Chapter XXIII: Section 4: Africa

The following examples are selected from the large number of petroglyphs known to have been discovered in Africa apart from those in Egypt, which are more immediately connected with the first use of syllabaries and alphabets, with symbolism and with gesture signs, under which headings some examples of the Egyptian hieroglyphics appear in this work.

ALGERIA.

In the Revue Géographique Internationale (_a_) is a communication upon the rock inscriptions at Tyout (Fig. 140) and Moghar (Fig. 141) translated, with some condensation, as follows:

On the last military expedition made in the Sahara Gen. Colonieu
made a careful restoration of the inscriptions on the rocks, whose
existence was discovered at Tyout and Moghar. At Tyout these
inscriptions are engraved on red or Vosgian sandstone, and at
Moghar on a hard compact calcareous stone. At Moghar the designs
are more complicated than those at Tyout. An attempt has been made
to render ideas by more learned processes; to the simplicity of the
line, the artlessness of the poses which are seen at Tyout, there
are added at Moghar academic attitudes difficult to render, and
which must be intended to represent some custom or ceremony in use
among the peoples who then inhabited this country. The costume at
Moghar is also more complicated. The ornaments of the head recall
those of Indians, and the woman’s dress is composed of a waist and
a short skirt fastened by a girdle with flowing ends. All this is
very decent and elegant for the period. The infant at the side is
swaddled. The large crouching figure is the face view of a man who
seems to be bearing his wife on his shoulders. At the right of this
group is a giraffe or large antelope. In the composition above may
be distinguished a solitary individual in a crouching attitude,
seen in front, the arms crossed in the attitude of prayer or
astonishment. The animals which figure in the designs at Moghar are
cattle and partridges. The little quadruped seated on its haunches
may be a gerboise (kind of rat), very common in these parts.

In the inscriptions at Tyout we easily recognize the elephant,
long since extinct in these regions, but neither horse nor camel is
seen, probably not having been yet imported into the Sahara country.

EGYPT.

While the picture-writings of Egypt are too voluminous for present discussion and fortunately are thoroughly presented in accessible publications, it seems necessary to mention the work of the late Mrs. A. B. Edwards (_a_). She gives a good account of the petroglyphs on the rocks bounding the ancient river bed of the Nile below Philæ, which show their employment in a manner similar to that in parts of North America:

These inscriptions, together with others found in the adjacent
quarries, range over a period of between three and four thousand
years, beginning with the early reigns of the ancient empire and
ending with the Ptolemies and Cæsars. Some are mere autographs.
Others run to a considerable length. Many are headed with figures
of gods and worshippers. These, however, are for the most part
mere graffiti, ill drawn and carelessly sculptured. The records
they illustrate are chiefly votive. The passer-by adores the gods
of the cataract, implores their protection, registers his name,
and states the object of his journey. The votaries are of various
ranks, periods, and nationalities; but the formula in most instances
is pretty much the same. Now it is a citizen of Thebes performing
the pilgrimage to Philæ, or a general at the head of his troops
returning from a foray in Ethiopia, or a tributary prince doing
homage to Rameses the Great and associating his suzerain with the
divinities of the place.

SOUTH AFRICA.

Dr. Richard Andree, in Zeichen bei den Naturvölkern (_a_), presents well-considered remarks, thus translated:

The Hottentots and the Bantu peoples of South Africa produce
no drawings, though the latter accomplish something in indifferent
sculptures. The draftsmen and painters of South Africa are the
Bushmen, who in this way, as well as by many other striking
ethnic traits, testify to their independent ethnic position. The
extraordinary multitude of figures of men and animals drawn by this
people within its whole area, now greatly reduced, from the cape at
the south to the lands and deserts north of the Orange river, and
which they still draw at this day in gaudy colors, testify to an
uncommonly firm hand, a keenly observing eye, and a very effective
characterization. The Bushman artist mostly selects the surfaces
of the countless rock bowlders, the walls of caves, or rock walls
protected by overhanging crags, to serve as the canvas whereon to
practice his art. He either painted his figures with colors or
chiseled them with a hard sharp stone on the rock wall, so that they
appear in intaglio. The number of these figures may be judged from
the fact that Fritsch at Hopetown found “thousands” of them, often
twenty or more on one block; Hubner, at “Gestoppte Fontein,” in
Transvaal, saw two hundred to three hundred together, carved in a
soft slate. The earth colors employed are red, ochre, white, black,
mixed with fat or also with blood. What instrument (brush?) is
employed in applying the colors has not yet been ascertained, since,
so far as I know, no Bushman artist has yet been observed at his
work. As regards the paintings themselves, various classes may be
distinguished, but in all cases the subjects are representations of
figures; ornaments and plants are excluded. First of all, there are
fights and hunting scenes, in which white men (boers) play a part,
demonstrating the modern origin of these paintings. Next there are
representations of animals, both of domestic animals (cattle, dogs)
and of game, especially the various antelope species, giraffes,
ostriches, elephants, rhinoceroses, monkeys, etc. A special class
consists of representations of obscene nature, and, by way of
exception, there has been drawn in one instance a ship or a palm
tree.

Dr. Emil Holub (_a_) says:

The Bushmen, who are regarded as the lowest type of Africans,
in one thing excel all the other South African tribes whose
acquaintance I made between the south coast and 10° south
latitude. They draw heads of gazelles, elephants, and hippopotami
astonishingly well. They sketch them in their caves and paint them
with ochre or chisel them out in rocks with stone implements, and on
the tops of mountains we may see representations of all the animals
which have lived in those parts in former times. In many spots where
hippopotami are now unknown I found beautiful sketches of these
animals, and in some cases fights between other native races and
Bushmen are represented.

G. Weitzecker (_a_) gives a report of a large painting, in a cave at Thaba Phatsoua district of Léribé, here presented as Fig. 142, containing eighteen characters, with the addition of eight boys’ heads. It represents the flight of Bushman women before some Zulu Kaffirs (Matebele). The description, translated, is as follows:

As usual, the Bushmen are represented as dwarfs and painted
in bright color as contrasted with the Kaffirs, who are painted
large and of dark color. The scene is full of life, a true artistic
conception, and in the details there are many important things to
be noted. For this reason I add a sketch of it, with the figures
numbered, in order to be able to send you some brief annotations.

I will premise that as far as the women are concerned, in the
small figures, no mistaken notion should be entertained in regard to
the anterior appendages which catch, or rather strike, the eye in
some of them. There is question simply of the pudendal coverings of
the Bushman women, consisting of a strip of skin, and flapping in
the wind.

_a_ seems to represent a woman in an advanced interesting
condition, who in her headlong flight has lost even her mantle.
She holds in her hand a mogope (disproportionate); that is to say,
a gourd dipper, such as are found, I believe, among all the south
African tribes.

_b._ This figure, besides the mogope which she holds in her left
hand, carries away in her flight, steadying it on her head with her
right hand, a nkho (sesuto), a baked earthenware vessel, in which
drinks are kept, and of which the ethnographic museum now contains
some specimens. This woman, too, has lost all her clothing except
the pudendal covering, and she looks pregnant. The attitudes of
flight, while maintaining equilibrium, I deem very fine.

_c_, _f_, _g_, _h_, _l_, _m_, and perhaps _j_. Women carrying
their babies on their backs, as is the practice of the natives, in
the so-called thari; that is, a sheepskin so prepared that they can
fasten it to their bodies and hold it secure, even while bent to the
ground or running.

_l_ and _m_. Women with twins. It may be worthy of note that the
painter has placed them last, hampered as they are with a double
weight.

_c._ Apparently a woman who has fallen in her flight. Figures
_e_ and _i_ represent men, who by their stature might be thought to
be Bushmen, as also by their color, which, so far as I remember, is
not the same as that of the men coming up after them, being rather
similar to that of the women. In that case _e_ would stoop to raise
the woman _c_ who has fallen, and _i_ would point the way to the
others. Otherwise, if there is question of Matebeles, which is
rendered plausible by the fact that _n_ (which evidently represents
an enemy) is not larger in stature than those two, then _e_ would
stoop to snatch the baby of the fallen woman, and _i_ would strive
to catch up with the two women _g_ and _h_, who flee before it.

_j._ I can not explain this unless as a diffusion of color,
which has transformed into something unrecognizable the figure of
the child carried by its mother, who has fallen, like _b_.

_k_ seems to be a woman resigned to her fate, who touches her
neck with the left hand, unless, indeed, the line which I take to be
the arm is the sketch of the thari with the baby.

_l._ A woman who runs toward the looker-on.

_m_ represents a woman who has sat down, perhaps in order to
place her twins better in the thari, while behind her _n_ arrives,
preparing to spear her. With _n_ the band of enemies begins plainly,
_o_ seeming to be the leader, who, standing still, gives the signal.
But this figure must have been altered by the water, which by
diluting the color of the body has made it appear as a garment.

_p_ and _q_. These admirable portraits of impetuosity and menace
are a pictorial translation of the saying “having long legs so as to
run fast.”

_r._ A fine type of an attitude in the poise of running.

The author’s discussion respecting the difference in size between the male human figures mentioned as indicating their respective tribes would have been needless had he considered the frequent expedient of representing chiefs or prominent warriors by figures of much larger stature than that of common soldiers or subjects. This device is common in the Egyptian glyphs, and examples of it also appear in the present work. (See Figs. 138, 139, and 1024.)

The same author, loc. cit., gives a brief account of two petroglyphs found by him near Leribo, in Basutoland, South Africa. They were on a large hollow rock overlooking a plain where the bushmen might spy game. The rock was all covered with pictures to a man’s height. Many of them were entirely or almost entirely spoiled, both by the hands of herdsmen and by water running down the walls in time of rain. Some of them, however, are still very well preserved. They are shown on Fig. 143.

The left hand character represents a man milking an animal; the latter, judging by the back part, especially by the legs, was at first taken for an elephant; but the fore parts, especially the fore legs, evidently are those of a bovine creature or of an elk (eland). The enormous proportions of the back part are probably due to diffusion of colors, through the action of water running down the rock. The right hand character represents the sketch of an elk (eland), on which and under which are depicted four monkeys, admirable for fidelity of expression. The legs, with one exception, are not finished.

CANARY ISLANDS.

These islands are considered in connection with the continent of Africa.

S. Berthelot (_a_) gives an account, referring to Figs. 144 and 145, from which the following is extracted and translated:

A site very little frequented, designated by the name of Los
Letreros, appears to have been inhabited in very ancient times by
one of the aboriginal tribes established on the Island of Fer, one
of the Canary islands. At a distance of about three-quarters of a
league from the coast all the land sloping and broken by volcanic
mounds extends in undulations to the edge of the cliffs which flank
the coast. It is on this desert site, called Los Letreros, that
inscriptions are found engraved on an ancient flow of basaltic lava,
with a smooth surface, over an extent of more than 400 meters. On
all this surface, at various distances and without any relation
to each other, but placed where the lava presents the smoothest
spots, rendered shining and glassy by the light varnish left by the
volcanic matter in cooling, are the various groups of characters.

When we examine closely these different signs or characters
so deeply engraved [pecked] on the rock, doubtless by means of
some hard stone (obsidian or basalt), the first thing observed is
that several identical signs are reproduced several times in the
same group. These are, first, round and oval characters, more or
less perfect, sometimes simple and isolated, again agglomerated in
one group. These characters so often reproduced are again seen in
juxtaposition or united, sometimes to others which are similar,
sometimes to different ones, and even inclosed in others similar to
them; for example, _a_ in Fig. 144.

Round or more or less oval characters reappear several times in
_b_.

Others, which are not met with more than once or twice among the
groups of signs, also present notable variations; examples in _c_.

Of these are formed composite groups _d_, which belong, however,
to the system of round signs.

Other analogous but not identical signs appear to assume rather
the ovoid form than the round, and seem to have been so traced as
not to be confounded with the round symbols. Some of them resemble
leaves or fruit.

Another system of simple characters is the straight line, which
can be represented by a stroke of the pen, isolated or repeated as
if in numeration, and sometimes accompanied by other signs.

Other peculiar signs shown in _e_, which are not repeated,
figure in the different groups of characters which the author has
reproduced.

We notice further, in _f_, a small number of signs which bear a
certain analogy to each other, and several of which are accompanied
by other and more simple characters.

Several others still more complicated are in eccentric shapes
which it is attempted to present in _g_.

Including the common oval characters often repeated and those
consisting of a simple stroke similar to the strokes made by school
children, all the various engraved characters scarcely exceed 400.

Fig. 145 gives a view of a series of different groups of signs
in the length of the whole lava flow. The copyist has expressed
by dots those symbols which were confused, partly defaced by the
weather, or destroyed by fissures in the rock.

The same author (_b_) gives an account of several strange characters found engraved on a rock of the grotto of Belmaco, in the island of La Palma, one of the Canaries. He says:

These drawings, presented that they may be compared with those
of Fer Island (Los Letreros), show some fifteen signs, some of which
are repeated several times and others partly effaced by weather,
or at least feebly traced. But what seems most remarkable is that
six or seven signs are recognized as exactly similar to those
of Letreros, of the island of Fer, and almost all the others are
analogous, for we recognize at once in comparing them the same style
of bizarre writing, formed of hieroglyphic characters, mainly rude
arabesques.