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Kasama Pictographs
By Chris Jayakaran
I was on
assignment in Northern Province a few months back and was staying
at Thorn Tree Lodge, my favourite haunt in Kasama. Having my
breakfast, sipping the aromatic coffee, a specialty at this Lodge, I
got chatting to a Dutch tourist accompanied by his daughter, who
told me that they were trekking to the hillocks on Isoka road about
seven kilometres away from the town to look at the rock art. The
word ‘rock art’ excited me. I had visited some of the sites in South
Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe during my sojourn in Africa. I knew
that the Zambian tradition of rock art is markedly different in
depictions of animal and human figures. I wanted to know more about
this site from that tourist. Overhearing the conversation, Ewart
Powell who owns Thorn Tree Lodge, pitched in to tell me that there
are numerous prehistoric paintings sites around Kasama and told me
that Mwela Rock paintings site is a heritage site and that he would
give a book to introduce me to the subject latter. Though it was
known that Kasama had rock art sites since 1950, it was not until
1992 that a detailed survey was done. This survey revealed a large
concentration of rock paintings around Kasama in an area of about a
hundred square kilometers. I planned my trip for the same
afternoon.
 I
reached the spot where the asphalt road dissects the Mwela Rocks and
where the Heritage site was well sign posted. I looked up at the
sharply rising quartzite hillocks that had an enigmatic quality
about them. A smiling Bemba lad, by the name of James Chilufya from
a nearby village came and asked me if he could show me the rock
paintings. I was lead by James through the bush and over the
outcrops covered with different types of cacti and at least three
types of orchid, stubbornly clinging to the rock surface. Not far
from the path where I had left my vehicle, James lead me through a
narrow cave, just broad enough for a person to squeeze through along
a passage of about ten metres in length and the cave opened up to
the other side. As I got out on the other side and facing the
cave’s ovate entrance, I saw a curious symbol in red with an
unmistakable phallic symbol surrounded by rings which are used to
depict the female productive organ. It is possible that certain
fertility rites were carried out at this site. The prehistoric
artistes were no Picassos but definitely were inspired by the
natural shapes of the rock when they chose to paint. We saw some
more red paintings, smaller than I expected and multiple rows of
dots which seem to be an integral part of the Kasama tradition of
rock art. They were in varying kinds of stylization and in a good
state of preservation.
If you have seen
pictures of rock painting reproduced in a book or on an enlarged
canvas in a museum, then you are in for disappointment when you are
looking for those images insitu. That was a lesson I learnt when I
had done some reading and then visited Nachikufu caves. Luckily
there, the care taker lead me into the awe inspiring cave and
through the different smoke covered layers of pictures which would
have been difficult to locate without any help. Now here in Kasama I
was just following a village yokel without really knowing what to
look for, the size, number and type of pictographs. (Archeologists
call the paintings on rock faces, pictographs and engravings on rock
surfaces, petroglyphs. Pictographs are made by dabbing specially
prepared pigments to the rock surface). When I asked James about the
people who painted them he said “according to Bemba oral tradition
these were painted by a tribe of smaller people who lived here long
before the farming settlers came”, and he said that some villagers
believed that these paintings belong to spirits and that some are
possessed by the spirits of the ancestors at some of these sites. I
was going to find out more about this oral tradition later. While I
was thinking about covering more rock art sites, it started raining
heavily and we had to rush back to the car. Plus the sun was
setting.
That evening
whilst having my dinner, I was raving about what I had seen that day
to Ewart who handed me the book he had promised, ‘Zambia’s Ancient
Rock Art: The Paintings Of Kasama’’ by Benjamin Smith, published
by the National Heritage Conservation Commission of Zambia in 1997.
He suggested that I go with a guide from the National Heritage
office to the site the next day. I poured through the book that
night and I realised that what I have seen was only the tip of the
iceberg, as it were! Four or so hours of trekking in the Mwela Rock
area was not enough to see all the rock art sites.
I set out the next
day morning guided by an archaeologist from the Heritage centre and
the young man, looking at my enthusiasm, offered to take me to some
of the more important sites that I had missed the previous day. We
first traveled to Lwimbo West and we climbed to the top of a hill of
about 150m high, where I was shown the depictions of human figures.
The pictograph is under a large stone tucked into a niche so that it
was not affected by rain and direct sunshine. Pointing to the five
figures bent at the knees and at the hip, my guide explained that
they were dancing figures. Further to the left was the picture of a
large, slightly distorted animal figure. This figure had a
suggestion of dripping blood through the mouth and nose. Going by
the Bushman tradition in Natal Province, this would be an image of a
dying animal, something like an Eland. The dancing figures would be
men obtaining the power of the same animal in their trance or
altered state of mind. My guide went on to explain that these
figures were painted by hunter gatherers called the Twa people who
probably roamed this terrain about 1500 years ago. The nomadic
hunter gatherers recorded their impressions in the caves and rock
overhangs in a characteristic art form of rock paintings. There was
also a depiction of cattle on one of the rock faces which he
reckoned were painted by settlers who lived in the area later. I saw
more red paintings and multiple rows of dots which seem to be an
integral part of the Kasama pictograph tradition. They were in
varying kinds of stylization and well preserved. Red geometric
figures, sets of parallel lines and dots and circles were symbols
pertaining to weather divination, my guide told me. I saw red dotted
designs which had a mesmerizing quality about them as you gazed at
them. Whatever interpretation that could be given to these patterns,
their mystical nature could not be denied. My guide took me to the
site with red pictographs of what looked like two ostriches and a
smaller figure which looked more like a hybrid between a rhinoceros
and a warthog!
From there we
moved on for a few kilometres to see Sumina lion cave, which is a
must-see site. After a climb I saw this magnificent painting of a
lion and human figure painted almost on the ceiling of cave. This
depiction again is not a simple hunting scene but a magical event
when the spirit of the lion enters the body of the hunter in a
trance, thereby empowering the human with the strength of a lion.
Such rock shelters would have been favoured spots during the wet and
cold seasons, providing an ideal hang out overlooking the hunting
ground. The rock art tradition must have been a kind of ritual to
channel the power received in a trance.
While visiting
Mwela Rock art site I went through a large quarry that cut deep
through and into the beautiful hillock. And I wondered just how many
paintings may have been destroyed during the quarrying. Damage and
destruction to archeological sites through quarrying is a perpetual
problem in developing countries and the last time I saw one such as
this was around the caves in Mumbwa, where road contractors have
quarried indiscriminately.
Rock paintings
and engravings are Zambia's oldest practiced art form.
These
depictions of human figures, animals, and geometric symbols of
Late Stone
Age paintings are unique and Zambia is endowed with numerous such
rock art sites.
Recent work in Northern Province has revealed over 700 rock art
sites in Kasama District, making the total of rock art sites known
throughout Zambia, over one thousand. With
many more sites awaiting discovery,
the difficulty
faced in conserving these archeological site
for, posterity remains a daunting task.
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February
2007