Frobenius, Leo: Prehistoric rock pictures in Europe and Africa: from material in the archives of the Research Institute for the Morphology of Civilization, Frankfort-on-Main (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1937)

haps it may be that they portray the peculiar formations of the granite
landscape or that the ones in which human figures occur reflect the
belief, more current in the Near East, that man was born out of the
rock or, in alluvial territories, was shaped in and of the earth. “I was
made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the
earth.” This ancient belief was not unknown to those cultures (Elam
and Sumeria) to which the old Southern Rhodesian culture is be-
lieved to be related. The natives call all these pictures “Madsimu
Dsangara”: “the apparitions of the spirits of the forgotten dead.”

SOUTH AFRICAN UNION

The rock pictures of the South African Union consist of both paintings
and engravings. The former are usually polychrome, often painted in
one layer over the other, and deal chiefly with hunting scenes but also
with animal-headed human beings dancing, in procession and in coun-
cil. The latter, which never occur where there are paintings, deal


Rock painting. Man with elephant
head. Basutoland, South African
Union (catalog no. 146)

Rock painting. Two costumed animal-
headed human figures. Orange Free
State, South African Union


49