Bushmen Art….. Deep in a Mooi River Valley

“GO OUT ALONE ON THE HILLS AND LISTEN. YOU WILL HEAR MUCH. THE WINDS WILL HOLD FOR YOU SOMETHING MORE THAN SOUND; THE STREAMS WILL NOT BE MERELY THE BABBLING OF HURRYING WATER. THE TREES AND THE FLOWERS ARE NOT SO SEPARATE FROM YOU AS THEY ARE AT OTHER TIMES, BUT VERY NEAR; THE SAME SUBSTANCE, THE SAME RHYTHM, THE SAME SONG BINDS YOU TO THEM. ALONE AMIDST NATURE, A MAN LEARNS TO BE ONE WITH ALL AND ALL WITH ONE.”

FRANK S. SMYTHE

Bushmen Art…..

Deep in a Mooi River Valley

   Through the years, doing my solo hiking in the Drakensberg Wilderness, I have found many hidden away caves which contained Bushmen Art. To me, it is a unique and special experience. I always try and transfer my mind back hundreds of years and try and imagine what it was living during that period, and what a magnificent place the Drakensberg Wilderness must have been then, totally unspoiled by human hand.

    It is well know that the Bushmen did not do any damage to their environment, they only hunted what they needed to survive and gathered from nature to feed their families. The arrival of the white man in the area changed all of that and eventually led to the extermination of the Bushmen and wildlife.

  Bible in one hand, rifle in the other, proclaiming their Christianity, the white men destroyed what they found. Forest were decimated, wildlife killed for no rhyme or reason (or real need) and the Bushmen were hunted like vermin to the last man, women and child.

   The Bushmen had a simple life, being hunter/gatherers in a land of plenty. For hundreds of years they were the sole custodians of the Drakensberg Wilderness. What a life it must have been!

   The Drakensberg provided the Bushmen with shelter, plenty of water, meat and edible plants. Once the white man destroyed the wildlife, the Bushmen had to resort to stealing cattle from the settlers, which needless to say, led to great conflict.

   The Bushmen portrayed their life on the walls of their shelters by painting the walls. It is believed that these paintings was done by a shaman and was trance induced. It is clear from the numerous paintings that they held the Eland (Antelope) in great regard.

   Some paintings also depict general life and some historical happenings which took place. It saddens me to see the destruction in some caves - being done by modern man – vandalizing pictures hundreds and thousands of years old. It is therefore true to say that some people still share the mentality of the first white men in the Drakensberg. Why does a person feel the need to destroy something so unique and special? If you do not like what you see, or do not agree with history, it is a simple process – walk away and do not touch!

   In September 2015 I did a 6 day hike from Kamberg to Highmoor, up to the Escarpment, and then exploring the Mooi River Valley from top to bottom. On day 4, I found a cave purely by chance. This cave was absolutely full of Bushmen paintings, the like of which I have never found or saw before. It was a spectacular find! It took me close to two hours to photograph all the paintings in the cave. The cave itself was massive; and as usual it had its own private water supply and had magnificent views over the valley. It was obvious that this cave was a shelter to a big group of Bushmen for a very long time. This find made my hike even more of a superb experience!

   By the late 1800’s, the Bushmen were exterminated and was never seen again in the Drakensberg. All that remained of their existence are the paintings in the shelters used by them. Now, that is also very ironic – when the area was declared as reserves, the farmers had to move, and the ugly scars of their impact on the land remains to this day!

   I would like to share some of the pictures that I took inside this cave with you. The cave is there, but you will have to go and explore the area and find it like I did. It is a brilliant experience and you can view the paintings and ponder about life as it was then.

   These Bushmen paintings are an absolute part of the Drakensberg Wilderness and its rich history. We are the only custodians of this art and we need to protect and conserve the paintings. We have to keep the mindless vandals away from the art and we have to do something when we find those willing to destroy age old history. The art withstood the elements for thousands of years, but unfortunately, they cannot withstand the destructive force of man.
     When you do find these caves with the paintings, enjoy them and treat it with the respect which it deserves. If you do not like the paintings, simply do not go to the caves, and if, you find a cave on a hike, keep on by!

We as hikers, explorers, and adventurers have the absolute duty to respect and protect our Wildernesses. Nobody else will do it for us. Take ownership!

 

 

The End.

 

Safe Hiking.

 

References and Acknowledgements

From the book: “Drakensberg Wilderness – A Solo Journey Through Paradise” –W Pelser

Photos:  Willem Pelser

Compiled by:  Willem Pelser

FLOWERS OF THE DRAKENSBERG WILDERNESS

“GO OUT ALONE ON THE HILLS AND LISTEN,

YOU WILL HEAR MUCH,

THE WIND AND THE STREAMS TELLS STORIES,

ALONE AMIDST NATURE,

A MAN LEARNS TO BE ONE WITH ALL AND ALL WITH ONE”

FLOWERS OF THE DRAKENSBERG

WILDERNESS

   The Drakensberg and its Wilderness is a forbidding, awe-inspiring territory caught amongst the mist and clouds of basalt peaks where waterfalls turn to columns of ice in winter. Long familiar to herdsmen and mountaineers, the area is largely inaccessible and still considered terra incognita by botanists.

   The plants may differ with every fold of the mountains, with every change in altitude, aspect, drainage, from one valley or peak to the next, clinging to cracks in rock faces, taking hold in basalt gravels or floating in shallow rock pools on the summit.

   The dramatic broken landscape of the escarpment and the harsh climatic conditions on the highlands of Lesotho account for the remarkable diverse plant life with about 2200 species and almost 400 endemics (plants found only in this area and nowhere else in the world).

   The flora of these high mountains has been recognized as one of the world’s ‘hot spots’, a centre of plant diversity of global botanical importance.

   Although the interior is exposed and windswept, its marshes, mires and sponges are the watershed of southern Africa, giving rise to rivers that flow to two oceanopposite sides of the continent, the Atlantic and the Indian.

   The summit of the Drakensberg, which averages an altitude of 3000m, forms an almost inaccessible boundary between Lesotho and South Africa, with sheer cliffs falling 1200m in places. This beautiful area can be very bleak until the plants respond to rain and warm summer temperatures with a burst of colour, flowers carpeting the sheet rock and marshy ground on the summit.

The grasslands can be transformed into fields of flowers in response to fires, often started as a result of lightning (the area has the highest strike rate in southern Africa). People also use fire to bring on new grass for grazing.

   May of the Drakensberg and Lesotho plants are already well known to gardeners in the northern hemisphere. Some were introduced to horticulture in Britain and Europe by intrepid explorers and collectors as long ago as the late 1800’s. Although mostly unknown in gardens of southern Africa, many plants are popular and available to gardeners in Europe, Britain, USA and Japan, while horticultural hybrids and cultivars abound.

A note of caution to both the professional and the amateur plant collector – feast on these plants with your eyes and your senses only. Growing them can be difficult and, more importantly, they are protected by the nature conservation laws of South Africa. You may not collect plants without a permit.

   In 2000, the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg area was proclaimed a World Heritage Site for its rich diversity of plant and animal life, spectacular natural landscape and outstanding San rock paintings. Africa’s greatest concentration of rock art is to be found in the caves and overhangs of these mountains, with more than 600 recorded sites containing over 40000 images. The area is recognized as one of the world’s few sites that meets the criteria for both natural and cultural properties.

   The region was formed by massive volcanic activity in the Jurassic period resulting in basalt lavas covering most of the plateau and the upper face of the escarpment with dolerite intrusions. It overlays the softer Cave Sandstone which is exposed as cliffs and overhangs below the escarpment and in great wind-sculpted boulders in the south.

   The soils are black, very rich; thin on the summit plateau, deeper on the foothills. In summer the soils on the summit are often waterlogged. In winter they freeze every night. The freeze and thaw heaves the soil and stones making it an unstable habitat for plants. This activity also causes the crescent-shaped scars on the mountain slopes lower down.

   The friend of nature who wants to get to know and experience the region at its best, must come here high or late summer when the richly coloured splendour of flowers unfolds most abundantly, then, like the Cape Flats in spring, this stunning and melancholy land, too, resembles a lovely garden, a more beautiful one than could hardly be imagined.

We as hikers, explorers, and adventurers have the absolute duty to respect and protect our Wildernesses. Nobody else will do it for us. Take ownership!

 

 

The End.

 

Safe Hiking.

References and Acknowledgements

Photos – W Pelser

Compiled by - W Pelser – Information from “Mountain Flowers – Elsa Pooley”