hollmann 2004). Tydens die ‘trance-dood’ verlaat sjamaan-siele hul liggame – en hul harte word sterre (Bleek 1935) – en reis om god en/of die geeste van die dooies te ontmoet om vir die groep se welstand by hulle te smeek (Katz 1982). Watergate staan sentraal in baie Suider-Afrikaanse jagter-versamelaarsmites wat verband hou met die ‘reise’ van ‘n sjamaan. In sommige van hierdie mites verteenwoordig dit die patryspoort waardeur die sjamaan uit die horisontale, alledaagse as kan ontsnap en in die vertikale as van die geeste wat bo of onder woon, kan inbreek (Lombard 2002). Daar is gedink dat /Xam- reënspesialiste ‘n waterbron binnegaan om met ‘waterdinge’ te werk (Hoff 2011). Terwyl ons dalk nooit sal weet in watter mate hierdie wêreldbeskouings van toepassing was op die man wat by Oakhurst-skuiling begrawe is nie, lyk die verband tussen geboorde klippe, die dooies en hul geestelike bestaan duidelik.
Afgesien van die sentrale reënwoude, is Afrika suid van die Sahara bekend vir sy sikliese droogtes. Reënmaak en reënmaakspesialiste is dus sentraal tot die meeste van die sosio-ekonomieë en rituele aktiwiteite van die streek. Gedurende so ‘ droogte, sou ‘n vrou haar grawestok met ‘n !kwe of stersteen, gebruik om met die verkleurmannetjie van die onderwêreld te skakel in ‘n pleidooi vir reën. Volgens sommige /Xam-informante kon die reën se dinge (wesens wat met reënmaak of reënbeheer assosieer) soos die verkleurmannetjie en die waterslang ook begrawe word om reën te verkry (Hoff 2011).
Daar is gedink dat hierdie wesens ligte of sterre (in hierdie geval gesimboliseer deur ‘n natuurlike diamant of rotskristal) op hul voorkoppe het, wat die waarsêende eienskappe van sterre en water verteenwoordig om rond te beweeg en alles te ‘sien’ – op dieselfde manier as wat towenaars of sjamane doen wanneer hulle simbolies sterf en sterre word wat dinge sien wat ander nie sien nie (Bleek 1935). Die /Xam het die sterre dikwels met water verbind (Hoff 2011), sodat sterstene of geboorde stene moontlik ‘n rol in reënmaak gespeel het, soos geïmpliseer in die kamee van die vrou wat haar stok met ‘n geboorde stersteen gebruik om met ‘n reëndier te skakel. Die band van /Xam-vroue met die kragtige, oertoestande van die natuur kan ‘n rede wees waarom hulle as beter reënspesialiste as mans beskou is, en waarom hulle meestal diegene was wat die ‘watermense’ gekontak het deur die grond met geboorde en/of ander ronde klippe te slaan (Hoff 2011, Figuur 4 Bo). Terwyl droogteperiodes vir jagter-versamelaars soos die /Xam San toegang tot drinkwater en die oorvloed veldkos en wild om te jag, beïnvloed het, is die impak erger op agripastoralistiese ekonomieë.
Van die vroegste verslae van geboorde klippe wat met reënmaak en reënmakergrafte geassosieer word, is geskryf oor Bari-sprekende groepe in Suid-Soedan en Uganda (Seligman en Seligman 1928). Hier is verwag dat die reënmakerseremonies allerhande voorspoed vir die mense sou bring, nie net reën nie. Om sulke hoë verwagtinge te vervul, moes reënmakers die reënstene korrek manipuleer. Deur dit te doen, sou hul appèlle die steun en mag van hul voorouers verkry. Die Seligmans (1928) beskryf seremonies waar die reënstene gewas, in ‘n hol slypsteen geplaas en met olie gesmeer word. ‘n Swart bok word naby geslag (en soms word die klippe met die vet en maaginhoud van die offerande gesmeer) en geëet – ‘en die reën kom’ (Seligman en Seligman 1928:464). Indien die reën nie gekom het nie, sou die seremonie na die graf van ‘n voorvaderlike reënmaker verskuif.
Reënmakers is ook die belangrikste ritueelspesialiste onder die Soedanese Lugbara-groepe (Middleton 1973). Hulle beheer reën deur voorwerpe te manipuleer wat in ‘n pot gehou word wat in die middel van ‘n ‘reënbos’ begrawe is, tussen hul velde en plaasgrond. Hierdie bos verteenwoordig die ‘middelpunt van die wêreld’ waar wesens wat met ‘goddelikheid’ geassosieer word, woon, en wat slegs ‘n reënmaker mag binnegaan. Die voorwerpe in die reënpotte wissel tussen die reënmakers, maar die meeste van hulle sluit reënstene in, manlik (fallies van vorm) en vroulik (rond en deurboor). Middleton (1963:306) skryf dat ”Al hierdie voorwerpe verteenwoordig baie fasette van basiese ervaring – te doen met hemel en aarde en die essensiële aard van mense. Saam verteenwoordig hulle die totaliteit van menslike ervaring. Reënmakers beheer vrugbaarheid en dood deur werklike manipulasie van hierdie voorwerpe”.
Dart (1948) rapporteer oor die gebruik van koniese (manlike) en geboorde (vroulike) klippe onder die Wagogo van Tanzanië. Gevorm as nabootsings van die manlike en vroulike geslagsorgane (maar sien Derricourt 2009), word hulle gebruik in ‘n reeks seremonies rondom reën, suiwering en inisiasie. Sommige reënmaakhoofde het meer as ‘n honderd reënstene, ander slegs een of twee, wat variasie in voorvaderlike fortuin verteenwoordig. Een keer per jaar is dit die Mtemi (hoof) se voorreg om die klippe in sy smeking om reën te gebruik. Dart (1948:63) trek parallelle met ‘n Suid-Afrikaanse reënmaakseremonie wat die gebruik van geboorde klippe behels.
Aangesien die reën hier nie altyd betroubaar is nie, moet die reënmaker ‘n seremonie uitvoer waarin hy ‘n sekere medisyne self in ‘n huis voorberei terwyl die mense van die dorp bymekaarkom om gebede tot die voorouers te rig. Sodra die medisyne voorberei en die gebed gedoen is, beweeg hulle na die erf van die reënmaker se senior vrou. In die middel van haar erf word ‘n gat gegrawe, en ‘n geboorde klip word oor die gat in die grond geplaas. Die reënmaker gooi dan van die medisyne deur die klip in die grond, waarna jong meisies of seuns (wat nog nie puberteit bereik het nie) gekies word om die oorblywende medisyne rondom die grense van die dorp te sprinkel.
Geboorde Klippe, Vrugbaarheidsrituele en Drankoffers in wat nou KwaZulu-Natal, Suid-Afrika is, het Berglund (1972:579–582) ‘n ou vrou gesien wat saad voorberei om in ‘n mielieland geplant te word sonder om te weet dat sy waargeneem is. Sy verslag lui soos volg:
‘Sy was besig om die saad voor te berei terwyl haar seun, die manlike senior van ‘n plaashuis, voorberei het om die land te ploeg wat geplant moes word. Die voorval het op ‘n Saterdagoggend plaasgevind nadat goeie lentereën geval het. Op ‘n afgesonderde plek, versteek deur bosse en lang droë gras en laag op die helling van die land wat bewerk moes word, nie baie ver van ‘n waterstroom af nie, het die vrou, omtrent vyf-en-sestig jaar oud (moontlik ouer), grond uitgeskraap om ‘n klein holte in die grond te vorm. Sy het die gat bedek en ‘n plastiekseil daaroor geplaas. ‘n Seun is geroep uit ‘n groep herdersjongmense wat ‘n entjie weg gespeel het. Hy is gestuur om ‘n klip te gaan haal wat die vrou gesê het op ‘n sekere plek in die nabygeleë stroom gevind kon word. Die seun het teruggekeer met ‘n geboorde klip, druipnat.
Die vrou het die klip van die seun ontvang en hom ‘n blikdeksel gegee en hom opdrag gegee om water uit die stroom daarin te gaan haal. Die seun het teruggekeer met die deksel amper vol water en versigtig geloop om nie te mors nie. Toe sy die deksel met water ontvang het, het die ou dame ongeveer die helfte van die inhoud agter haarself uitgegooi (blykbaar was daar te veel water in die deksel), die deksel in die gat op die plastiek geplaas nadat sy ‘n mondvol water daaruit geneem het, en die geboorde klip oor die deksel geplaas. Uit haar klere het sy ‘n bruin papierpakkie met ‘n poeiermedisyne, ongeveer ‘n teelepel vol, gehaal wat sy in haar linkerhand gegooi het en toe in die mond geneem en dit met die water gemeng soos ‘n mens sou doen wanneer jy jou tande spoel na borsel. Uit ‘n mandjie met saad wat geplant moes word, het sy ‘n handvol in haar regterhand geneem en die saad in die gat van die geboorde klip laat loop en saam met water in die deksel geval.
Nadat sy haar hand leeggemaak het, het sy oor die gat gebuk en medisyne in die gat geblaas. Dit is drie keer herhaal, met die derde handvol mieliesaad wat die gat in die geboorde klip gevul het. Hierdie keer het sy die oorblywende medisyne en water in haar mond uitgeblaas. Sy het die klip van sy posisie opgelig en die seun weer geroep en hom opdrag gegee om die klip terug te plaas op sy plek in die plaashuis. Die blikkie se deksel is van sy posisie opgelig en die mielies daarin met medisyne en water is in die mandjie met mieliesaad leeggemaak. Versigtig het sy die plastiekvel in die vier hoeke opgelig en die saad en water wat oorgeloop het, in die mandjie gegooi. Daarna het sy die saad in die mandjie met haar regterhand gemeng, die linkerhand het die mandjie in posisie gehou. Sy het die mandjie opgelig en voorberei om te begin plant. Die gat in die grond is onbedek gelaat, die plastiek en die bruinpapierpakkie terug in ‘n sak (vermoedelik) in haar klere gesit.
Uit die bespreking met die waarsêer (by eThelezini) het die volgende na vore gekom: Soms word geen medisyne gebruik nie, maar die water word as noodsaaklik beskou. Die waarsêer het nie geweet of die water altyd deur die mond in die gat in die klip uitgeblaas word nie, maar hy het gedink dit sou die geval wees – “dis die manier met medisyne”. Sonder aarseling het hy die water in die blikdeksel met die water van die baarmoeder geassosieer en gesê: “Waar kom kinders vandaan as nie van water nie? So dit is die water van kinders.” Op die vraag of daar enige simboliek in die gat in die veld was, het my informant, na ‘n bietjie aarseling, gesê dat die veld “die moeder is van wie ons eet,” wat daarop dui dat dit vroulik is. Hy was baie eksplisiet dat die ritueel slegs deur ‘n ou vrou gedoen kon word. Aan die ander kant het hy ook daarop aangedring dat geen man dit kon doen nie – “mans saai nie. Hulle slag die diere wanneer daar vleis moet wees, ”maar hulle saai nie.’’ Toe hy gevra is of kinders dit kon doen, het hy gesê dat kinders nie weet “hoe om hierdie ding te doen nie,” wat duidelik dui op seksuele simboliek. Hy was ewe oortuig dat ’n swanger Nant-vrou dit ook nie kon dit nie doen nie “omdat sy warm is van water en bloed (menstruele bloed of semen).” Aan die ander kant, ‘n vrou wat nie menstrueer nie en nie swanger is nie, het hy gedink, kon dit ook doen.
Argeologiese oorblyfsels van sulke praktyke kan verteenwoordig word deur ‘n geboorde klip wat onder ‘n slypsteen by ‘n huisingang gevind is wat op Melora Hilltop in die Limpopo-provinsie, Suid-Afrika, opgegrawe is (Lombard en Parsons 2003). Goodwin (1947) het voorgestel dat landbou-veeboere van Suider-Afrika waarskynlik die geboorde klippe van die San nageboots het as gevolg van veelvlakkige kontak en onderlinge huwelike, en dat hulle die artefakte na sodanige kontak voortgesit het.
Nie ver van Melora Hilltop nie, by Rooisloot naby Mokopane, het mnr. Sidney Maga inligting verskaf oor die rituele gebruike van geboorde klippe onder die Bantoe-sprekers van die streek. Hier het elke lelapa (huishouding) so ‘n klip besit en rituele gebruike het die heiliging van saad, oesfeesofferandes, beskerming vir die huishouding en die behandeling van kwale ingesluit (Dart 1948). Nie net is sade geheilig deur deur die gat in ‘n klip te gaan nie, maar die klippe het ook ‘n rol gespeel in eerstevrugte-rituele waar ‘groen kos’ nie geëet word voordat die voorouers bedank is nie. Graan sou gekook word, die familie sou bymekaargemaak word en van die kos sou aan die voorouers geoffer word deur dit deur die gat in die klip te gooi, wat vroeër in die grond ingebed was met die gat na bo (Dart 1948).
Dart (1948) berig ook dat bier-drankoffers deur die gate van geboorde klippe in Suid-Afrika gemaak is onder die Sotho-Tswana-sprekers van die streek waar die meeste huishoudings so ‘n klip het wat ‘n geëerde voorouer verteenwoordig wat as navolgenswaardig beskou word. Die inwoners van die lelapa (huishouding) sou om hulp en seëninge van hierdie voorouer vra deur drankoffers aan die klip te bied. Hulle sou rondom die plek sit waar die klip ingebed is, die gat na bo, en die hoof of bewaarder van die lapa sou die bieroffer deur die gat van die klip lei. Dit is ook gedoen wanneer nuwe bier gebrou is. Voordat enige daarvan verbruik kon word, is dit gesif, en ‘n bietjie is in die gat gegooi uit ‘n doopkalbas. Daar word gesê dat hulle deur dit te doen, die gode geraadpleeg het. Selfs deesdae word hierdie gebruik steeds beoefen, maar diegene wat dit doen, het ‘n plant genaamd Lehwvama stewig in die grond geplant (Dart 1948:65).
Slotbespreking: Die tema van hierdie spesiale volume fokus op ‘voorvaderlike klippe’ en ‘n herverbeelding van menslike verhoudings met klip vanaf die Paleolitikum tot die hede. Met hierdie bydrae het ek gepoog om historiese verslae te versamel van die verskillende simboliese, rituele en spirituele verhoudings wat verskillende groepe mense van regoor Afrika suid van die Sahara met geboorde klippe gehad het/het. Alhoewel die besonderhede mag verskil, toon die data dat sulke verhoudings op die subkontinent bestaan/bestaan het in jagter-versamelaar-, pastorale-, landbou- en historiese kontekste. Al die simboliese funksies impliseer dat die klippe gedien het as voorstelling van, of kanaal na, die spirituele wêreld van die gode en voorouers wat geassosieer word met die verskillende groepe wat die klippe in geritualiseerde omgewings gebruik het. Hierdie verhoudings kan dus dien as ontologie, of ‘n stel konsepte binne ‘n wêreldbeskouing suid van die Sahara met betrekking tot geboorde klippe – bo en behalwe enige praktiese gebruike wat hulle vir die onderskeie groepe kon gedien het (Ouzman 1997; Lombard 2003).
Argeoloë mag sukkel om die simboliese toepassing van oënskynlik alledaagse voorwerpe soos grawestokke te “opgrawe”. Deur historiese insigte te oorweeg, kan ons egter ‘n mate van begrip kry oor vorige mens-klip-verhoudings. Sulke insigte toon dat boerderygemeenskappe regoor Afrika suid van die Sahara, ver van passiewe selfvervaardigde huishoudelike voorwerpe te wees, geboorde klippe beskou het as gemaak deur God of die voorouers en aktiewe kanale waardeur beroep op die voorouers gedoen kon word. Hierdie gemeenskappe het die geboorde klippe gebruik, nie net vir reënmaak, om die vrugbaarheid van die grond of eerstelinge-offerandes te verseker nie, maar ook tydens situasies van dringende nood soos droogte, epidemiese siektes of oorweldigende plae. Dikwels word die geboorde klippe beskou as die vroulike eweknie van stelle rituele klippe wat koniese of falliese klippe kan insluit wat die manlike aspek verteenwoordig in ‘n wêreldbeskouing oor geslag en vrugbaarheid wat menslike voortplanting oortref, wat hoofsaaklik geboorde klippe saam met hul dooies begrawe het, erken egter San-jagter-versamelaars as die makers van geboorde klippe (Maingard 1932; Engelbrecht 1936; Ouzman 2005).
2. “Bored Stones and a Stone Ring” and “The Digging Stick”
deur die antropoloog Ansie Hoff
Hier volg uittreksels uit haar navorsing:
Geboorde klippe word wyd verteenwoordig in Suider-Afrika, veral met betrekking tot die Laat Steentydperk (LSA) materiële kultuur, wat oor die afgelope 12 000 jaar en waarskynlik die afgelope 21 000 jaar vervaardig is (Ouzman 1997:74 en ook Lombard 2002:17).
Volgens hulle is huidige waarneming, dat die geboorde klippe ‘n ‘ hoogs belangrike eerder as ‘n eenvoudige item in LSA litiese kultuur is (pre-historiese menslike samelewings gedefinieer deur hul afhanklikheid van klipwerktuigtegnologie). Voedselsoekers en landbouers het tot in historiese tye voortgegaan om klipartefakte te maak (Ouzman 1997:74).
Die /Xam was onder die groepe wat geboorde klippe gebruik het. Alhoewel sommige navorsers geglo het dat die /Xam uitgesterf het, het ek reeds in 1976, toe ek met antropologiese navorsing oor die Khoesan begin het, besef dat sommige van die informante van /Xam-afkoms was. Alhoewel laasgenoemde se kultuur in die voorafgaande eeue aansienlike veranderinge ondergaan het (vgl. Kent 1996:16) en die groeporganisasie lank gelede verbrokkel het, kon baie inligting steeds verkry word van /Xam-afstammelinge wat steeds in Boesmanland en die Bo-Karoo woon (Hoff 2007:7).
Die doel van hierdie artikel is om by te dra tot die bestaande data oor geboorde klippe wat deur navorsers soos Goodwin, Ouzman en Lombard versamel is. Die inligting is meestal van die San en afstammelinge van die San versamel. Wat die verwysing na Macdonald betref, ten minste tot die 1940’s, was Macdonald in kontak met die Kalahari San, terwyl my informante (kennishouers of kennisbewaarders) afstammelinge van die /Xam San was.
Die !Kwe of /San, (dikwels geskryf met die “!” of “/” om die tandklik-klank in Khoisan-tale voor te stel) is veel meer as ‘n tegniese term; dit dra die gewig van die geestelike wêreld . Sover ek kon vasstel, is Macdonald se data nie voorheen ingesluit in spesifieke studies oor geboorde klippe nie.
Verskeie van my informante, het die gebruik van groter geboorde klippe as gewigte op grawestokke aangedui. Dit stem ooreen met gepubliseerde etnografiese data en rotskuns rakende sommige eksemplare van die mediumgrootte, sferiese tipe geboorde klip (Bleek 1956:7, 361, Ouzman 1997:71-105 en Lombard 2002:17). Volgens Bleek kon ‘n grawestok deur ‘n geboorde klip gesteek word (Bleek 1956:94, 335) – Dunn in Robinson 1978:53.
My informante het aangedui dat ‘n grawestok ‘n stok kan wees wat ‘n groot knop, dikker as ‘n persoon se duim’ op die stok gehad het om te verhoed dat die klip uitglip (vgl. Dunn in Robinson 1978:19). Soms was dit gepunt met ‘n horing (vgl. Bleek & Lloyd 1911:361) soos dié van ‘n springbok, (Dunn in Robinson 1978:53) of, volgens die informant van die Richtersveld, ‘n gemsbokhoring (vgl. Bleek & Lloyd 1911:361). Dit kan ook ‘n stuk yster wees, in welke geval die grawestok ook na verwys word as ‘n ‘graafyster’. Die term ‘yster’ beteken nie noodwendig dat dit van yster gemaak is nie, maar dat dit so sterk soos yster was.
Om die stok te verhard, is dit in warm as getemper en dan met gemsbok vet gesmeer. Die informant van die Richtersveld het dit soos volg gestel: ‘’n Tak is van ’n boom afgekap, onder warm as gebak en met gemsbokvet gesmeer wat die soos harde yster gemaak’ het.
Afhangende van die werk en die grond, kon ’n grawestok gebruik word om te grawe vir water en voedsel in die vorm van knolle soos kambro (Fockea comaru), bolle soos wilde uie of uintjies en die larwes van termiete en om agter diere aan te grawe (vgl. Ouzman 1997:79, 80). Verder is dit gebruik om vir medisinale wortels te grawe en om gate te grawe vir die oprigting van ’n matjieshuis – ’n huis gemaak van “restio” (‘n meerjarige rietagtige plant) en om grafte te grawe (vgl. Dunn in Robinson 1978:56) ens. Volgens Macdonald (1943:29) is ’n geboorde klip nie in die Kalahari gebruik om vir uintjies te grawe nie.
Nege informante het genoem dat ‘n geboorde klip gebruik is om pylpunte te slyp. Volgens een is hierdie inligting deur sy oupa aan hom gegee. Twee informante het verduidelik dat die klip met die voete vasgehou en gedraai is. Ongelukkig kon hulle nie die metode aandui nie. Die informante het gesê dat pylpunte van yster, dikwels draad, gemaak is, wat geslyp is wanneer dit vervaardig is en weer wanneer dit stomp geraak het en geslyp moes word. Volgens een informant is ‘n geboorde klip met ‘n taps toelopende opening vir hierdie doel gebruik.
Drie informante het gesê dat ‘n oop vuur in die opening van ‘n geboorde klip gemaak kon word. Droë materiaal en ‘n stok is in die middel van die gat geplaas. Die droë materiaal is aangesteek deur die stok vinnig tussen die hande te vryf sodat die wrywing ‘n vonk veroorsaak. In meer onlangse tye is ‘n tondeldoos gebruik (vgl. Macdonald 1943:29, 30 en Cornelissen 1981:3). Volgens Macdonald is die klip slegs halfpad deurgeboor. Dit is saam met ‘n ronde, langwerpige klip van ongeveer die dikte van boerewors en 230 mm tot 260 mm lank gebruik. Die een punt is in die tondel gedruk terwyl die ander tussen die hande gevryf is totdat rook uit die gat gekom het. In die 1980’s het ‘n boer ‘n geboorde klip naby Loxton gevind met ‘n langwerpige klip wat regop geplaas was. Afgesien van die assosiasie met vuur, kon die regop klip ‘n boorder gewees het.
Twee informante het geboorde klippe genoem in verband met die onttrekking van vog uit geofiete (inheemse plante wat harde weersomstandighede kan weerstaan), soos kalmoes of Avorus calamus (Nortje 2011:80), ‘n medisinale plant en uintjies. Een geboorde klip is bo-op ‘n ander geplaas en die boonste klip is met die hand heen en weer geswaai. Daarna is die plantmateriaal wat as medisyne of voedsel gebruik sou word, in die son gedroog en dan gemaal met behulp van slypstene, bestaande uit ‘n ronde klip wat op ‘n plat klip geplaas is.
’n Geboorde klip kan ook gebruik word om medisyne te maal of plantvoedsel soos uintjies en koring – laasgenoemde is deur die Europese setlaars bekendgestel. Vier metodes is genoem: Eerstens is ‘n geboorde klip met ‘n stok deur die gat heen en weer gerol deur die stok met jou hande aan beide kante van die klip vas te hou en dan vorentoe en agtertoe te rol op ‘n plat klip. Een informant van Sutherland en drie van Vanwyksvlei het hierdie metode ook genoem. Iemand in die Wodehouse-distrik, Oos-Kaap, het Ouzman (1997:85) in 1995 van dieselfde metode vertel.
Tweedens, ‘n geboorde klip sonder ‘n stok daardeur kon gebruik word om iets mee skerp te maak deur jou vingers deur die gat te steek en die klip vorentoe en agtertoe te skuif – soos met n slypsteen. ‘n Informant het hierdie metode in 1993 aan my gedemonstreer deur haar eie geboorde klip te gebruik. Uit die vaardige manier waarop sy dit gedoen het, was dit duidelik dat hierdie metode aan haar welbekend was. Die voortdurende gebruik van die geboorde klip op hierdie manier het daartoe gelei dat een gedeelte van die omtrek al tot ‘n plat oppervlak geslyp is – sien foto hieronder.
Derdens, volgens twee informante, kon ‘n geboorde klip as ‘n vysel gebruik word. ‘n Stok wat as ‘n stamper dien, is gebruik om materiaal soos stukkies wilde ui wat in die opening geplaas is, te stamp en te maal. Die geboorde klip sou op ‘n plat klip vasgehou word.
Laastens het drie informante beweer dat koring of uintjies tot meel gemaal kon word deur twee geboorde klippe op mekaar te stapel en ‘n stok vertikaal deur die twee gate te steek. Koringkorrels word dan in die boonste gat gegooi terwyl die boonste klip al in die rondte gedraai word – die meel is in water gekook om pap te maak. Volgens ‘n informant het haar oumagrootjie se ma geboorde klippe op hierdie manier gebruik, wat impliseer dat dit ‘n ou gebruik was. Sy was onwrikbaar dat dit nie die handmeul of ‘gatskuur’ was wat deur Europeërs, Basters en Nama gebruik is nie (vgl. Van der Waal-Braaksma 1986:101 en Van Niekerk 1987:19). Daar was beraminge dat die twee klippe in hoogte verskil en dat die onderste klip nie deur geboor is nie.
Nog ‘n metode om rou kos voor te berei, was deur dit te vergruis. Vier informante het verwys na die voorbereiding van stampkoring (gebreekte koring). ‘n Gat is in die grond gemaak en met een of ander ‘n vel uitgevoer. Koring is in die gat geplaas en dan met ‘n ronde klip gestamp. ‘n Informant van Sutherland het bygevoeg dat ‘n klip gebruik kan word deur ‘n tou daaraan vas te maak en dit herhaaldelik op sade te laat bons (vgl. Lombard 2002:18). Een persoon het gesê dat hierdie metode gebruik is vir sade met taai doppe. Die informant van Sutherland het ook aangedui dat hierdie metode gebruik is vir die vergruising van wilde rog of Secale strictum subsp. africanum (Pretorius 2015:94-98) wat in die gebied gevind word.
Enige klip, insluitend ‘n geboorde klip, kon in ‘n vuur geplaas word en dan in ‘n pot water om die water te verhit (vgl. Ouzman 1979:90) – dink aan ‘n houer wat jy nie direk op ‘n oop vuur kon warm maak nie. Twee skrywers het die gebruik van geboorde klippe vir die vervaardiging van volstruiseierdop-krale genoem – (Macdonald 1943:28, 29 en Cornelissen 1985a: 27 en Cornelissen 1985b:129). Drie van my informante het dit bevestig, maar kon nie die presiese metode beskryf nie. CF Macdonald (1943:28, 29) was egter teenwoordig toe ‘n groep ‘Kalahari’-Boesmans verskeie klipgereedskap gebruik het.
Volgens hom het ou vroue geboorde klippe gebruik om krale van volstruiseierdoppe te maak. Twee ronde klippe, min of meer so groot soos ‘n volstruiseier, is in die proses gebruik. ‘n Gat is in elke klip gemaak; in die een was dit omtrent so groot soos ‘n sjieling of groter, terwyl die gat in die ander klip van die grootte van ‘n sjieling tot die deursnee wat vir die krale benodig is, taps geword het. Stukkies volstruiseierdop is geperforeer met ‘n stuk gereedskap gemaak van ‘n geslypte dieretand wat aan ‘n houthandvatsel vasgemaak is. Deur middel van hierdie klein gaatjies is die stukkies eierdop met seningaredraad (gemaak van dieresening) in ‘n stywe tou van ongeveer 300 mm tot 380 mm lank geryg. ‘n Ou vrou het op die grond gesit en die geboorde klip met die sjieling-grootte gat tussen haar voete gehou, die tou deur die gat gesteek en elke punt in ‘n hand geneem, die tou heen en weer deur die gat getrek totdat die eierdopstukke rond en ewe groot was. Hierna is die krale afgewerk deur die opening van die taps geboorde klip, geslyp te word.
Een van my informante het aangedui dat die deursnee van die gat in ‘n geboorde klip met gebruik vergroot het as gevolg van slytasie.
Soms is ‘n klein klipring gebruik wanneer met ‘n pyl geskiet word, maar blykbaar slegs wanneer ‘n groot boog gebruik is, alhoewel, afgesien van Macdonald s’n, kon ek geen verwysing vind na groot boë wat deur die San gebruik is nie (Schapera 1930:128 en Speth 2010:90–93). Manhire et al (1985:167, 170–171) het gespekuleer dat groter boë, naamlik volledige teruggeboë, moontlik deur die San gebruik is soos aangedui in rotskuns.
Kerneels Prins, ‘n Nama wat in 2003 op Kenhardt gewoon het, het onthou dat hy die volgende inligting van die destydse oorlede Koos Nam, ‘n ‘Boesman’ van die omgewing, verkry het. Kerneels het ook gesien hoe ‘n tipe ring deur ‘Boesmans’ in die Kalahari gebruik word, waar dit van ‘klip van die Aob en Nossob’ gemaak is. Drie ander informante het die gebruik van sulke ringe in Boesmanland bevestig. Laastens is daar ‘n ring in die versameling van ‘n vrou wat dit in haar agterplaas by Williston gevind het.
Die klip ring is gebruik wanneer jagters grootwild met groot boë wou doodmaak. Die binnediameter van die gat was dieselfde as die buitenste diameter van die pyl en dit sou dus styf om die pyl se skag pas en in posisie bly. Die ring is op die voorste gedeelte van die pyl, agter die pylpunt geplaas. Die doel was om gewig en momentum aan die pyl te gee sodat dit die taai vel van die groter diere soos gemsbok, blouwildebees, koedoe of leeu sou binnedring. Die jagter het ‘n sit-lê posisie ingeneem terwyl hy die boog met sy voete vasgetrap, vashou. Hy sou die tousnaar styf trek met een hand terwyl hy die pyl met die ander hand vashou. Die pyl is geplaas om na die teiken te wys, die agterkant van die pyl het teen die boogsnaar gerus en die pylpunt met die klikring het op die boog gerus – by die boogskutter se tone. Wanneer die pyl die teiken tref, het die pylpunt met die ring die teiken binnegedring terwyl die pylskag self losgekom het. Die vleis rondom die ring is dan uitgesny.
Die /Xam het geboorde klippe in ‘n aantal toepassings gebruik, waarvan baie deur mikroskopie bevestig kan word – sommige van die gebruike mag sekondêr wees. Die vorm en deursnee van die gate, sowel as die gewig en dikte van die klippe, was belangrike faktore. Dikwels het die gebruiker se voete ‘n belangrike instrument gespeel in die gebruik van ‘n geboorde klip. Die informante het funksies genoem wat blykbaar voorheen onbekend was, soos die verwerking van voedsel, die onttrekking van vog, die vervaardiging van krale en in die geval van ‘n pylring, die gewig aan ‘n pyl gee om momentum te verkry.
Volgens informante is geboorde klippe met taps toelopende gate gebruik vir die slyp van pylpunte en die vorming van krale van volstruiseierdoppies. Verder is twee plat geboorde klippe bo-op mekaar vir slyp gebruik. Gepubliseerde inligting (bv. Dunn in Robinson 1978: 54, Du Pisani 1967:154, Hoff 1981:40, Jacobson 2016:185–186, Nic Eoin 2016:36–45, Paterson 1789: 17, Peter 2008:11, Schultze 1907:200 en Wikar (1935: 59). Dit bevestig my informante se inligting dat nie net geofiete soos uintjies en kambro tot meel gemaal is nie, maar ook die sade van sekere grasse (bv. Aristida en koring), sowel as die sade van ander plante soos rabas (Monsonia umbellato) –
(‘n Geofiet is ‘n meerjarige plant wat ongunstige seisoene soos koue, droogte of hitte oorleef deur ondergrondse bergingsorgane te gebruik – soos bolle, knolle, wortelstokke of risome – wat meerjarige knoppe bevat – Gerald).
Daar was voorstelle dat, benewens ‘n plat en ‘n ronde klip, of ‘n enkele geboorde klip, twee gestapelde geboorde klippe gebruik is vir die maal van sade – faktore soos die grootte en hoogte van die klippe was belangrik.
Die /Xam het in ‘n onderwêreld geglo (Hoff 2011a:79–85). Ek het voorheen vasgestel dat, byvoorbeeld grafte, sowel as die hantering van grafte met grawestokke, of die grawe na sekere voedsel- en medisinale wortels of bolle, met die onderwêreld verbind was (Hoff2011a:51,56, 79 en Hoff 2011b:4), en dat oker in verband met grafte gebruik is (Wadley 1996:114; Hoff 2011a:51).
(Oker is ‘n aardse pigment wat ysteroksied bevat, tipies met klei, wat wissel van liggeel tot bruin of rooi – Gerald)
Sommige data dui daarop dat spesifieke geboorde klippe moontlik ‘n verband met die onderwêreld gehad het (Hoff 2011a:51, 56 en Hoff 2011b:44). Moontlik kon die onderwêreld-verbintenis ook van toepassing gewees het op die handeling van grawe na water (vgl. Alexander 1838:125). Geboorde klippe of grawestokke kan verband aandui met grawe van ‘n graf en dus die onderwêreld (vgl. Rudner 1982:235 en Ouzman 1997:89). My informante (Hoff 2011a:58), sowel as dié van Bleek (1935 (9):35–43), het aangedui dat geeste opgeroep kon word deur die grond met ‘n klip te slaan, geboord of ongeboord. ‘n Geboorde klip of ‘n grawestok kon in ‘n graf geplaas word om die verbintenis met die dood te beëindig (vgl. Hoff 1990:270, 273, 280, 281, 297).
Laastens impliseer die gebruik van ‘n klikring, die gebruik van groter boë en pyle. Die gebruik van groter boë bevestig voorstelle gepubliseer deur Manhire (1985:167, 170–171) oor groot boë wat in rotskuns uitgebeeld word.
Hierdie klippe word as nasionale erfenisvoorwerpe in Suid-Afrika beskou. Omdat hulle so nou verbind is aan die geestelike wêreld en voorvaderlike afstammelinge, is hulle meer as net argeologiese vondste; hulle word beskou as “lewende” skakels na die mense.
Gerald: Ek het nou sommer baie meer respek vir my klip wat al so lank eenkant gelê het, sonder dat ek uitgevind het wat sy storie is.
Bronne:
Argeologiese Departement van Universiteit Kaapstad – UCT.
Argeologiese Departement van die Nasionale Museum in Kaapstad.
English Version
My bored !Kwe stone
Compiled by Gerald Batt
Above is a photo of such a bored stone in my possession
My !kwe Boesmanklip
For generations, people in South Africa have spoken of a so-called “Boesmanklip” – the rounded stones with the neatly drilled holes in the centre that are still found today on farms, in riverbeds and on mountain slopes. Over the years, these mysterious objects have given rise to numerous stories, assumptions and explanations about their origin and use. Some see them as simple tools of a bygone existence; others connect them with rituals, hunting, survival and even spiritual significance. Although the name “Boesmanklip” is deeply rooted in the vernacular, each stone probably tells a much larger story of people who lived with patience, ingenuity and a close connection to nature. This story attempts to unravel something of that world and the mystery of the drilled stones.
Years ago, my late father found a stone in the field on our farm in the Agterveld, Koo one day and brought it home – see photo above. No one was bothered much about the stone and the stone just lay there on the stoep.
In those days it was of course very difficult to have research done on the stone, because there was no internet with all its various branches and intelligence platforms like today. The Cape Museum was also very far away and the stone just continued to live its peaceful life on the farm.
When my parents sold the farm and moved to Montagu, I luckily took the stone with me. Something in me just told me not to leave the stone there.
Well, today, after more than seventy-five years or more since Dad found the stone, I would like to breathe some life into the old stone. For as long as I can remember, the stone has always been there and my mother never wanted to get rid of the stone. Maybe she knew there had to be a deeper history behind the stone. I have no idea when my father found the stone and was also not interested, but today I want to know what the stone’s story is.
I communicated with the Archaeological Departments at UCT and the Cape National Museum and sent them photos. They were very interested and sent documents that tell about these stones and how they were used.
The following information comes directly from:
1. “Bored Stones, Star Stones & Ancestral Stones”: A Sub-Saharan Perspective of the Ritualised Relationship between Humans and Bored Stones, by Marlize Lombaard.
2. “Bored Stones and a Stone Ring” and “The Digging Stick” – ISSN 1013-7521 of August 2017 by Ansie Hoff.
“In their Studies about ‘bored stones’, the two researchers identify the !kwe stone as a multifunctional tool of survival and spirituality.
1. Bored Stones, Star Stones and Ancestral Stones: A Sub-Saharan Perspective of the Ritualised Relationship Between Humans and Perforated Stones
by anthropologist Marlize Lombaard
Here are excerpts from her research:
Bored stones are prolific in South Africa and are found across much of sub-Saharan Africa. Most are surface finds, but some have been excavated from Pleistocene Stone Age deposits dating from between about 11,000 and 45,000 years ago. Others are found in association with late Holocene Iron Age farming occupations and in some places they were used during historical times. The relationships between people and these objects therefore transcend socio-economic boundaries. The stones are most often seen as weights for digging with sticks – but some groups in sub-Saharan Africa also had ritual and symbolic relationships with the sticks. Here I examine bored stones in their ritual and spiritual contexts, drawing heavily on historical accounts. I also provide a summary of archaeological findings to demonstrate the possible temporal depth of such relationships.
Introduction
In southern Africa, stones with human-made holes or perforations through their centre are referred to as !kwe stones in the /Xam San language (a hunter-gatherer group from the Nama Karoo, South Africa) or bored stones in general. Archaeologists often associate these artefacts with weighted digging sticks (e.g. Goodwin 1947; Mazel and Parkington 1981). Amongst the San, who represent different groups of southern African hunter-gatherers/foragers or their descendants, bored stones are also known as ‘star stones’ (Bleek 1875). In San folklore, the stars of the southern skies represent mythical personalities or creatures (Bleek 1875; Bleek and Lloyd 1911). Amongst both the /Xam and !Kung San (the latter is a hunter-gatherer group now living mostly on the western edge of the Kalahari Desert in northern Namibia, southern Angola, and north-western Botswana), falling stars are associated with a person’s death, wherein according to /Xam lore the ‘heart’ goes to the creator in the sky, but the ‘ghost’ goes to ‘the great hole’ (underground), and certain stars are ‘people of the early race’ or the ancient ancestors and creators of all beings (Bleek 1935; Marshall 1962; Solomon 1997). Modern San perceive themselves as connected to their ancestors in many different ways, and all the participants in a recent study indicated that stars and stories about the stars are important elements in such ancestral connection (Binneman and Davis 2020). Shamans or sorcerers, who lead healing or trance dances of the San, are thought of as ‘dying’ when they reach deep states of altered consciousness.
Dia!kwain of the /Xam San said that: ‘‘When a sorceror [sic] dies, his heart comes out in the sky and becomes a star. His heart feels that he is no longer alive; therefore his body there, in which he was alive, becomes a star there, because it feels that he used to be a sorceror. Therefore his magic makes a star, in order to let his body in which he lived walk about. For a sorceror sees things which we, who are not sorcerors, do not see. […] Then a star shoots (falls), for a sorceror who has gone about among things which are bodies has really died. His sorcery is shooting, because his spirits have got bodies. Therefore they work magic’’ (Bleek 1935:24–26).
The three stones on the left are Ikwe stones from South Africa, demonstrating their size. The two on the right were collected from Tanzania. All of these stones are currently housed at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Photo: Marlize Lombard.
For my contribution to this special volume on ‘Ancestral Stones’ and the reimagining of human relationships with stones, I explore the connection between people of sub-Saharan Africa, bored stones (star stones) and the ancestral spiritual realms that may be either in the heavens above or in the ground below.
This article is not about disputing the possible mundane functions of some bored stones, such as being used as weights for digging sticks, but rather about highlighting the range of spiritual and ritual relationships that different African groups have had with these objects through time and space. I begin with historical accounts of where some groups think the stones came from. Then I focus on some detailed records of how the stones were used in their various ‘ancestral’ contexts. Finally, I provide a list of dated bored stones from archaeological excavations, demonstrating the deep origins of the stones, which I speculate may indicate continuity of the symbolic and/or spiritual relationships between people and bored stones in sub-Saharan Africa.
The list has not been included in the extract please use link at the end of this section to access complete research paper if you require more information
Where Do Bored Stones Come From?
In June 2002, while recording a rock carving site (van der Ryst et al. 2004), we visited the Tswana-speaking village of Makwate in south eastern Botswana. Here we met Mr. Willem Bafidile, the village chief, who spoke about the area and its people. Bored stones are frequently observed in the village and the landscape around Makwate, and we asked Willem if he knew anyone who had made these stones. Without hesitation, he replied that they were not made by humans, but by Modimo (god), long ago when the rocks were still soft. According to Tswana oral tradition, Matsieng, a one-legged giant who was the servant of the creator Lowe, emerged from a water hole in the earth when it was still soft and wet, followed by his animals and all the different human tribes (Kirby 1940, Breutz 1952 and 1953 and Walker 1997). When we met Mr. Willem Bafidile and asked what the bored stones were used for, he turned to the village cemetery and told us that both men and women use the stones to look over the graves of their ancestors to see into the spirit world (Lombard et al. 2003:5). He then suggested that they visit the local healer or Ngaka, Mr. Dinyalo Lathang, to learn more.
At his home, Dinyalo told us that bored stones were known by the locals as ‘Lentswe la Badimo’, which translates as ‘stone of the ancestors’. He confirmed Willem’s account that Modimo made the stones, but according to him they were used by the ancestors who looked through the hole to see what the people in the village were doing. Sometimes an ancestor would accidentally drop a stone from the sky and that is why they can be found in the field (Lombard et al. 2003).
Gerald: Now I wonder if that’s where my stone came from – fell from the sky?
Similar accounts are known from further north: for example, Sharpe (1901) writes of bored stones from Tanzania near the southern tip of Lake Tanganyika where people found the stones in the ground. They do not know where they came from or who made them, but refer to them as “miala ya rmlunga”, i.e. ‘stones of god’ or supernatural stones.
Regions in sub-Saharan Africa where there are records of bored stones considered ancestral and used in symbolic or ritual contexts.
My research shows that at least since the 1800’s people from what is today Botswana, Ethiopia, Malawi, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda have perceived bored stones to be ancestral in some way since at least the 1800s and have used them in ritualized behaviours associated with the spiritual realm. In my own experience, while listening to Willem and Dinyalo (Lombard et al. 2003), the bored stones facilitated a two-way channelling between the people of the village and the spirit world. A porthole through which living people could ‘see into the spirit world’ and through which the ancestors could look upon the people. The Sotho-Tswana-speaking people of southern Africa are agro-pastoralists whose ancestors arrived in the area from West Africa less than 2000 years ago (e.g. Choudhury et al. 2021 and Fortes-Lima et al. in press). The question is therefore whether they brought their views on bored stones with them or acquired their ideas from the local hunter-gatherer populations they encountered and who have a genetic ancestry of more than 300,000 years in sub-Saharan Africa (Schlebusch et al. 2017, 2020).
Quoted from Hollmann (2004:256–258; original notebook reference L.V. II: 4801 rev.-4809 rev.).
Mother used to tell me that the spirit people were those who had been game sorcerors. When they died their thoughts, with which they had been sorcerors and worked magic, continued, though they died and we did not see them; still their magic doings went about here. Their magic doings are like a person who always lives, they do not die; thus he still lives in his sorcery. Therefore mother used to tell me that she would beg from her sorcerors who had owned game; when she beat the ground [with a round or bored stone], then she spoke to them. Mother did not see them, yet she talked with them for mother felt sure that they would hear her. […] For they had been sorcerors, they had known things by their sorcery, this it was which they worked. Therefore mother used to do this, she beat the ground, she begged the sorcerors for game; as she struck down the stone she said. ‘O my spirit people, do you no longer think of me? It seems as though you have turned your backs on me, that you do not seem to think as you used to do, at the time when you still had bodies; you used to talk as if you really loved me, but it seems as if you had in dying taken your thoughts away from me. For you do not always give my husband some old thing that he can kill for me, that I may eat of it […] It seems as if you have died taking away your thoughts which used to be favourable to me’.
‘Quoted from Hollmann (2004:286–292; original notebook reference L.IV.3: 3701–3737).’
The Old Woman stuck her digging-stick [with stone, !kwe: in original transcription] (into the earth), she begged from the Chameleon [one of rain’s things], and the Chameleon looked towards her. She told the Chameleon that her children were thirsty, they could not find water, the Chameleon should give her people water, that they might live, for her children could not find food. And the Chameleon looked at the ground, and when it looked at the ground, it looked up to the sky, it knew that the rain would fall, and it looked at the children (to see if the Old Woman spoke truly about them), then it looked towards the Old Woman. And the little children laughed, because they rejoiced. And the old woman took out her digging stick (from the ground).
Above: A polished round stone, a bored stone and a phallic stone from Vrouenspan near Rooiputs in the southern Kalahari (Northern Cape, South Africa), in the area where Hoff (2011) conducted her research. The artefacts are currently held at the McGregor Museum, Kimberley, South Africa.
Photo: Marlize Lombard
Research on painted images from the South African Later Stone Age suggests that therianthropic shamans (i.e. individuals with mythological ability or affliction to morph into animals or hybrids by means of shapeshifting) are sometimes associated with bored stones, and with fish as a metaphor for their ability to enter a deep altered state of consciousness that may be perceived as ‘traveling under water’ (Lewis-Williams 1984). Wadley (1997) therefore interprets the fish in the bored stone found with the Oakhurst burial as symbolling the trance experience. Amongst both the /Xam and Ju/’hoansi San (the latter representing a hunter-gatherer group from the Kalahari Desert on the boundary between Namibia and Botswana) a trancing shaman is thought of as ‘dying’ the same death as those who are buried (Katz 1982; Hollmann 2004). During the ‘trance death’ shaman souls leave their bodies—and their hearts become stars (Bleek 1935)—travelling to meet god and/or the spirits of the dead to beseech of them the group’s wellbeing (Katz 1982). Water holes are central to many southern African hunter gatherer myths relating to the ‘travels’ of a shaman. In some of these myths, it represents the porthole through which the shaman can escape from the horizontal, mundane axis and break into the vertical axis of the spirits that dwell above or below (Lombard 2002). /Xam rain specialists were thought to enter a water source to work with ‘water things’ (Hoff 2011). Whilst we may never know to which extent these worldviews applied to the man who was buried at Oakhurst Shelter, the connection between bored stones, the dead, and their spiritual existence seems patent.
Bored Stones: Rainstones
Apart from the central rainforests, sub-Saharan Africa is known for its cyclical droughts. Rainmaking and rainmaking specialists are therefore central to most of the socio-economic and ritual activities of the region. During such a drought, a woman would use her digging stick with a !kwe or star stone to connect with the chameleon of the underworld in a plea for rain. According to some /Xam informants, rain things (creatures associated with rainmaking or rain control) such as the chameleon and the water snake could also be buried to obtain rain (Hoff 2011).
These beings were thought to have lights or stars (in this case symbolized by a natural diamond or rock crystal) on their foreheads, representing the divination properties of stars and water to move around and ‘see’ everything – in the same way that sorcerers or shamans do when they symbolically die and become stars that see things that others do not (Bleek 1935). The /Xam often associated the stars with water (Hoff 2011), so star stones or bored stones may have played a role in rainmaking, as implied in the cameo of the woman using her staff with a bored star stone to communicate with a rain animal. The connection of /Xam women to the powerful, primal forces of nature may be a reason why they were considered better rain specialists than men, and why they were most often the ones who contacted the ‘water people’ by striking the ground with bored and/or other round stones (Hoff 2011). While drought periods affected access to drinking water and the abundance of veld food and game for hunting for hunter-gatherers like the /Xam San, the impact is more severe on agripastoralist economies.
Some of the earliest accounts of bored stones associated with rainmaking and rainmaker graves were written about Bari-speaking groups in Southern Sudan and Uganda (Seligman and Seligman 1928). Here the rainmakers’ ceremonies were expected to bring all kinds of prosperity to the people, not rain only. To fulfil such high expectations, rainmakers needed to manipulate the rainstones correctly. By doing so, their appeals would gain the support and power of their ancestors. The Seligmans (1928) describe ceremonies wherein the rainstones are washed, placed in a hollow grinding stone, and smeared with oil. A black goat is slaughtered close by (and sometimes the stones are smeared with the fat and stomach-contents of the sacrifice) and eaten—‘and the rain comes’ (Seligman and Seligman Bored Stones–Star Stones–Ancestral Stones… 1928:464). If the rain did not come, the ceremony would move to an ancestral rainmaker’s grave.
Rainmakers are also the most important ritual specialists amongst the Sudanese Lugbara groups (Middleton 1973). They control rain by manipulating objects kept in a pot buried in the middle of a ‘rain grove’, set amongst their fields and farmlands. This grove represents the ‘centre of the world’ where creatures associated with ‘divinity’ dwell, and which only a rainmaker may enter. The objects in the rain pots vary amongst the rainmakers, but most of them include rainstones, male (phallic in shape) and female (round and pierced). Middleton (1963:306) writes that ‘‘All these objects represent many facets of basic experience—to do with heaven and earth and the essential nature of human beings […] together they represent the totality of human experience. Rainmakers control fertility and death by actual manipulation of these objects’’.
Dart (1948) reports on the use of conical (male) and bored (female) stones amongst the Wagogo of Tanzania. Shaped as imitations of the male and female sex organs (but see Derricourt 2009), they are used in a range of ceremonies around rain, purification and initiation. Some rainmaking chiefs have more than a hundred rainstones, others only one or two, representing variation in ancestral fortune. Once a year it is the Mtemi’s (chief’s) prerogative to use the stones in his supplication for rain. Dart (1948:63) draws parallels to a South African rainmaking ceremony involving the use of bored stones. Since the rains are not always dependable here, the rainmaker must perform a ceremony wherein he prepares ‘a certain medicine by himself in a house’ whilst the people of the village come together to offer prayers to the ancestors. Once the medicine is prepared and the praying done, they move to the yard of the rainmaker’s senior wife. In the middle of her yard a hole is dug, and a bored stone is placed over the hole in the ground. The rainmaker then pours some of the medicine through the stone into the ground after which young girls or boys (not having reached puberty) are chosen to sprinkle the remaining medicine around the boundaries of the village.
Bored Stones, Fertility Rites and Libations
In what is now KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, Berglund (1972:579–582) witnessed an old woman preparing seed to be planted in a maize-field without knowing that she was observed. His record goes as follows:
She was preparing the seed while her son, the male senior of a homestead, was preparing to plough the field that was to be planted. The incident took place on a Saturday morning after good spring rains had fallen. In a secluded spot, hidden from sight by bushes and tall dry grass and low down on the slope of the field to be tilled, not very far from a stream of water, the woman, about sixty-five years old (possibly more) had scraped out earth to form a small hollow in the field. […] Covering the hole, she placed a plastic sheet over it […] A boy was called from a group of herding youngsters, playing a short distance away. He was sent to fetch a stone which the woman said was to be found in a certain place in the stream nearby. The boy returned with a bored stone, dripping wet. The woman received the stone from the boy and gave him a billy-can lid, instructing him to fetch water from the stream in it […] The boy returned with the lid nearly full of water and walking carefully so as not to spill any. On receiving the lid with water, the old lady poured about half of the contents out behind herself (apparently there was too much water in the lid), placed the lid in the hole on the plastic after she had taken a mouthful of water from it, and placed the bored stone over the lid. From her clothing she produced a brown paper packet containing a powdered medicine, about a teaspoon full, which she poured into her left hand and then took into the mouth and mixed it with the water as one would do when rinsing one’s teeth after brushing. From a basket containing seed which was to be planted she took a handful in the right hand and let the seeds run into the hole of the bored stone, falling into the lid with water. Having emptied her hand, she bent down over the hole and blew some medicine into the hole. This was repeated three times, the third handful of maize seed filling the hole in the bored stone. On this occasion she blew out the remaining medicine and water in her mouth. She lifted the stone from its position and called for the boy again, instructing him to return the stone to its place in the homestead. The billy-can lid was lifted from its position and the maize in it with medicine and water was emptied into the basket with maize seed. Carefully she lifted the plastic sheet in the four corners and poured the seeds and water which had run over into the basket. Thereafter she mixed the seed in the basket with her right hand, the left holding the basket in position. […] She lifted the basket, and prepared to commence planting. The hole in the ground was left uncovered, the plastic and the brown paper packet returned to a pocket (presumably) in her clothing. […]
From the discussion with the diviner [at eThelezini] the following emerged:
Sometimes no medicines are used. But the water is regarded as essential. The diviner did not know whether the water always is blown out by way of the mouth into the hole in the stone, but he thought that would be the case. ‘‘That is the way with medicines.’’ Without hesitation he associated the water in the billycan lid with the water of the womb and said: ‘‘From where do children come if not from water? So this is the water of children.’’ Asked whether there was any symbolism in the hole constructed in the field, my informant, after some hesitation, said that the field is ‘‘the mother from whom we eat,’’ suggesting that it is female. He was quite explicit that the ritual could only be done by an old woman. On the other hand, he also insisted that no male could do it. ‘‘Men do not sow. They slaughter the animals when there is to be meat. But they do not sow.’’ Asked whether children could do it, he said that children do not know ‘‘how to do this thing,’’ clearly indicating sexual symbolism. He was equally convinced that a pregnant woman could not do it ‘‘because she is hot with water and blood (menstrual blood and semen).’’ On the other hand, a woman who was not menstruating and not pregnant he thought could also do it.
Archaeological remains of such practices could be represented by a bored stone found beneath a grinding stone at a house entrance excavated on Melora Hilltop in the Limpopo Province, South Africa (Lombard and Parsons 2003). Goodwin (1947) suggested that agri-pastoralists of southern Africa probably imitated the bored stones of the San as a result of multileveled contact and inter-marriage, and that they continued using the artefacts after such contact. Not far from Melora Hilltop, at Rooisloot near Mokopane Mr. Sidney Maga provided information about the ritual uses of bored stones amongst the Bantu speakers of the region. Here, each lelapa (household) possessed such a stone and ritual uses included the sanctification of seed, harvest festival offerings, protection for the household and the treatment of ailments (Dart 1948). Not only were seeds sanctified by being passed through the hole in a stone, but the stones also played a role in first-fruit rituals wherein ‘green food’ is not eaten before the ancestors have been thanked. Grains would be boiled, the family gathered and some of the food offered to the ancestors by pouring it through the hole in the stone, which used to be embedded in the ground with the hole facing upwards (Dart 1948).
Dart (1948) also reports that beer libations were made through the holes of bored stones in South Africa amongst the Sotho-Tswana speakers of the region where most households have such a stone representing a revered ancestor who is deemed worthy of emulation. The inmates of the lapa (household) would ask for assistance and blessings from this ancestor by offering libations to the stone. They would sit around the spot where the stone is imbedded, the hole facing upwards, and the head or guardian of the lapa would lead the beer offering through the hole of the stone. This was also done when new beer was brewed. Before any of it could be consumed, it was strained, and some poured into the hole from a dipping calabash.
‘‘It is said that by so doing they were consulting the gods […] Even nowadays this custom is still practised, but those who do so imbed a plant called Lehwvama’’ (Dart 1948:65).
Concluding Discussion
The theme of this special volume centres around ‘ancestral stones’ and a reimagining of human relationships with stone from the Palaeolithic to the present. With this contribution I set out to collate historical accounts of the various symbolic, ritual, and spiritual relationships that different groups of people from across sub-Saharan Africa had/have with bored stones. Whilst the details may vary, the data show that such relationships exist/existed on the sub-continent in hunter-gatherer, pastoralist, agriculturalist, and historical contexts. All the symbolic functions imply that the stones served as representation of, or conduit into, the spiritual world of the gods and ancestors associated with the different groups that used the stones in ritualised settings. These relationships may thus serve as ontology, or a set of concepts within a sub-Saharan worldview pertaining to bored stones—over and above any practical uses they may have served for the respective groups (Ouzman 1997; Lombard 2003).
Archaeologists may battle to ‘excavate’ the symbolic application of seemingly mundane objects such as digging-stick weights. Through considering historical insights we may, however, gain some understanding about past human-stone relationships. Such insights show that far from being passive self-manufactured household objects, farming communities across sub-Saharan Africa viewed bored stones as made by god or the ancestors and active channels through which appeals to the ancestors could be made. These communities used the bored stones, not only for rainmaking, ensuring the fertility of the soil or first-fruit offerings, but also during situations of dire need such as drought, epidemic illness, or overwhelming plagues.
Often the bored stones are considered the feminine counterpart of sets of ritual stones that may include conical or phallic stones that represent the male aspect in a worldview about gender and fertility that transcends human procreation.
As Whitelaw (2017:104) describes, in southern Africa ‘‘the hunter-gatherer contribution to the agriculturist world was considerable, and ranged from genes to speech to healing to perceptions of the ancestors and other supernatural beings. The contribution occurred over a period of some 1600 years [in Kwazulu-Natal, and perhaps longer further north] although variation in the character of agriculturist communities suggests differences in the way it was incorporated during that time’’. Some groups such as the Mpondomise of the Eastern Cape, South Africa, used San rainmakers as specialists within their political system (Whitelaw 2017). It is also well known that most Bantu-speaking agriculturalists who arrived here did not make the bored stones themselves—instead the stones used in their ritual practices are perceived as made by god. Khoe or Korana herders who regularly buried bored stones with their dead, however, acknowledge San hunter-gatherers as the makers of bored stones (Maingard 1932; Engelbrecht 1936; Ouzman 2005).
To read complete article please use link below
2. “Bored Stones and a Stone Ring” and “The Digging Stick”
by anthropologist Ansie Hoff
Here are excerpts from her research:
Bored stones are represented widely in southern Africa, especially in relation to the Later Stone Age (LSA) material culture, which was manufactured over the last 12 000 years and probably the last 21 000 years (Ouzman 1997:74; Lombard 2002:17). Foragers and agriculturalists continued to make stone artefacts into historic times (Ouzman 1997:74). According to him, the current perception is that the bored stone is a ‘central’ rather than a ‘marginal’ item of LSA lithic culture. The /Xam were among the groups who used bored stones. Although some researchers believed that the /Xam had died out, I realised as early as 1976 when I began anthropological research on the Khoesan that some of the informants were of /Xam descent. Although the latter’s culture had undergone substantial changes in the preceding centuries (cf. Kent 1996:16) and the band organisation disintegrated long ago, much information could still be obtained from /Xam descendants still living in Bushmanland and the Upper Karoo (Hoff 2007:7).
The purpose of this article is to add to the existing data on bored stones collected by researchers such as Goodwin, Ouzman and Lombard. The information was collected mostly from San and descendants of the San. As far as the reference to Macdonald is concerned, at least until the 1940s Macdonald was in contact with the Kalahari San, while my informants were descendants of the /Xam San. As far as I could establish, Macdonald’s data was not included previously in specific studies on bored stones.
Gerald: The !Kwe or /San, (often written with the “!” or “/” to represent the tooth-click sound in Khoisan languages) is much more than a technical term; it carries the weight of the spiritual world.
Some larger bored stones
Several of my informants indicated the use of a larger bored stones as weights on digging sticks. This is in accordance with published ethnographical data and rock art regarding some specimens of the medium sized, spherical type of bored stone (Bleek 1956:7, 361 etc.; Ouzman 1997:71-105; Lombard 2002:17). According to Bleek, a digging stick could be used unweighted or stuck through a bored stone (Bleek 1956:94, 335; Dunn in Robinson 1978:53).
My informants indicated that a digging stick could be a stick (in which case a strong knob ‘as thick as a person’s thumb’ could be left on the stick to prevent the stone from slipping out) (cf. Dunn in Robinson, 1978:19), sometimes pointed with a horn (cf. Bleek & Lloyd 1911:361) such as that of a springbok (Dunn in Robinson 1978:53) or, according to the informant of the Richtersveld, a gemsbok horn (cf. Bleek & Lloyd 1911:361). It could also be a piece of iron in which case the digging stick is also referred to as a ‘graafyster’ (lit. digging iron). The term ‘iron’ does not necessarily mean that it was made of iron, but that it was as strong as iron.
Depending on the job and the soil, a weighted or unweighted digging stick could be used to dig for water and food in the form of tubers such as kambro (Fockea comaru), bulbs such as wild onions or uintjies1 and the larvae of termites, and for burrowing after animals (cf. Ouzman 1997:79, 80). Furthermore, it was used to dig for medicinal roots, and to dig holes for erecting a matjieshuis (a house made of restio) and graves (cf. Dunn in Robinson 1978:56), etc. According to Macdonald (1943:29), a bored stone was not used in the Kalahari to dig for uintjies.
Nine informants mentioned that a bored stone was used to sharpen arrowheads. According to one, this information was given to him by his grandfather. Two informants explained that the stone was held and turned with the feet. Unfortunately, they could not indicate the method. The informants said that arrowheads were made of iron, often wire, which was sharpened when manufactured and again when it needed sharpening. According to one informant a bored stone with a tapered opening was used for this purpose.
Three informants said that a fire could be made in the opening of a bored stone. Dry material with a stick inserted in the middle was placed in the hole. The dry material was ignited by rubbing the stick between the hands so that the friction caused a spark. In more recent times a tinderbox was used (cf. Macdonald 1943:29, 30; Cornelissen 1981:3). According to Macdonald, the stone was bored only half-way through. It was used in conjunction with a round, oblong stone roughly the thickness of boerewors and 230 mm to 260 mm in length. One end was thrust into the tinder while the other was rubbed between the hands until smoke emerged from the hole. In the 1980s a farmer found a bored stone near Loxton that had an oblong stone placed in an upright position. Apart from the association with fire, the upright stone may have been a borer.
Two informants mentioned bored stones in relation to the extraction of moisture from geophytes, such as kalmoes or Avorus calamus (Nortje 2011:80), a medicinal plant, and uintjies. One bored stone was placed on top of another and the upper stone was swung to and fro by hand. Thereafter the plant material to be used as medicine or food was dried in the sun and then ground by means of lower and upper grindstones consisting of a round stone (ronde klip) positioned on a flat one (plat klip).
A bored stone could also be used to grind medicine or plant food such as uintjies and wheat, the latter having been introduced by the European settlers. Four methods were mentioned. Firstly, a bored stone with a stick through the hole was rolled back and forth by placing one’s hands on the stick on both sides of the stone. One informant from Sutherland and three from Vanwyksvlei mentioned this method. Someone in the Wodehouse district, Eastern Cape, told Ouzman (1997:85) of the same method in 1995.
Second, a bored stone without a stick through it could be used for grinding by putting one’s fingers through the hole and pushing the stone forward and backward. An informant demonstrated this method to me in 1993, using her own bored stone, which at that stage also served as a doorstop. From the skilful way she used it, it was clear that this method was well known to her. The continual use of the bored stone in this way resulted in one section of the circumference being ground to a flat surface (Fig. 2).
Fig 2
Third, according to two informants, a bored stone could be used as a mortar. A stick serving as a pestle was used for stamping and grinding material such as pieces of wild onion placed in the opening. The bored stone would stand on a flat stone.
Finally, three informants claimed that wheat or uintjies could be ground to flour by stacking two bored stones, placing the substance between the stones and vertically inserting a tight-fitting stick though the two holes. The upper stone was then turned by swinging it to and fro. The flour was boiled in water to make porridge. According to an informant, her great grandmother’s mother used bored stones in this way, implying that it was an old custom. She was adamant that this was not the hand mill or gatskuur used by Europeans, Basters and Nama (cf. Van der Waal-Braaksma 1986:101; Van Niekerk 1987:19). There were suggestions that the two stones differed in height and that the bottom stone had not been bored.
Another method of preparing raw food was by crushing it. Four informants referred to the preparation of stampkoring (crushed wheat). A hole was made in the ground and lined with a skin. Wheat was placed in the hole and then stamped with a round stone. An informant from Sutherland added that a perforated stone could be used by attaching a string to it and repeatedly bouncing it on the seeds (cf. Lombard 2002:18). One person said that this method was used for seeds with tough husks. The informant from Sutherland also indicated this method was used for crushing wild rye or Secale strictum subsp. africanum (Pretorius 2015:94-98) found in the area. However, I could not obtain confirmation that wild rye was used by humans.
Any stone, including a bored stone, could be placed in a fire and then in a pot of water to heat the water (cf. Ouzman 1979:90). Two authors mentioned the use of bored stones for the manufacture of ostrich eggshell beads (Macdonald 1943:28, 29; Cornelissen 1985a: 27; Cornelissen 1985b:129). Three of my informants confirmed this, but could not describe the precise method. However, CF Macdonald (1943:28, 29) was present when a group of ‘Kalahari’ Bushmen used several stone implements.
According to him, old women used bored stones to make beads from ostrich eggshell. Two round stones more or less the size of an ostrich egg were used in the process. A hole was made in each stone; in the one it was about the size of a shilling or larger, while in the other stone the hole tapered from the size of a shilling to the diameter required for the beads. Pieces of ostrich eggshell were perforated by a tool made of a sharpened animal tooth fixed to a wooden handle. By means of these small holes the pieces of eggshell were threaded with seninggare (thread made of animal sinew) into a tightly packed string of about 300 mm to 380 mm long.
Sitting on the ground, an old woman held the bored stone with the shilling-sized hole between her feet, put the string through the hole and, taking each end in a hand, pulled the string to and fro through the hole until the eggshell pieces were round and of even size. Hereafter, the beads were finished off by being ground through the opening of the tapered bored stone.
One of my informants indicated that the diameter of the hole in a bored stone increased with use.
Occasionally, a small stone ring was used when shooting an arrow, but apparently only when a large bow was used, even though, apart from Macdonald’s, I could find no reference to large bows being used by the San (Schapera 1930:128; Speth 2010:90–93). Manhire et al. (1985:167, 170–171) speculated that larger bows, namely fully recurved bows, may have been used by the San, as indicated in rock art. However, Kerneels Prins, a Nama who lived at Kenhardt in 2003, recalled obtaining the following information from the then deceased Koos Nam, a ‘Bushman’ from the area. Kerneels had also seen this type of ring being used by ‘Bushmen’ in the Kalahari, where it was made of ‘stone from the Aob and Nossob’. Three other informants confirmed the use of such a ring in Bushmanland. Finally, I saw a stone ring in the collection of a woman who had found it in her backyard at Williston.
The stone ring was used when hunters wished to kill big game using large bows. The inside diameter of the ring was the same as the outer diameter of the arrow and it would therefore fit tightly around the shaft, staying in position. The ring was placed on the front section of the arrow, behind the head. The aim was to give weight and momentum to the arrow so that it would penetrate the taai vel (tough skin) 4 of the groot goed (large things) such as gemsbok, blue wildebeest, kudu or lion. The hunter took a recumbent position (sit-lê) while holding the bow with his feet (vasgetrap). He would pull the string tight with one hand while holding the arrow with the other. The arrow was placed to point towards the target, the back of the arrow rested against the bow-string and the arrow point with the stone ring rested on the bow, at the archer’s toes. When the arrow hit the target, the arrowhead with the ring entered the target while the shaft detached itself. The meat surrounding the ring was cut out.
The /Xam used bored stones in a number of applications, many of which may be confirmed by microscopy. Some of the uses may be secondary. The form and diameter of the openings, as well as the weight and thickness of the stones, were important factors. Often the operator’s feet played an important tool in using a bored stone. A flat stone without a hole may have been placed underneath a bored stone or stones. The informants mentioned functions that apparently have been unknown previously, such as the processing of food, the extraction of moisture, the manufacture of beads and, in the case of an arrow ring, giving weight to an arrow to obtain momentum. According to my informants, bored stones with tapered holes were used for the sharpening of arrow heads and the shaping of beads made of ostrich eggshell. Furthermore, two flat bored stones on top of each other may have been used for grinding. Published information (e.g. Dunn in Robinson 1978: 54; Du Pisani 1967:154; Hoff 1981:40; Jacobson 2016:185–186; Nic Eoin 2016:36–45; Paterson 1789: 17; Peter 2008:11; Schultze 1907:200; Wikar [1935]: 59) confirms my informants’ data that not only geophytes such as uintjies and kambro were ground to flour, but also the seeds of certain grasses (e.g. Aristida and wheat), as well as the seeds of other plants such as rabas (Monsonia umbellato).
(A geophyte is a perennial plant that survives adverse seasons such as cold, drought or heat by using underground storage organs – such as bulbs, tubers, rhizomes or rhizomes – that contain perennial buds – Gerald).
There were suggestions that, apart from a flat and a round stone, or a single bored stone, two stacked bored stones were used for the grinding of seeds, but factors such as the size and height of the stones would have been important.
The /Xam believed in an underworld (Hoff 2011a:79–85). I have established previously that, for example, graves, as well as the act of digging graves (with weighted or unweighted digging sticks), or the digging for certain food and medicinal roots or bulbs, were connected to the underworld (Hoff 2011a:51, 56, 79; Hoff 2011b:4), and that ochre was used in connection with graves (Wadley 1996:114; Hoff 2011a:51). Some data suggests that particular bored stones may have had a link with the underworld (Hoff 2011a:51, 56; Hoff 2011b:44).
(Ochre is an earthy pigment containing iron oxide, typically with clay, ranging from pale yellow to brown or red – Gerald)
Some data suggests that particular bored stones may have had a link with the underworld (Hoff 2011a:51, 56; Hoff 2011b:44). Possibly, the underworld connection may also have applied to the act of digging for water (cf. Alexander 1838:125).
Ochre on a bored stone or a digging stick may indicate a connection with a grave or with the act of digging a grave, and thus the underworld (cf. Rudner 1982:235; Ouzman 1997:89). My informants (Hoff 2011a:58), as well as those of Bleek (1935 (9):35–43), indicated that spirits could be called by hitting the ground with a stone, bored or unbored. A bored stone or a digging stick may have been placed in a grave to end the connection with death (cf. Hoff 1990:270, 273, 280, 281, 297).
Finally, the use of a stone ring implies larger bows and arrows. If a /Xam man wanted to kill big game, he weighted his arrow by means of a stone ring and took a recumbent position before shooting. The use of larger bows confirms suggestions published by Manhire et al. (1985:167, 170–171) about large bows portrayed in rock art.
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These stones are considered national heritage objects in South Africa. Because they are so closely connected to the spiritual world and ancestral lineages, they are more than just archaeological finds; they are considered “living” links to the people.
Gerald: I now have a lot more respect for my stone that has been lying aside for so long, without me finding out what its story is.
Sources:
Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town – UCT.
Department of Archaeology, National Museum, Cape Town.
