Cognitive Archaeology: Mind, Ethnography, and the Past in South Africa and Beyond (Routledge Studies in Archaeology) 2019034204, 2019034205, 9781138068674, 9781315157696

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Cognitive Archaeology

Cognitive Archaeology: Mind, Ethnography, and the Past in South Africa and Beyond aims to interpret the social and cultural lives of the past, in part by using ethnography to build informed models of past cultural and social systems and partly by using natural models to understand symbolism and belief. How does an archaeologist interpret the past? Which theories are relevant, what kinds of data must be acquired, and how can interpretations be derived? One interpretive approach, developed in southern Africa in the 1980s, has been particularly successful even if still not widely known globally. With an expressed commitment to scientific method, it has resulted in deeper, well-​tested understandings of belief, ritual, settlement patterns and social systems. This volume brings together a series of papers that demonstrate and illustrate this approach to archaeological interpretation, including contributions from North America, Western Europe and sub-​Saharan Africa, in the process highlighting innovative methodological and substantive research that improves our understanding of the human past. Professional archaeological researchers would be the primary audience of this book. Because of its theoretical and methodological emphasis, it will also be relevant to method and theory courses and postgraduate students. David S.  Whitley specializes in the archaeology and ethnography of far western North America as well as rock art globally. He is a director at ASM Affiliates, Inc., a cultural resource management firm, in Tehachapi, California, and a research associate at the Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand. Johannes H.N. Loubser is an archaeologist and rock art specialist at Stratum Unlimited LLC, Atlanta, and a research associate at the Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand. He specializes in rock art conservation and management but also conducts archaeological excavations when needed. Gavin Whitelaw is an archaeologist at the KwaZulu-​Natal Museum, South Africa, and an honorary lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, University of KwaZulu-​ Natal. His research focuses on Iron Age farmers of southern Africa.

Routledge Studies in Archaeology

Material Worlds Archaeology, Consumption, and the Road to Modernity Edited by Barbara J. Heath, Eleanor E. Breen, and Lori A. Lee An Archaeology of Skill Metalworking Skill and Material Specialization in Early Bronze Age Central Europe Maikel H.G. Kuijpers Dwelling Heidegger, Archaeology, Mortality Philip Tonner New Perspectives in Cultural Resource Management Edited by Francis P. Mcmanamon Cultural and Environmental Change on Rapa Nui Edited by Sonia Cardinali, Kathleen Ingersoll, Daniel Ingersoll Jr., and Christopher Stevenson Making Sense of Monuments Narratives of Time, Movement, and Scale Michael J. Kolb Researching the Archaeological Past through Imagined Narratives A Necessary Fiction Edited by Daniël van Helden and Robert Witcher Cognitive Archaeology Mind, Ethnography, and the Past in South Africa and Beyond Edited by David S. Whitley, Johannes H.N. Loubser and Gavin Whitelaw For more information on this series, please visit www.routledge.com/​ Routledge-​Studies-​in-​Archaeology/​book-​series/​RSTARCH

 

Cognitive Archaeology Mind, Ethnography, and the Past in South Africa and Beyond

Edited by David S. Whitley, Johannes H.N. Loubser and Gavin Whitelaw

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, David S. Whitley, Johannes H.N. Loubser and Gavin Whitelaw; individual chapters, the contributors The right of David S. Whitley, Johannes H.N. Loubser and Gavin Whitelaw to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Whitley, David S., editor. | Loubser, J. H. N. (Johannes Henoch Neethling), editor. | Whitelaw, G. (Gavin), editor. Title: Cognitive archaeology : mind, ethnography, and the past in South Africa and beyond / David S. Whitley, Johannes Loubser, and Gavin Whitelaw. Description: New York : Routledge, 2020. | Series: Routledge studies in archaeology | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019034204 (print) | LCCN 2019034205 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138068674 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315157696 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Archaeology–Methodology. | Ethnoarchaeology. | Cognition and culture. Classification: LCC CC175 (print) | LCC CC175 (ebook) | DDC 930.1–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019034204 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019034205 ISBN: 978-​1-​138-​06867-​4 ISBN: 978-​1-​315-​15769-​6 Typeset in Sabon by Newgen Publishing UK

 

Contents

List of figures  List of tables  1 The benefits of an ethnographically informed cognitive archaeology 

vii x

1

DAV I D S .   W H I T L E Y, JO H AN N E S H .N . L O UB SE R , AND GAV IN WHIT ELAW

2 Cognitive archaeology revisited: agency, structure and the interpreted past 

20

DAV I D S .   W H I T L E Y

3 Ethnographic texts and rock art in southern Africa: a personal perspective 

48

J. D. L E W I S -​W I LL IA MS

4 Cultural traditions on the High Plains: Apishapa, Sopris, and High Plains Upper Republican 

78

TH O M A S N .   H UFFMA N A N D FRAN K L E E   E A RLEY

5 Paquimé’s appeal: the creation of an elite pilgrimage site in the North American Southwest 

115

TO D D L .   VA N PO O L AN D CH RISTIN E S. VA N P OOL

6 Ntshekane and the Central Cattle Pattern: reconstructing settlement history 

135

TH O M A S N .   H UFFMA N A N D GAVIN WH ITE L AW

7 Homesteads, pots, and marriage in southeast southern Africa: cognitive models and the dynamic past  G AV I N W H I TEL AW

152

vi Contents

8 A cognitive approach to the ordering of the world: some case studies from the Sotho-​and Tswana-​speaking people of South Africa 

184

J O H A N VA N SCH AL KWYK

9 Anthropomorphic pottery effigies as guardian spirits in the Lower Mississippi Valley 

201

DAV I D   H .   DY E

10 Upemba archaeology, Luba ethnography, and vice versa  224 P I E R R E D E   MARE T

11 Gates between worlds: ethnographically informed management and conservation of petroglyph boulders in the Blue Ridge Mountains 

247

J O H A N N E S H .N . L O UB SE R A N D SCOTT A SH C R AFT

12 On the archaeology of elves 

270

J OA K I M G O L DH AH N

13 Cognitive continuities in place: an exploration of enduring, site-​specific ritual practices in the Shashe-​Limpopo Confluence Area 

311

M . H . S C H O EMA N

Index 

339

 

List of figures

3.1 .2 3 3.3 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4

Southern Africa showing nineteenth-​and twentieth-​century San groups Densely painted San rock art panel from the Eastern Cape San rock art panel from the eastern Free State Map of Colorado showing sites mentioned in the text Model of Great Basin hunter-​gatherer camp Model of Northern Caddoan lodge San Ildefonso, 1984 Artist’s reconstruction of Apishapa winter wickiup and photos of stone-​slab foundations Similarity in abstract rock art in the Great Basin and Apishapa area Hypothetical reconstruction of pole-​and-​daub lodges at the Wallace site Distribution of rock art themes below the Wallace site Plans of two Sopris house complexes Kiva-​like structure at 5LA1416 Plan of 5LA1416 Plan and photo of The Island site Distribution of Barnes and Apishapa sites in the Pinyon Canyon Maneuver Site Photo and artist’s reconstruction of Room A at the Cramer site Plan of the Avery Ranch site Collared pot from Lodge 1 at the Avery Ranch site Ocean Vista The Casas Grandes Region Site overview of Paquimé Significant features at Paquimé Southern Africa showing location of sites mentioned in text View of Ntshekane, August 2011 Ntshekane: Ntshekane phase features Ntshekane: Ndondondwane phase features

49 63 68 79 81 83 85 88 90 91 93 95 96 97 99 100 102 104 105 106 116 116 121 137 139 142 144

viii  List of figures .5 Pit 44 in the Ndondondwane phase kraal Nd B1 6 6.6 Ntshekane: Msuluzi phase features 7.1 Sites and landscape features south of the uPhongolo River and east of the Drakensberg 7.2 Iron Age sequence based on ceramic style 7.3 Early Iron Age pots 7.4 Late Iron Age pots 7.5 The Central Cattle Pattern 7.6 The uMngeni River, a typical location for Kalundu sites 7.7 Interpretation of KwaGandaganda in the ninth and tenth centuries A D 7.8 The hilltop location of Ntomdadlana 7.9 Hilltop sites recorded around Estcourt 7.10 iGujwana, showing location at end of spur 7.11 The Moor Park name site 7.12 Ntomdadlana view and layout 8.1 Appropriating the other, asserting the self 8.2 Traditional healer’s shop selling plant remedies 8.3 Decorating a beer pot, expressing cultural symbols 8.4 Male dominance expressed in social context: snuff containers 9.1 Red painted female effigy, hooded bottles exhibiting heavy use wear 9.2 Bottle base abrasion 9.3 Bottle rim damage 9.4 Trance-​like posture for female effigy, hooded bottle 9.5 Female effigy, hooded bottle with green pigment 9.6 Female effigy, hooded bottles with motifs 10.1 The Luba area with the distribution of the Kisalian phase sites 10.2 Kisalian ironwear and pot 10.3 Grave 7, Kamilamba 10.4 Classic Kisalian adult woman grave 172, Sanga 10.5 (a) Classic Kisalian grave 156, Sanga, a small pot on a brazier from a child’s grave; (b) Classic Kisalian anthropomorphic bottle bought in Sanga 10.6 Regular and miniaturized Classic Kisalian vessels, Sanga 10.7 Antelope and goat metapodia from various Classic Kisalian graves, Sanga 10.8 Classic Kisalian grave 162, a newborn with five metapodia 10.9 Luba ceremonial axe 11.1 Key locations and the two petroglyph corridors 11.2 Re-​drawn tracing showing footprints on the main boulder at Track Rock Gap 11.3 Re-​drawn tracing of the main panel at the Hiwassee River/​ Brasstown Creek confluence

145 146 155 156 157 158 159 163 164 168 170 171 172 174 188 190 193 196 214 215 216 217 217 218 226 229 230 230 234 236 237 238 240 248 254 257

 

List of figures ix 1.4 Re-​drawn tracing of Judaculla Rock 1 12.1 Älvalek (The play of elves) (1866) by August Malmström 12.2 Naturally and culturally made features and phenomena believed to derive from elves 12.3 Block of stone at Tjust, southeast Sweden, with 567 cupmarks (RAÄ Gamleby 113) 12.4 Three dolls collected from the Troll-​stone at Bors, Sweden 12.5 C-​bracteate from Ågedal in West Agder, Norway 12.6 Famous sun disc from Trundholm bog on Zealand, Denmark, c. 1400–​1300 B C 12.7 ‘Nocturnal dance of elvish beings, e.g. the spirit of the dead, ghosts’ 12.8 Pocket stones’ with cupmark-​like cupules 12.9 Stone artifacts with cupmarks 12.10 Chronological distribution of 271 finds of rock art from burials in northern Europe 12.11 Ring formation from Rogaland interpreted as traces of elf-​dance and suggested cause, hay stacks 12.12 Cupmark stone at Nibble, western Uppland 12.13 Finds from the cupmark stone at Nibble, western Uppland 12.14 Troll-​stone and two of the ‘troll dolls’ collected by Hyltén-​Cavallius in the summer of 1846 12.15 Plan of the Troll-​stone excavations in 2003 12.16 Two of the ‘troll dolls’ from Bors near Lindesberg, now in George Stephen’s Collection 12.17 Troll-​stone excavation in 2003 12.18 Perforated coin from 1821 and one of the cupmark-​like cavities on the north side of the Troll-​stone 13.1 The confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo rivers 13.2 Balerno Main Shelter viewed from the southeast 13.3 San painting of a giraffe in Kaoxa shelter 13.4 Rock art panel with rhinoceroses in a secluded shelter 13.5 Game board in Kaoxa shelter 13.6 Little Muck Shelter game board with cupules and snake- like engraving 13.7 The rain-​control site EH hill viewed from Kaoxa shelter

258 272 273 275 276 279 281 283 286 287 289 291 292 293 293 294 295 297 299 312 320 321 321 323 324 325

List of tables

4.1 Apishapa, Wallace, and Sopris artifact comparison 4.2 Interaction sites 6.1 Ntshekane: storage pits and other features associated with central cattle kraals 7.1 Radiocarbon dates from Moor Park sites 8.1 Rhino names adapted from Boeyens and Van der Ryst (2014: 32) 10.1 Archaeological sequence for the northern Upemba Depression 12.1 Elf practices as a percentage of a total of 138 accounts 12.2 Reasons given for elf practices as percentage out of a total of 70 accounts 12.3 Coins found at the Nibble cupmark stone, RAÄ 341:2 12.4 Coins found at the Troll-​stone, Raä Linde 27 in Västmanland, Sweden

89 103 140 168 187 227 277 278 292 298

 

1 T  he benefits of an ethnographically informed cognitive archaeology David S. Whitley1, Johannes H.N. Loubser2, and Gavin Whitelaw3

“Archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing” Gordon Willey and Phillip Phillips (1958: 2) reminded us, over a half-​century ago. But anthropology itself is neither a unitary nor a stable phenomenon. When Willey and Phillips published their admonition, a long-​standing historical divide had existed between American anthropology, with its emphasis on culture, personality and psychology, for example, and British anthropology with its concern especially with social structure, kinship and economy (cf. Kuper 1988). New/​ Processualist archaeologists, regardless of country of origin, commonly followed an agenda closer to British social anthropologists, like A.R. Radcliffe-​Brown, and then-​rare evolutionists, such as Julian Steward, rather than the psychological/​cognitive anthropology then widely practiced in the United States. Archaeology was anthropology, following Willey and Phillips, but it was a specific kind of anthropology, with certain interests, concerns, and commitments. During the 1970s, at roughly the same time that anthropological archaeology began to receive widespread acceptance among archaeologists, dramatic changes in global anthropology appeared. The post-​modernist (and related) critiques challenged traditional beliefs about and attitudes towards the relationship of knowledge and power, and even the nature of societies and human relations. Post-​colonialist studies, importantly, revealed the pernicious nature of the then-​existing world order, demonstrating the close connection between the development of anthropology (and archaeology) as academic disciplines, and the larger historical-​colonial project:  anthropology as a handmaiden of colonial empires. Not surprisingly, this resulted in an intellectual lack of confidence in much anthropology, one outcome of which has been a demise of much (perhaps most) traditional ethnographic research (Kuper 1992). Some though not all prehistorians followed (intellectual) suit in what has been labeled post-​processual archaeology. Although practices and commitments vary, one outcome has been the replacement of testable ethnographic models for prehistoric reconstructions with French critiques of twentieth-​century modernism, as if a reaction to modernism somehow provided a theory of social life everywhere applicable, across space and time. Prehistoric social life is then viewed as perfectly parallel to

2  David S. Whitley et al. post-​modernist, post-​industrialist neoliberal societies, despite the differences in scale, social complexity, technology, economy, political structure and ethnic origins. Not all archaeologists of course have adopted this radical position, despite how widespread it has become, and regardless that its remarkably radical implications have rarely been acknowledged. An exception is found in the research of cognitive archaeologists, as first developed in the 1980s in South Africa, who continue to use ethnographically informed approaches to their studies of the past. This volume, Cognitive archaeology:  mind, ethnography, and the past in South Africa and beyond, combines 13 chapters by 14 archaeologists working in sub-​Saharan Africa, North America, and Scandinavia to show how ethnographic knowledge of descendant peoples, and/​or closely related peoples, can gainfully be integrated into an interpretation of the material record that their ancestors created, interacted with, and left behind. These archaeologists, influenced, one way or another, by a brand of cognitive archaeology that has been most especially refined in South Africa (Fewster 2006), share the premise that the material record is informed by a specific range of social, cultural, and individual knowledge and expectations, transmitted from one generation to the next. Another shared premise is that among the socio-​cultural formations presented in this volume, religious beliefs in a spiritual realm cannot be divorced from socio-​economic activities in the material realm. Because socially transmitted knowledge places limits on what is perceived as intelligible, pragmatic, and proven religious and economic undertakings, such knowledge systems are usually conservative, resilient, and remarkably continuous (e.g., Whitley 2010). This generalization should of course be demonstrated empirically by case studies, which can indeed reveal divergences (e.g., Goldhahn, Schoeman, this volume). Recognizing that humans share certain fundamental mental and physiological properties, behavioral and conceptual commonalities can be expected, but in the final analysis the most reliable and useful interpretations are culturally specific. Here we highlight certain benefits that the cognitive archaeological approach then has to offer. Three main approaches inform the chapters in this volume: social anthropology; cultural anthropology; and, to a lesser extent, neuropsychology. If the human body can be used as an analogy for human groups, it can be said that social anthropologists focus on the skeletal structure (i.e., kinship systems, economic and political relations), cultural anthropologists focus on the associated musculature (i.e., belief systems, material expressions), and neuropsychologists focus on the integrative role of brain and associated physiology (i.e., mind and body sensations). Archaeology is of course an empirical discipline and at a fundamental level, cognitive archaeology has improved our ability to recognize and apprehend key kinds of archaeological evidence. Drawing from indigenous emic accounts, archaeologists have noticed features in the material record

 

An ethnographically informed archaeology 3 that might otherwise have been overlooked, not recorded, and left uninterpreted. Three examples help illustrate the pragmatic advantages of an ethnographically informed cognitive approach. The first example is San medicine people telling Megan Biesele (1980: 60) how they enter and exit the spirit world beneath the ground surface through holes and cracks. Emic statements such as this allowed David Lewis-​Williams and Thomas Dowson (1990) to notice and interpret San rock paintings of snakes and ungulates entering and exiting holes, cracks, and other irregularities in the rock surface. This entangled relationship between applied pigment and pre-​existing rock surface shows that when it comes to rock art recording, it is important to include rock topography and surface accretions. A  second example comes from various Native American groups in southern California, who also believe that medicine people enter the spirit world through cracks (e.g., Zigmond 1977: 71, 76). Southern Californian medicine people are known to have used quartz crystals in a variety of ceremonies (ibid. 88), including battering white quartz, also known as ‘lightning stones’, to release and absorb their inner luminescent potency (Johnson 1985: 37). With the aid of back-​ scattered electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectrometry, David Whitley and colleagues (1999) determined that quartz implements were used to produce petroglyphs. They also found quartz inserted into cracks near the petroglyphs. Having a specific crystalline structure, quartz emits an inner flash of light when struck, a phenomenon known as piezoelectricity or triboluminescence (Cady 1964). The luminescent quartz provides a natural model concept of supernatural power while the cracks constitute a material manifestation of beliefs about the gateways to the supernatural world. This example shows that when it comes to rock art recording, archaeologists should carefully inspect cracks and semi-​detached crusts for purposefully inserted artifacts and debitage. A  third example is Adam Kuper’s (1980, 1982) demonstration that the homesteads of southern Bantu speakers are conceptually arranged around central cattle byres. This insight allowed Tom Huffman (2001) to empirically identify cattle dung in the centers of various Iron Age sites, some almost 2,000 years old. Features that had previously been misidentified as ashy middens or slag accumulations at many prehistoric sites are now known to be decomposed or burnt cattle dung. In cases where dung had been removed from byres to be used as fuel, archaeologists can collect soil samples for chemical analyses and phytolith studies to identify its traces. These three examples show that archaeologists have not only learned about the archaeological record from looking at the closest relevant ethnography, but have also learned details from the archaeological record not available in the ethnography. Even though knowledge of the ethnography alerted archaeologists to new kinds of empirical evidence, the validity of this evidence is not dependent on the ethnography: deliberately truncated paintings, luminescent crystals, or traces of dung will not disappear simply because some archaeologists cannot accept the connection between

4  David S. Whitley et al. ethnography and archaeology. Likewise, indigenous beliefs in spirit beings living behind a veil of soil and rock, the potency of crystals, or the perceived necessity of corralling cattle in the center of settlements will not disappear as a result of what we find in the archaeological record. When making these kinds of connections, interpretative certainty is based on how independent sets of evidence match and make structural sense, not circular reasoning. Identifying hitherto unrecorded information in the archaeological record is one of the many heuristic values of an ethnographically informed cognitive approach. As shown by the various contributors in this volume, the approach works at various scales: from the microcosm of individual motifs and artifacts to the macrocosm of settlements and landscapes. Another value of an ethnographically informed cognitive approach is the constraints it places on interpretation. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the proper use of ethnography to interpret archaeological remains mitigates against unfettered speculation. Instead of assuming social actors have free agency, for example, realization that specific socio-​cultural formations structure actions in specific ways limits the range of interpretative possibilities. Put another way, ethnography provides a range of potential archaeological interpretations. The prehistoric past may of course have fallen outside of this known range. The goal of the analyst is then to identify the best fit between the archaeological data and the ethnographic models, or to highlight the unusual evidence that supports a prehistoric reconstruction that varies from the known ethnographic range. A third value of a cognitive approach is the antiquity of some practices that researchers have identified in the rock art and dirt archaeological records. We have already mentioned that the Central Cattle Pattern, identified ethnographically by Kuper (1982) and archaeologically by Huffman (2001), dates to almost 2,000 years ago in southern Africa. Accelerator mass spectrometry assays of charcoal pigment in eland paintings from the southern African interior yielded ages of greater than 2,000 years (Bonneau et al. 2017), while varnish microlamination dating of petroglyphs with embedded quartz grains dates the practice to the terminal Pleistocene in southern California (Whitley 2013). Additional examples of long-​term cultural continuity are presented in various chapters within this volume. A fourth advantageous attribute of the cognitive approach is that it can detect change alongside continuity. For example, the appearance of anonymously large painted figures and violent encounters towards the terminal phase of San rock art reflects a shift towards increasing jostling for influence and control over resources between competing medicine people, as indicated in the ethno-​historical record of the southern African interior (e.g., Ouzman and Loubser 2000). Changes in settlement layouts can be linked to changes in political-​economies and associated worldviews too, such as a shift from central cattle byres to central assembly areas between AD 1000 and 1200 near the Shashe-​Limpopo confluence (Huffman 2015).

 

An ethnographically informed archaeology 5 A fifth beneficial attribute of the cognitive approach is the incorporation of a neurophysiological component by some archaeologists, Lewis-​Williams and Whitley being pioneers in this endeavor. When incorporating aspects of human mind, body, and mechanics, archaeologists assess the experiential components of human life and how these influence thought and future action. The work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1999) and some cognitive archaeologists (e.g., Loubser 2010) implies that certain concepts are embodied before they are expressed in material culture. From this it follows that much that we see in material creation and maintenance, such as rock paintings, living spaces, and landscapes, are prefigured in the human mind and body but mediated by culture. So-​called event-​structure metaphors that are associated with the workings of the mind and body ordinarily present abstract concepts as physical entities, for example, mental states as bounded containers, changes in mental states as movements from one contained space to another and causes due to physical forces. During rituals, encounters with artifacts and features can facilitate corporeal experiences of seemingly abstract metaphors. However, because these metaphors are culturally mediated, it would be misleading for Eurocentric archaeologists to imagine that they experience movements and other sensations in the same way as the people they study. The edges of rock shelters with paintings, the rear of huts with ceramics and offerings, or the fill of central fireplaces with specific artifacts are often seen as doorways to the parallel world of spirit beings, to list a few examples (e.g., Loubser 2010). Whether archaeologists study material remains from above, on, or within ground and rock surfaces, there is the possibility that they are dealing with materials intended for reciprocal exchange with spirit beings hidden from everyday perception. A thorough knowledge of the beliefs, rituals, and experiences of descendant or related communities can help identify the locations and times that interactions with the spirit world are most likely to take place. Viewed overall, neurophysiological approaches add a revealing experiential component to structural analyses of time, space, and social relations, such as those of Claude Lévi-​ Strauss (e.g., Leach 1974). But perhaps more importantly, encounters with the spirit world during altered-​state visions, dreams, and near-​death experiences, as identified in ethnography and incorporated into archaeological interpretations, are considered physically real in many cultures. Highlighting a sixth advantage of cognitive archaeology, its practitioners have emphasized the importance of considering these different ontological realms and worldviews (e.g., Lewis-​Williams 1981), literally decades before the recent so-​called ‘ontological turn’ in archaeology. The cognitive approach also allows for the incorporation of indigenous views and concerns in the interpretation and management of archaeological and rock art sites. For both ethical and practical reasons, decisions regarding closing or opening of sites to public visitation should consider the

6  David S. Whitley et al. wishes and concerns of indigenous descendants. As shown in the chapter by Johannes Loubser and Scott Ashcraft, for example, landscapes in which rock art sites are located are significant to contemporary indigenous communities. Additionally, normally enigmatic rock paintings of the southern African interior become meaningful to visitors when interpreted by trained indigenous guides (e.g., Ndlovu 2014). David Whitley’s overview of cognitive archaeology starts with his indebtedness to David Lewis-​Williams and Tom Huffman from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, for re-​directing the ethnographically informed approach he had already adopted during his PhD research at the University of California, Los Angeles. Following his post-​ graduate fellowship in South Africa, Whitley has contributed towards a cognitive understanding of the rock art and archaeological record in the American West and beyond, including finding ethnographic and rock art evidence of spirit beings inhabiting the world behind rock surfaces (Whitley 1988), formulating useful concepts pertaining to natural models (Whitley 1994), finding ethnographic and rock art evidence for inverted spirit worlds (Whitley 1998), and detecting neuropsychological factors that inform human creativity (Whitley 2009). Whitley’s work on neuropsychology and rock art has augmented the work conducted by Lewis-​Williams (2002), including his study of Paleolithic imagery. In his overview of the prevailing cognitive-​oriented archaeological theory in this volume, Whitley critiques the unwitting adoption of a reactionary neo-​ liberal position by many current archaeologists who prioritize individual human agency over systemic socio-​cultural influences and constraints. Contrary to the critique by agency-​centered archaeologists of ethnographic, structuralist, or cognitivist notions, many archaeologists who outwardly oppose a concern with structure in fact implicitly incorporate these notions into their interpretations of the archaeological record. To rectify misapprehensions by agency-​centered archaeologists, Whitley summarizes cognitive universals, natural constants, structural principles, the scientific method, and the direct historical approach as key elements of cognitive archeology. Importantly, Whitley points out that in terms of cultural heritage management it is advantageous for all concerned parties to recognize indigenous thoughts, vocal concerns, and ongoing actions regarding indigenous sites. His chapter ends by addressing the yet unresolved issue of integrating individual actions and socio-​cultural structure, following Huebner (2014). Like David Whitley, David Lewis-​Williams studied physical geography before shifting his attention to archaeology, rock art, and ethnographic research. Nonetheless, early exposure to the cultural anthropological publications of Bronislaw Malinowski (1948), for example, alerted Lewis-​ Williams to how culturally shared symbolism informs everyday activities. In what is arguably the most thorough personal recollection of his academic career by Lewis-​Williams to date, his major contributions to rock art studies and socio-​cultural anthropological research are still merely hinted

 

An ethnographically informed archaeology 7 at in his chapter. Lewis-​Williams’s first contribution was using the relatively recent ethnographic work of Richard Lee (1967) and Lorna Marshall (1962) on the northern Kalahari San and the much earlier annotated verbatim accounts by Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd from the southern |Xam San (e.g., Dorothea Bleek 1933) to interpret his substantial quantitative data on Drakensberg rock paintings (Lewis-​Williams 1972). Far from being a straightforward one-​to-​one relationship between ethnography and rock paintings, Lewis-​Williams realized that neither the ethnography nor the rock paintings can be interpreted in a simplistic literal sense; each source had to be carefully studied on its own terms prior to and during comparison. At first cautious about integrating the more recent Kalahari ethnographies with the earlier |Xam records, he showed that one can be used to explicate and supplement the other in those conceptual areas where fundamental parallels can be demonstrated (Lewis-​ Williams 1981). At the same time, he highlighted the ontological distinction between San and European worldviews, emphasizing that only with an acknowledgement of this difference can a sophisticated symbolic interpretation be achieved. The demonstration of a pan-​San cognitive system was Lewis-​Williams’s second major contribution, leading the way for archaeologists to find inter-​ regional similarities. A third major contribution was his demonstration that the San trance dance is a central conduit to and from a realm of spirit beings informs and modifies core religious concepts among the northern San and, in the past, among the southern San. Rock painting evidence for widespread similarities can be found, for example, in literal depictions of trance dances and bodily postures (e.g., Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2012), the quantity and quality of ungulate paintings that accompany dances and are themselves partly a product of trance-​experience visions, winged figures, juxtaposition of aquatic species with terrestrial ones, and thin red lines entering and exiting irregularities in the rock surface. His fourth major contribution was to show how out-​of-​body travels during the trance dance help shape and maintain social relations of production between distant camps (Lewis-​Williams 1982). A fifth contribution was to show how certain images were painted to give the impression that they are entering or exiting the rock surface (Lewis-​Williams and Dowson 1990). A  sixth contribution was revealing evidence that painted images included potent ingredients, including eland blood and rare hematite. The potency of the ingredients could be tapped by subsequent visitors touching, rubbing, or even scratching the pigment (e.g., Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004). A seventh contribution was showing how thorough knowledge and experience of both the ethnography and the rock art can result in the detection of isolated key elements, or ‘nuggets’, that are critical in the interpretation of an entire San account or painted surface (Lewis-​Williams 2015). And finally, perhaps the best-​known contribution is Lewis-​Williams’s development, with Thomas Dowson, of a neuropsychological model of the mental imagery of trance (Lewis-​Williams and Dowson 1988). Building on earlier

8  David S. Whitley et al. research that had linked geometric light images generated spontaneously during altered states, Lewis-​ Williams and Dowson used cross-​ cultural ethnographic accounts and clinical studies to construct a model of the most common recurring entoptic forms; the way that trance often progressed through different stages and the effects of this transition on the kinds of images experienced; and the principles by which images at whatever stage are perceived. Using two case studies of ethnographically known shamanistic arts, where the portrayal of visions in rock art had been previously documented, they were able to test the efficacy of this model, and then used it to analyze western European Upper Paleolithic art, concluding that much if not most of it too originated in shamanistic visions. Roughly concurrent with this study, Lewis-​Williams and Loubser (1986), in a related fashion, demonstrated how the bodily effects of inherently ineffable altered states were commonly expressed in bodily metaphors (see also Whitley 1994). Educated in the United States of America, Tom Huffman has worked primarily in Zimbabwe and South Africa since 1967. Because he was trained in American anthropology departments, Huffman was predisposed to use religion as an avenue to understand precolonial societies (Huffman 2014: 214). He found no obvious fit between Zimbabwean Iron Age archaeological evidence for sacred leadership and historic-​period Zimbabwean Shona beliefs in spirit mediums. Then, after reading Adam Kuper’s (1980) work on Southern Bantu social relationships and settlement patterns, he started applying a structuralist approach to interpret the spatial relationship between Great Zimbabwe and other Zimbabwe culture settlements. His breakthrough came when he found similarities between coursed-​ walled Zimbabwe settlements and the settlements of stratified Venda-​ speaking chiefdoms south of the Limpopo River (e.g., Huffman 1981). At closer inspection, early ethno-​historical documents and more recent ethnographies showed underlying similarities between the pre-​and proto-​ historical Zimbabwe Pattern and the Venda pattern (Huffman 1982), but differences from the Central Cattle Pattern of Sotho-​Tswana and Nguni speakers farther south. Other contributions of Huffman’s include identification of ceramic style structure that allows archaeologists to recognize large-​scale ethnolinguistic entities (e.g., Huffman 2007). His models also allow for the identification of social change, such as the transition from the Central Cattle Pattern to the Zimbabwe Pattern (Huffman 1982). Turning back to North America many years later, and following insights regarding different worldviews in southern Africa, Huffman re-​interpreted excavations at the Avery site that he conducted on the High Plains of southern Colorado while still a student at the University of Denver (Withers and Huffman 1966). Applying the concept of cultural tradition, or worldview, Huffman and Frank Earley (a historian) look at the aggregate of symbols that give meaning to social organization, a series of rules to govern behavior, and a set of values to guide choice. Instead of focusing on a central ritual that informs religion, such as in the case of Lewis-​Williams’s interpretation of San religion and rock

 

An ethnographically informed archaeology 9 art in terms of their trance dance (e.g., Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2012), Huffman and Earley extract basic cultural principles from the ethnographic record that affect the organization of space and distribution of artifacts in both the ethnographic and archaeological records. Looking at the archaeological record in terms of such ethnographically derived principles, Huffman and Earley differentiate between Great Basin hunter-​ gatherers/​ Apishapa tradition, northern Caddoan bison-​ hunting farmers/​ High Plains Upper Republican tradition, and Puebloan agriculturalists/​Sopris tradition. Sites that show overlaps between Apishapa and Sopris and between Apishapa and High Plains Republican features and artifacts are evidence for regular interaction between these groups instead of mobile foraging strategies. Basically, Apishapa went north for winter hunting and High Plains Upper Republican went south for summer hunting, while bison products were traded with Sopris communities. Based on ethnographic and archaeological evidence, economic alliances were probably accompanied by intermarriage and an integrative Calumet (peace pipe) exchange network. Approximately 700 km southwest of where Huffman and Earley are working, Todd and Christine VanPool focus on the Mexican site of Casas Grandes, or Paquimé, a unique ritual and economic center of the Medio period, dating to between A D 1200 and 1450. Having worked in the greater North American Southwest for many years, the VanPools have benefitted from the regions’ excellent preservation and an academic tradition that involves indigenous communities in interpretation. A  cognitive approach, as proposed by Lewis-​Williams and Dowson (1988) and Whitley (2001), allowed them to place their evolutionary and interpretative approaches into a coherent framework. The Casas Grandes culture covered northern Chihuahua, southwest New Mexico, far southeastern Arizona, and a portion of northeast Sonora. Geometric and naturalistic polychrome designs on pots from this period hint at an animistic worldview shaped by the altered-​state journeys of shamans who interacted with snakes and birds (e.g., VanPool and VanPool 2007). Although the VanPools do not assert a direct historical connection between Casas Grandes people and specific historic Puebloan communities, some connection almost certainly existed (e.g., VanPool and Newsome 2012). Paquimé exceeded surrounding centers with its size, quality, and quantity of non-​ local ritual architecture and trade goods. Practicing a religion reminiscent of the Western Mexican Aztatlán tradition, elites created a pilgrimage center at Paquimé that attracted surrounding communities and in so doing maintained and enhanced their authority. Ethnographies for various nearby Southwestern groups suggest that everyday social relationships were transformed during pilgrimages, creating a sense of community but also justifying and solidifying existing hierarchies. Massive agave roasting ovens, a cross-​shaped mound, another mound containing pot burials of elite individuals, elaborate public ballcourts, and stone structures on surrounding hilltops are cited as evidence of public works aimed to attract and accommodate pilgrims from

10  David S. Whitley et al. distant communities. The observation that specific polychrome ceramics that were manufactured at or near Paquimé occur at distant sites is evidence that pilgrims returned with these to their communities. The widespread occurrence of ornate ceramics at distant centers and the virtually exclusive concentration of exotic ocean shell and copper items at Paquimé are reminiscent of ethnographic instances where ‘souvenirs’ are dispersed across the landscape and exotic ‘offerings’ are concentrated in one locale. VanPool and VanPool conclude by showing that various Pueblo communities view certain artifacts and built features as living entities. At Paquimé their physical properties and specific contexts strongly suggest that they were treated like sentient beings. Viewed in the light of Puebloan beliefs and practices, the Mound of the Serpent and painted horned serpent ceramics at Paquimé are among the material evidence that suggest the horned serpent and its association with rain attracted pilgrims from the vast surrounding arid landscape to this place. As in the chapter on the High Plains cultural traditions, Tom Huffman and Gavin Whitelaw apply socio-​cultural principles to interpret material symbols and the use of space during the life history of a complicated Early Iron Age site in the eastern portion of South Africa. To demonstrate the utility of this approach, they apply the Central Cattle Pattern model to the multicomponent site of Ntshekane. In southern Africa, the Central Cattle Pattern was the way that patrilineal agriculturalists arranged their living spaces and were in turn influenced by their living spaces. In such a socio-​ cultural system where male ancestors were venerated, space took on a gendered arrangement. Within this arrangement, male/​female = center/​periphery = cattle byre/​raised granaries = deep grain pits/​shallow tuber pits. Due to substantial removal of soil and shallow features by erosion at Ntshekane, Huffman and Whitelaw focused on the distribution of two contrasting pit types as the main means to reconstruct the history of successive settlements spanning the period A D 640–​1060 at this location. Having studied Archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Gavin Whitelaw has used archaeological and ethnographic evidence to identify and interpret change in cognitive systems across space and through time (Whitelaw 2013). Comparing sites of the first-​millennium Early Iron Age with fourteenth to seventeenth century Late Iron Age sites along the eastern littoral of southern Africa, Whitelaw examines the relationship between multiple households and the homestead head within homestead units arranged around central cattle byres. The ethnographic record shows tensions between households, between households and homestead head, between homestead heads, and ultimately between chiefdoms, each led by the most senior of the homestead heads. Shared ideas of pollution allow men to control the productive and reproductive capacities of their wives, children, and followers. Ethnographic evidence furthermore shows that ceramics used in potentially socially charged contexts, such as containers used by

 

An ethnographically informed archaeology 11 non-​kin wives serving beer and food to their husbands during public events, are more elaborately decorated. Moreover, southern Bantu economies that emphasize domestic plant cultivation over domestic animal husbandry tend to exact higher amounts of cattle in exchange for non-​kin wives. Since Early Iron Age Kalundu communities had comparatively elaborate ceramics and emphasized cultivation in their site locations, they probably dealt with structurally strained and costly marriage alliances. Relatively simple ceramics are common in ethnographically documented social formations where men have considerable control over their wives, children, and followers. Relatively simple ceramics recovered from comparatively small and isolated Late Iron Age Moor Park settlements, farther removed from cultivated plots, suggest tightly knit agnatic clusters with reduced emphasis on women’s productive roles and pollution beliefs regarding affinal relatives. Whitelaw’s chapter shows that ethnographically informed constructs, such as the Central Cattle Pattern, do not always imply uniformity or continuity but can also accommodate nuanced differences across space and through time. While Whitelaw has done fieldwork with Zulu-​ speaking colleagues since the mid-​1980s, Johan van Schalkwyk has lived and worked among Sotho-​speaking communities since the 1970s (e.g., Van Schalkwyk 2001). Both Zulu and Sotho linguistic groups arrange their social relations and settlements according to a Central Cattle Pattern worldview. However, whereas most Zulu-​speaking homesteads are nucleated and tend to be arranged around a single cattle byre where inhabitants practice exogamous marriage, most Sotho-​speaking homesteads are aggregated around multiple cattle byres where the inhabitants tend to marry cousins. Van Schalkwyk’s immersive research among various Sotho-​speaking communities has resulted in his realization that an insiders’ or emic understanding of the world differs in many ways from that of anthropologists and archaeologists. Whereas he recognizes the importance of archaeological classification to order ceramic shape, decoration, and decoration placement in terms of style, time, and space (e.g., Huffman 1980, 2007), he stresses the importance of documenting the makers’ and users’ classification of their own ceramics. Knowing that Sotho and other southern Bantu-​speaking groups view their ceramics as metaphorical humans and accordingly classify them largely in terms of their social contexts of use, Van Schalkwyk is able, for example, to recognize that black triangles on the shoulders of ceramics equal the triangular rear aprons worn by women or that parallel grooves below the lips of beer vessels equal the incisions on female initiates’ upper legs. During weddings, ancestral veneration feasts, and funerals, such decorated ceramics not only reflect but also regulate social relations between people, especially husbands and wives. These and other ethnographic examples presented by Van Schalkwyk support the inferences made by Whitelaw regarding the active participation of material culture in social relations.

12  David S. Whitley et al. Reminiscent of Whitelaw and Van Schalkwyk’s interaction with indigenous people on projects involving material culture and archaeology, David Dye worked in close collaboration with Choctaw people at an archaeological site museum in western Tennessee, dating back to 1969. This interaction enabled Dye to recognize that elements of Mississippian religious sodalities and associated material objects can still be detected among the Choctaw and other groups in the region (e.g., Dye 1994). His additional investigations of representational objects and documented Native American beliefs show that not only were the production and use of such objects informed by shamanic activities and various forms of altered states, but also that the objects played important roles in everyday life. Dye references Ruth Benedict’s (1923) ‘guardian spirit complex’ which covers a wide range of groups, including the Lenape, Menominee, and Kiowa, to show how conjurers turn their guardian spirits into animated material objects. Stylistically uniform ‘hunchback’ female ceramic bottles, dating roughly between AD 1250 and 1650 in the Lower Mississippi Valley, which exhibit physical traces of repeated use and handling, conform to ethnographic examples of heavily utilized guardian spirit objects. The trance posture and facial expressions of individual effigy bottles, together with applied green pigment (signifying the oral secretion of sphinx-​moth caterpillars) and applique depictions of Datura seed pods, strongly suggest female pursuits for visions of spirit helpers. Cardinal direction motifs on several effigy bottles also conform to ethnographically recorded accounts of spirit helpers. The use of such animated effigies in healing ceremonies, as well as for sorcery, show that like southern Bantu ceramics, these objects were actively involved in contested social relationships. Working among the Luba people of Central Africa for decades, Pierre de Maret was heavily influenced by African art interests within his family and by the structuralist analyses of Luc de Heusch (1980). Having successfully demonstrated a continuous ceramic-​style sequence from the seventh century AD through to modern times (e.g., de Maret 1979), he feels confident that no gap exists between the regional archaeological record and the ethnographic present. In addition to continuity in pottery production techniques and shapes, de Maret cites continuity from excavated burial contexts, including choice of location, orientation of interred bodies, filed human incisors, iron tools and weapons, miniature artifacts, and deliberately placed ungulate metapodia. Luba people believe that spirits of the disembodied dead still live among them and that it is important that they are properly buried with appropriate accoutrements to ensure that the spirits assist the living in their everyday activities. Miniaturized pots and metal tools in children’s graves, extending back to the Early Iron Age, are material links between the worlds of the physically living and ancestral spirits. Viewed in terms of ethnographic instances, ungulate metapodia, normally placed on or near the thorax, were probably used for procreational educational purposes, both in life and death.

 

An ethnographically informed archaeology 13 Reminiscent of dolls and phallic-​looking metapodia, interred hammers and anvils also have anthropomorphic and sexual associations, both in appearance and in ethnographic accounts. The careful placement of these items in graves echoes and reinforces beliefs in the relationship between successful ironworking, hunting, and reproduction in general. The ubiquity of these elaborate and enduring burial practices shows that instead of centering on royal dynasties, supernatural and political power was vested in a belief system shared by largely autonomous polities within the fertile Upemba Depression of tropical central Africa. The elaborate burials not only ensured continuity between living and dead communities, but also facilitated remarkable continuity through time. Johannes Loubser and Scott Ashcraft show that in-​depth knowledge of contemporary Cherokee beliefs, traditions, and rituals is useful when it comes to the proper management and conservation of petroglyph boulders that Cherokee forebears created, some of which continue to be visited and interacted with. On closer scrutiny, the overall landscape settings of the petroglyphs provide a significant context for site management too, showing that the boulders are linked to distant mountain tops, also known as ‘balds’. Like Whitelaw, Loubser completed his archaeological studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he adopted structuralist and social-​historical approaches. Ever since his year’s post-​graduate work in rock art conservation and management in Australia, he has been incorporating ethnographic and archaeological information into his preservation work. Following his emigration to the United States of America he has increasingly paid attention to the religious beliefs of indigenous groups (e.g., Loubser 2010), influenced mainly by the pioneering research of David Whitley (1994). By the time he started collaborating with Ashcraft (who grew up and was educated near the Cherokee heartland of western North Carolina) on recording and conserving petroglyph boulders within Forest Service land, both had already been paying close attention to the beliefs and wishes of indigenous communities in the area. Focusing on two petroglyph boulders in the mountains, Judaculla Rock in western North Carolina and Track Rock in northern Georgia, ethnographic information reveals that Judaculla Rock marks the ‘Eastern Gate’ to Judaculla’s townhouse within Tanasee Bald, while Track Rock is part of the ‘Southern Gate’ to Judaculla’s townhouse within Brasstown Bald. Judaculla, a giant Master of the Game with slanted eyes, together with his family of spirit beings, had to be supplicated for game and other favors by Cherokees walking along trails, ritually pausing at the petroglyph boulders before proceeding to his mountain top townhouse. Bearing in mind that each petroglyph boulder is a picture map of the multi-​ layered spirit world in which it occurs, the boulder is in effect a microcosmic manifestation of the surrounding macrocosm. Ongoing visits by certain Cherokees to these boulders, particularly Judaculla Rock near the Qualla Boundary Indian Reservation, perpetuate certain aspects of traditional beliefs and

14  David S. Whitley et al. practices. To preserve the spiritual values that these places have among Native Americans, the United States Forest Service, nearby communities, and other interest groups have taken collaborative and deliberate steps to record, manage, and interpret the boulders and surrounding landscape with wider public visitation in mind. Whereas continuity can be demonstrated between the petroglyphs of the southern Blue Ridge Mountains and nearby Cherokee communities, Joakim Goldhahn deals with a hiatus of millennia that separates prehistoric cupules in Sweden and the richly documented historic period. Using both detailed historical/​ethnographic sources (i.e., ‘absolute’ approach of Malmer (1981)/​‘informed’ approach of Taçon and Chippindale (1998)) and archaeologically derived information (i.e., ‘relative’ approach of Malmer (1981)/​‘formal’ approach of Taçon and Chippindale (1998)), Goldhahn critically evaluates the hypothesis that a once widespread belief in elves is associated with 10,000-year old prehistoric cupules. The earliest known cupules are associated with Maglemose settlements, while the most recent cupules date to the Merovinger period, roughly 1,400  years ago. Significantly, this is the stretch of time when shafted bone, antler, and stone implements occurred in the archaeological record, circumstantial evidence that the cupules were used as pivot supports during bow-​ drilling of holes in the implements. The oldest written mention of elves comes from a 1,400-​year old bracteate (medal). An 800-​ year old saga mentions a wounded man smearing his blood on a stone dwelling-​place of elves, but without any mention of cupules. Historical sources from 200 years ago mention an injured woman rubbing grease on a cupule in order to supplicate elves, a practice that continued into the early twentieth century. Fragments of reworked and smashed quartz and flint associated with 2,500-​year old Late Bronze Age cupules could be sacrificial gifts. The oldest coins left at cupules as gifts to elves are only 500 years old. Along with coins, other historic period gifts left at cupule sites and similar special places associated with elves include quartz stones and dolls. Since no chronological overlap can be demonstrated between belief in elves and cupule production, Goldhahn concludes that the belief that elves produced cupules dates to the early sixteenth-​century Reformation. Admittedly, absence of material evidence is not evidence for the absence of certain beliefs, especially if gifts to elves changed from quartz stones and perishable dolls to coins during the advent of an increasingly mercantile economy in the sixteenth century. Whatever the case might be, Goldhahn shows that during pivotal religious transformations, certain long-​standing practices can undergo a shift in emphasis. Like Whitelaw and Loubser, Alex Schoeman completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of the Witwatersrand and her chapter is also rooted in the brand of cognitive archaeology developed by David Lewis-​Williams and Tom Huffman. Culture history sequences and ethnographic case-​studies in different parts of southern Africa show

 

An ethnographically informed archaeology 15 that few, if any, groups in southern Africa were homogenous. Schoeman focuses on evidence of interaction between indigenous San gatherer-​ hunter camps and incoming Bantu-​ speaking agriculturalist-​ pastoralist chiefdoms in the Shashe-​Limpopo Confluence Area, where the borders of South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe meet. This is the area where she did ground-​breaking research on rainmaking locales used by various communities through time (e.g., Schoeman 2006). Although the worldviews of gatherer-​hunters and agriculturalist-​pastoralists differed substantially, gatherer-​hunter women marrying into agriculturalist-​pastoralist communities managed to introduce certain beliefs regarding potent wild animals and rain to the newcomers. Subservient people modifying the beliefs of the dominant groups can be ascribed to many factors, including sustained reactions to the ‘extreme patriarchy’ of male lineages and a prevailing belief that autochthonous people had privileged connections with the land and its life-​giving spirit beings. The initial creation of hilltop rain-​ control features in the Shashe-​Limpopo Confluence Area was most likely the work of male ritual specialists. However, following increasing socio-​ economic stratification and state formation centered on Mapungubwe Hill roughly 1,000  years ago, the appearance of cupules and worked quartz on the same hilltops hint at female involvement, as can be seen in the ethnographic literature of various southern African San people. The appearance of wild animal remains in the same locales at roughly the same time is evidence for the modification and incorporation of San beliefs by increasingly centralized Bantu-​speaking chiefdoms. According to the archaeological record and ethnohistoric information, the involvement of San ritual specialists in rainmaking activities dwindled and they were eventually replaced by powerful rainmaking dynasties among Shona and later Venda and northern Sotho-​speaking communities. Much farther to the southeast, the lack of social stratification among southern Nguni speakers allowed San influences to persist into more recent times. In this final chapter, Schoeman convincingly shows that culture-​specific interpretations are important to detect nuanced differences through time and across space. Post-​ modernists, including post-​ processual archaeologists, have sometimes argued that all theories and interpretations are culturally specific products. The only value of such theories and interpretations, from this view, is in the study of the nature of post-​modern western intellectualism, rather than the cultures and societies to which they are said to pertain. The problem with this position, as Kuper (1992: 2) points out, is that it is apparently the only theory that is immune to this same criticism. With Kuper, then, the contributors to this volume instead tacitly continue to value the information, interpretations and explanations that may be derived from or found in ethnographic studies. Their approaches to the archaeological record are, in this sense, fundamentally anthropological, even if their anthropological inspiration varies from the social to the cultural to the symbolic and

16  David S. Whitley et al. cognitive. Our understanding of the human past can only benefit from this kind of anthropological eclecticism for, as Willey and Phillips (1958) first stated, archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing.

Notes 1 AMS Affiliates, Tehachapi, California, and Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. 2 Stratum Unlimited LLC, Johns Creek, Georgia, and Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. 3 KwaZulu-​ Natal Museum, Private Bag 9070, Pietermaritzburg, and School of Social Sciences, University of KwaZulu-​Natal, Durban.

References Benedict, R. 1923. The concept of the guardian spirit in North America. Memoir 29. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association. Biesele, M. 1980. Old Kʺxau. In J. Halifax (ed.), Shamanic voices. Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 54–​62. Bleek, D.F. 1933. Customs and beliefs of the |Xam Bushmen: Part V: The rain. Part VI: Rain-​making. Bantu Studies 7: 297–​312, 375–​92. Bonneau, A., Pearce, D., Mitchell, P., Staff, R., Arthur, C., Mallen, L., Brock, F. and Higham, T. 2017. The earliest dated rock paintings from southern Africa:  new AMS radiocarbon dates. Antiquity 91 (356): 322–​33. Cady, W.G. 1964. Piezoelectricity: an introduction to the theory. New York: Dover Publications. de Heusch, L. 1980. Heat, physiology and cosmogony: rites de passage among the Thonga. In I. Karp and S.C. Bird (eds), Exploration in African systems of thought. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 27–​43. de Maret, P. 1979. Luba roots: the first complete Iron Age sequence in Zaïre. Current Anthropology 20 (1): 233–​5. Dye, D. 1994. The art of war in the sixteenth-​century Central Mississippi Valley. In P. Kwachka (ed.), Perspectives on the southeast: linguistics, archaeology, and ethnohistory. Athens: University of Georgia Press, pp. 44–​60. Fewster, K.J. 2006. The potential of analogy in post-​processual archaeologies:  a case study from Basimane ward, Serowe, Botswana. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 12: 61–​87. Huebner, B. 2014. Macrocognition:  a theory of distributed minds and collective intentionality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Huffman, T.N. 1980. Ceramics, classification and Iron Age entities. African Studies 39: 123–​74. Huffman, T.N. 1981. Snakes and birds: expressive space at Great Zimbabwe. African Studies 40: 131–​50. Huffman, T.N. 1982. Archaeology and ethnohistory of the African Iron Age. Annual Review of Anthropology 11: 133–​50. Huffman, T.N. 2001. The Central Cattle Pattern and interpreting the past. Southern African Humanities 13: 19–​35.

 

An ethnographically informed archaeology 17 Huffman, T.N. 2007. Handbook to the Iron Age:  the archaeology of pre-​colonial farming societies in southern Africa. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-​Natal  Press. Huffman, T.N. 2014. Fifty years of Iron Age research:  a personal odyssey. South African Archaeological Bulletin 69: 213–​18. Huffman, T.N. 2015. Mapela, Mapungubwe and the origins of states in southern Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin 70: 15–​27. Johnson, B. 1985. Earth figures of the lower Colorado and Gila River Deserts:  a functional analysis. Publication 20. Phoenix: Arizona Archaeological Society. Kuper, A. 1980. Symbolic dimensions of the Southern Bantu homestead. Africa 50 (1): 8–​23. Kuper, A. 1982. Wives for cattle:  bridewealth and marriage in southern Africa. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Kuper, A. 1988. The invention of primitive society: transformations of an illusion. London: Routledge. Kuper, A. 1992. Post-​modernism, Cambridge and the great Kalahari debate. Social Anthropology 1 (1a): 57–​71. Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. 1999. Philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York: Basic Books. Leach, E. 1974. Lévi-​Strauss. Glasgow: Fontana. Lee, R.B. 1967. Trance cure of the !Kung Bushmen. Natural History 78 (40): 14–​22. Lewis-​ Williams, J.D. 1972. The syntax and function of the Giant’s Castle rock paintings. South African Archaeological Bulletin 27: 49–​65. Lewis-​Williams, J.D. 1981. Believing and seeing: symbolic meanings in southern San rock paintings. London: Academic Press. Lewis-​Williams, J.D. 1982. The economic and social context of southern San rock art. Current Anthropology 23: 429–​49. Lewis-​Williams, J.D. 2002. The mind in the cave: consciousness and the origins of art. London and New York: Thames & Hudson. Lewis-​Williams, J.D. 2015. Texts and evidence: negotiating San words and images. South African Archaeological Bulletin 70: 53–​63. Lewis-​Williams, J.D. and Dowson, T.A. 1988. The signs of all times: entoptic phenomena in Upper Palaeolithic art. Current Anthropology 29: 201–​45. Lewis-​Williams, J.D. and Dowson, T.A. 1990. Through the veil: San rock paintings and the rock face. South African Archaeological Bulletin 45: 5–​16. Lewis-​Williams, J.D. and Loubser, J.H.N. 1986. Deceptive appearances: a critique of southern African rock art studies. In F. Wendorf and A.E. Close (eds), Advances in World Archaeology, Volume 5. New York: Academic Press, pp. 253–​89. Lewis-​Williams, J.D. and Pearce, D.G. 2004. San spirituality: roots, expressions and social consequences. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Lewis-​Williams, J.D. and Pearce, D.G. 2012. The southern San and the trance dance: a pivotal debate in the interpretation of San rock paintings. Antiquity 86: 696–​706. Loubser, J.H.N. 2010. Prefigured in the human mind and body: toward an ethnographically informed cognitive archaeology of metaphor and religion. Time and Mind 3 (2): 183–​212. Malinowski, B. 1948. Magic, science and religion and other essays. Boston: Beacon Press. Malmer, M.P. 1981. A chorological study of North European rock art. Stockholm: Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Antikvariska Serien 32.

18  David S. Whitley et al. Marshall, L. 1962. !Kung Bushman religious beliefs. Africa 32: 221–​51. Ndlovu, N. 2014. Challenges of conserving rock-​art at the uKhalamba Drakensberg Park, KwaZulu-​Natal, South Africa. In T. Darvill and A.P.B. Fernandes (eds), Open-​air rock-​art conservation and management:  state of the art and future perspectives. New York: Routledge, pp. 229–​43. Ouzman, S. and Loubser, J.H.N. 2000. Art of the apocalypse. Discovering Archaeology 2 (5): 38–​44. Schoeman, M.H. 2006. Imagining rain-​ places:  rain control and changing ritual landscapes in the Shashe-​Limpopo Confluence Area. South African Archaeological Bulletin 61: 152–​65. Taçon, P.S.C. and Chippindale, C. 1998. An archaeology of rock art through informed and formal methods. In C. Chippindale and P.S.C. Taçon (eds), The archaeology of rock art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–​10 VanPool, C.S. and Newsome, E. 2012. The spirit in the material: a case study of animism in the American Southwest. American Antiquity 77: 243–​62. VanPool, C.S. and VanPool, T.L. 2007. Signs of the Casas Grandes shamans. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Van Schalkwyk, J.A. 2001. Sotho. In M. Ember, C.R. Ember and I. Skoggard (eds), Encyclopedia of world cultures:  supplement. New  York:  Macmillan Reference USA, pp. 319–​23. Whitelaw, G. 2013. Pollution concepts and marriage for the southern African Iron Age. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 23 (2): 203–​25. Whitley, D.S. 1988. Bears and baskets:  shamanism in California rock art. In T. Dowson (ed.), The state of the art:  advances in world rock art research. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand, pp.1–​8. Whitley, D.S. 1994. Shamanism, natural modeling and the rock art of far western North American hunter-​gatherers. In S. Turpin (ed.), Shamanism and rock art in North American. Special Publication 1.  San Antonio:  Rock Art Foundation, pp.  1–​43. Whitley, D.S. 1998. Finding rain in the desert:  landscape, gender, and far western North American rock art. In C. Chippendale and P.S.C. Taçon (eds), The archaeology of rock art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 11–​29. Whitley, D.S. 2001. Science and the sacred: interpretive theory in US rock art research. In K. Helskog (ed.), Theoretical perspectives in rock art research. Oslo: Instuttet for Kulturforskning, pp. 124–​51. Whitley, D.S. 2009. Cave paintings and the human spirit: the origin of creativity and belief. New York: Prometheus Books. Whitley, D.S. 2010. Art and belief:  the ever-​ changing and the never-​ changing in the Far West. In G. Blundell, C. Chippindale and B. Smith (eds), Seeing and knowing:  understanding rock art with and without ethnography. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 108–​29. Whitley, D.S. 2013. Rock art dating and the peopling of the Americas. Journal of Archaeology 2013, Article ID 713159: pp. 15. Whitley, D.S., Dorn, R.I., Simon, J.M., Rechtman, R. and Whitley, T.K. 1999. Sally’s Rockshelter and archaeology of the vision quest. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9 (2): 221–​47. Willey, G. and Phillips, P. 1958. Method and theory in American archeology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

An ethnographically informed archaeology 19 Withers, A.M. and Huffman, T.N. 1966. Archaeological survey of the Pueblo Reservoir, Colorado, 1965. Anthropology Department, University of Denver. Submitted to National Park Service. Copies available from the Colorado Preservation Office, Denver. Zigmond, M. 1977. The supernatural world of the Kawaiisu. In T.C. Blackburn (ed.), Flowers of the wind: papers on ritual, myth, and symbolism in California and the Southwest. Socorro, NM: Ballena Press, pp. 9–​95.

2 Cognitive archaeology revisited Agency, structure and the interpreted past David S. Whitley1

My exposure to the southern African approach to cognitive archaeology was David Lewis-​Williams’s fault (though I fully accept all blame for the things I may have, over the years, gotten wrong). I was making the final corrections and edits to my already accepted PhD dissertation in 1982 when I  first discovered and ordered a copy of his 1981 book, Believing and Seeing. It had significant implications for my study of method and theory in California rock art research, but it was too late to have any substantive impact on my dissertation. That came later. I was, however, already primed for accepting the southern African approach to rock art. I had included a chapter on the symbolic analysis of Shoshone mythology and the implications of this symbolism for understanding the Coso Range (California) petroglyphs. I  was already using ethnography, in other words, even if still only superficially, and likewise I intuitively understood that the symbolism of the art involved more than hunting magic, the then-​ prevalent interpretation of North American rock art. I also had read Pat Vinnicombe’s 1976 book, People of the Eland, and I was generally familiar with San rock art. Equally importantly, my undergraduate and postgraduate studies were in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Los Angeles, mostly during the 1970s—​sometimes (sometimes infamously) referred to as the ‘UCLA School of Shamanism’. Though Stacey Shaffer and I, as the last products of this ‘school’, were a decade or more behind its primary cohort, we were both influenced by Johannes Wilbert, Gerardo Reichel-​Dolmatoff, Peter Furst, Barbara Meyerhoff, Douglas Sharon and, (notoriously) of course, Carlos Castaneda, and their studies of shamanism. Although I had focused on rock art for my PhD, I was not at that time convinced that an archaeologist could make a career out of rock art studies alone:  it was still essentially an avocationalist rather than professional topic in North America. I  wrote my dissertation on rock art only due to the visionary attitude and support of Clement W. Meighan, my advisor at UCLA, who himself was one of the rare academic archaeologists who sometimes conducted rock art projects (e.g., Meighan 1966). I  spent the next four years after graduating at the UCLA Institute of Archaeology alternating between rock art and ‘dirt’ archaeological research, primarily on the south

 

Cognitive archaeology revisited 21 coast of Guatemala, as a result. This changed in 1986 when Lewis-​Williams arranged a postdoctoral research fellowship for me at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Rock Art Research Unit (now Institute). I was at Wits from 1987 to 1989. This afforded me the opportunity not only to work directly with Lewis-​Williams but also provided an important exposure to the parallel African Iron Age cognitive archaeological research of Tom Huffman (e.g., 1981, 1982, 1986) and his students (e.g., Evers 1988; Loubser 1991), all of whom themselves were carefully utilizing Adam Kuper’s ethnographies (e.g., 1982). This was inspiring: southern African cognitive archaeology not only was the clear path to the interpretation of rock art, with its obvious symbolic intent, but it also was applicable to the larger archaeological record. It changed the way archaeology could understand the past, and I was a quick, and easy, convert. I rapidly found an intellectual home in the Wits approach to studying prehistory. That this occurred during the 1980s is, in retrospect, not surprising: the 1980s was a decade of great, perhaps radical, archaeological change. The discipline rapidly transitioned from an almost exclusively academic emphasis to the applied profession of heritage management (a change that relatively few academic archaeologists, four decades later, have yet to appreciate fully). Post-​modernism and its offshoots, including feminism and post-​colonialism, highlighted the limits of processual archaeology. And at least two types of cognitive archaeology developed, in different parts of the world. One of these, sometimes now labeled ‘cognitive processualism’, is most closely associated with Colin Renfrew and Steven Mithen (in the United Kingdom), and Tom Wynn (in the United States), and their students and colleagues. The second is southern African cognitive archaeology, the topic of this volume. Although the two variants share many intellectual concerns, interests and methodological approaches, it is fair to say that cognitive processualism has primarily (although not exclusively) emphasized the implications of hominin cognitive development during the early stages of hominin evolution, whereas southern African cognitive archaeology has largely (although again not exclusively) been concerned with the more recent past. Perhaps most importantly, the southern African approach has differed from cognitive processualism due to its explicit emphasis on the use of ethnography and its concern with social lifeways. Yet outside of rock art and African research, southern African cognitive archaeology has effectively been ignored in global archaeological research. The academic isolation resulting from apartheid, the geographical isolation of southern African archaeology and its emphases on regional research and rock art clearly contributed to this limited impact. But perhaps the most important factor in the restricted adoption of southern African-​style cognitive archaeology has been the rise of an alternative theory about human social life; one that is effectively inimical to the southern African approach yet one that has been widely adopted in North America and elsewhere. This is the theoretical emphasis on human agency, action and practice as the

22  David S. Whitley primary driving elements in social relations, resulting in what I  call ‘neoliberal archaeology’. Although there currently is no single predominant school of archaeological research (unlike, for example, when culture history was the primary goal), it is arguably fair to say that the neoliberal archaeological approach has become the preferred approach for the majority of contemporary archaeological research concerned with human social life and symbolism. I start this chapter with a critique of neoliberal archaeology, then, for three reasons. It has, first, (probably unwittingly) adopted a truly radical position on one of the oldest theoretical problems in social research, and it can only be fully appreciated with an understanding of that intellectual context. Second, it reflects the implicit adoption of a contemporary worldview—​ neoliberalism (as my label for it suggests)—​ and, for that fact, entails a series of contradictions, problematic but unrecognized ideological commitments, and unsupported empirical assumptions. Third, the emphasis on human agency and practice as the analytical focus of research provides a useful contrast to the methodological and theoretical tenets of South African cognitive archaeology. My critique focuses on some key publications of Timothy Pauketat (e.g., 2011, 2015), partly because his research has been very influential in North America, where I  work; but also due to his concern with the theoretical basis for his approach; and because, more than most others, he has explicitly considered a topic that is a common thread in cognitive archaeology: religion. Despite this emphasis, my critique is at least generally applicable to much recent North American research. I conclude this chapter with a theoretical and methodological discussion of cognitive archaeology, explain why I  believe we have not yet achieved a synthesis of the relationship of individual agency and structure, and then briefly outline one component of what such a synthesis will contain: Bryce Huebner’s (2014) theory of macrocognition. And this, I suggest, contextualizes the cognitive archaeological approach within the larger intellectual agenda to fully understand human social and cultural life.

Archaeology and the neoliberal turn A central problem in social research, for over a century, has involved integrating individual actions and intents with social collectivities and their reproduction. Stated more generally, since (and including) Émile Durkheim, researchers as varied as Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Talcott Parsons, Robert Merton and Anthony Giddens have all struggled with the tension between agency and structure, or action and order: how do individual self-​will and action relate to societies and cultures? The extreme positions in this debate would likely be a kind of behaviorist structural-​functionalism, sometimes seen in doctrinaire processualist archaeology where individual behavior is effectively prescribed by universal laws, versus a severe form

 

Cognitive archaeology revisited 23 of Weber’s (1968) methodological individualism, where individual actions and interactions alone create larger social structures. The structure versus action distinction reflects a top-​down (structure) as opposed to a bottom-​up (individual agency) view of human social life. The contrasting tenets are well expressed by Agassi (1960: 244) in an apocryphal discussion between what he calls an individualist and a holist: When the individualist contends that only individuals are responsible actors on the social and historical stage, the holist retorts that society is more than merely a collection of individuals. To this retort the individualist answers that there is no mysterious additional entity which turns a collection of individuals into a society; a collection of individuals is a society if there is strong interaction between them; this interaction is due to the fact that when one individual acts (rationally) on the basis of his own aims and interests, he takes into account the existence of other individuals with aims and interests. To this the holist retorts that the individualist misses the point; that people’s aims do not constitute a society but rather depend on society; so that members of different societies have different aims and interests … human action does not determine but is rather constrained by, or directed by, the social settings (perhaps because social forces are much stronger than any single individual). It is important to emphasize that this intellectual problem, as seen historically, does not concern the existence of individual agency and structure. Its focus instead has been to understand and resolve the integration of the two: how do individual decisions and actions relate to the development and reproduction of social and other structures? Giddens’s structuration (1984), for example, sought a resolution between objectivist, structuralist positions (e.g., structural functionalism, social systems theory) and subjectivist approaches (hermeneutics and phenomenology), which emphasize the production and reproduction of individual agents. But as Giddens (1984: 219) stated: Every research investigation in the social sciences or history is involved in relating action to structure, in tracing, explicitly or otherwise, the conjunction or disjunctions of intended and unintended consequences of activity and how these affect the fate of individuals. [Emphasis added] Although the intellectual roots of the action–​structure academic debate are then extensive (e.g., Alexander et  al. 1987; Tan 2013), this issue has also been foundational (even if implicitly) to an especially important development in contemporary society, beyond academia. This involves the rise of neoliberalism as the pervasive Western political-​ economic theory, a circumstance which, as we shall see, has also influenced recent archaeological theory. This requires some background.

24  David S. Whitley Summarizing from Chomsky (1999), Harvey (2007), and papers in Springer et  al. (2016), neoliberalism initially developed in Europe in the 1930s as a reaction against the extreme statism of fascism and communism, along with the economic effects of the Great Depression. Neoliberalism politically emphasized individual freedom, liberty and independence—​all obviously positive traits. Economically it supported unregulated but protected free-​market capitalism. It was neo-​in the sense that it was an alternative to the previous liberal theory. One of its main early proponents was the economist Friedrich von Hayek. Von Hayek, as a micro-​(as opposed to macro-​) economist, also strongly supported methodological individualism (e.g., Von Hayek 1942, 1955), arguing that economic trends can only be understood in terms of individual transactions. The key character of Von Hayek’s methodological individualism was that it “systematically starts from the concepts which guide individuals in their actions and not from the results of their theorizing about their actions” (1942:  286). Milton Friedman, another prominent libertarian economist of similar vein, is also associated with neoliberalism. Neoliberal political-​economic theory initially contrasted with the mid-​ century American alternative, embedded liberalism, best expressed by Franklin Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ and Lyndon Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ (Harvey 2007). This viewed capitalism as embedded in society but constrained by political and social welfare concerns. (Post-​war European democracies were also largely variants of embedded liberalism.) A series of economic shocks in the 1970s led the corporate/​capitalist class to initiate an explicit strategy to promote neoliberalism (at that time just an obscure economic theory), resulting in the effective demise of embedded liberalism. The immediate outcomes of these circumstances and events were the elections of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan as President of the United States. Both advocated reducing the role of government and minimizing or eliminating business regulations. Reagan famously stated that “Government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem”. Equally famously, Thatcher said that “There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families”. These extreme positions, although introduced by conservative political parties, were subsequently normalized by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton’s ‘Third Way’, thereby fully completing the neoliberal turn in Western democracy. And though widely spun as simply a return to ‘conservative values’, neoliberalism in fact represented a restructuring of Western societies and economies, and a radical change in our view of social relations. Neoliberalization has then had both social/​ intellectual and structural affects. With respect to the first, it has served to atomize society, prioritizing individual actions and interests over the collective (‘There is no such thing as society’). It has demonized government specifically and authority more generally (‘government is the problem’). And it has promoted a transactional view of social relations, where it is ‘every person for themselves’.

 

Cognitive archaeology revisited 25 The structural changes resulting from neoliberalization have resulted in a redistribution, rather than a generation, of wealth and income. And it has led to militarization and increased incarceration, as the neoconservative resolutions of one of its internal contradictions—​military and law enforcement powers being the antidote to the chaos of individual interests, needed to ensure the safety of an otherwise uncontrolled free market. Emphasizing the economic side of this theory, Chaudhary and Chappe (2016: no pages) have observed that: The raison d’être of neoliberalism … is to extend market relations and principles to every facet of society, from ‘the economy’ itself to the state all the way down to redefining basic understandings of the human being. Citizens become consumers; humanity becomes ‘human capital,’ people become amorphous, reinventing, endlessly flexible, resilient, risk-​taking individuals. As US presidential candidate Mitt Romney then infamously proclaimed, “Corporations are people”. This perfectly reflected the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC US Supreme Court case, which awarded constitutional freedom-​of-​ speech rights to for-​profit corporations with respect to political campaign financing, thereby fundamentally changing US democracy. Human social life is now fully subsumed by our political-​economy, viewed from a Von Hayekian micro-​economic perspective. Perhaps most importantly, as Harvey (2007: 3) has emphasized: Neoliberalism has … become hegemonic as a mode of discourse. It has pervasive effects on ways of thought to the point where it has become incorporated into the common-​sense way many of us interpret, live in, and understand the world. The widespread implicit Western view of social relations, resulting from the neoliberal turn, thus has become a transactionalist ideal: individual actions as the basis for all social behavior, with this behavior only understood in terms of these individual exchanges. This is not just pervasive in the general sense, but it has become entrenched in much academic thinking. Neoliberalism was influential, for example, among post-​modern French social philosophers, especially Michel Foucault (Lemke 2001; Foucault et al. 2008; Gane 2008; de Lagasnerie 2012; Wacquant 2016; Zamora and Behrent 2016). Indeed, François Lyotard’s famous definition of post-​ modernism as “incredulity towards metanarratives” (1984: xxiv), and his concern with micro-​rather than macro-​perspectives, could be understood as exemplary of the neoliberal worldview, especially its derogation of authority. The anthropological emphasis on radical alterity is another outcome (e.g., Keesing 1990). Neoliberal theory is also then evident in archaeology, specifically in the theoretical overemphasis on human agency and action in archaeology to

26  David S. Whitley the near if not complete exclusion of structure and cognition. This has been justified primarily following the arguments of Bourdieu (1977) and Latour (2005) but especially Ingold’s (2011) metaphor for social life as a “web of relationships constantly in a state of becoming” (e.g., Skousen and Buchanan 2015: 5). Although careful to acknowledge the existence of both inequality and structure (e.g., Pauketat 2011:  225), these phenomena are effectively ignored by many archaeologists, as if they do not matter in contemporary society and also were not potentially important in the prehistoric past. Concern with structure in prehistoric societies and cultures is then derided as the projection of an essentialist model on past social life which was, instead, always relational, and always in a state of flux and change. As Pauketat (2011: 223) has asserted: Instead of assuming that certain legends or myths were transmitted unchanged over centuries, or that men, women, and children shared the same belief system … analysts would do better to understand the changing configurations of practices relative to larger relational webs of people, places, and things (or substances and elements). Otherwise, we create structural regularity and (re)invent religious tenets, principles, and orthodoxies where none may have existed. As this seems to emphasize, long-​lasting structural systems and cultural continuity rarely or never existed. Social life instead is best analyzed in terms of individual transactional relationships and their changing configurations, and human reactions to their environment. Pauketat (2011: 229) elaborates this further with respect to religion by claiming that: [I]‌f there is a religious dimension to so much of what people do, then religious practices are continuously exposed to the circumstances and agendas of networks or landscapes in flux. And this historical process means that structuralist or cognitivist positions, often borrowed from ethnology via analogy, can no longer be allowed to spill into interpretations of the Southwest. People do not put structures, meanings, or templates into action per se; these always and necessarily exist simultaneously outside the mind in the spatiality and materiality of bodies, landscapes, and objects, along with other elements, sensations, or unseen forces that are all potentially part of larger relational fields or networks. They engage webs of relationships and, in turn, those webs engage people. [Emphasis added] This passage is a proscription against concern with symbolic analyses and structural interpretations: such approaches ‘can no longer be allowed’. (One wonders, not allowed by whom?) Perhaps worse, how can ‘meaning’ exist ‘outside the mind’? Presumably this is not an appeal to shared meanings inasmuch as collective structure is considered of little importance. Instead

 

Cognitive archaeology revisited 27 it apparently invokes a grossly over-​ stated version of external agency.2 Pauketat elsewhere doubles-​down on his criticism of structural analyses of religion which “homogenize what was certainly a diversity of beliefs into one view” (2015: 16). It is hard to know what to make of such a claim in light of the obvious place that religions have played, and continue to play, in human social life, not least their role in ongoing, structurally organized human conflict. Contextualized in terms of social theory more generally, these passages are a commitment to behaviorist neoliberalism: social life ontologically flattened to individual transactional relationships, viewed as fluctuating mesh-​works or entanglements, with the existence of long-​lasting social structures like class and gender inequality analytically ignored. It is of course correct that social life can be conceptualized as a web of relationships. This is the basis for formal network analyses. But, outside of such analyses, this conceptualization is only trivially true. A remarkable aspect of these arguments then is that many of them are assertions based on putative intellectual authority, yet they are widely accepted in all contexts as empirically valid (e.g., Skousen and Buchanan 2015). It apparently is so obvious to some archaeologists that social life is transactional, and that social and cultural structures are figments of other contemporary researchers’ biases and imaginations, that little effort needs be made to demonstrate that these radical claims are valid—​despite over a century of research by the most celebrated social and cultural theorists arguing that agency and structure must be understood in conjunction. The parallel between the recent development of neoliberal theory and the archaeological overemphasis on agency, action and practice at the expense of structure is then straightforward. I must make clear here, however, that I make no accusations, direct or implied, about any individual researcher’s personal political philosophy. (I am certain that many researchers are explicitly opposed to the political-​ economic structure that their intellectual arguments unwittingly support.) The point instead is that this circumstance reinforces Harvey’s (2007) observation that neoliberal thought has become hegemonic:  many archaeologists have accepted a neoliberal view of past social life not because they necessarily support neoliberal ideology and its associated conservative/​right wing politics. It is because, in the absence of critical thinking, such an ideology has become the current Western ‘common-​ sense’ view of the world.3 Yet substantial empirical conditions and research demonstrate that the neoliberal view of social relations is not just wrong; it is a contemporary Western utopian view of society that, due to its many internal contradictions, is ultimately unstable, as Harvey (2007: 19) has also observed. Taking Pauketat’s archaeological position at face value, for example, deeply embedded structural inequalities like gender or racial/​ethnic biases are admitted to exist but then are, conveniently, typically ignored. This is necessary because their existence contradicts the neoliberal social model.

28  David S. Whitley In contemporary terms, then, both the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements are interpreted simply as attempts to ‘game the system’, which is putatively everywhere a level playing-​field, via identity politics. Yet we know empirically that these kinds of structural inequalities truly exist in and are deeply rooted within contemporary society; some contend that our existing social conditions are fully a historical result of such structural inequalities (e.g., Coates 2015). We also know that such systems existed ethnographically in traditional, non-​Western societies (e.g., Collier 1988), and we have every reason to believe they occurred prehistorically (e.g., Lewis-​Williams 1982; McGuire 1983; Conkey and Spector 1984; Whitley 1992, 1994a), even in otherwise classless societies. To admit on the one hand that these kinds of inequalities do or may exist but, on the other, to argue that social life can only be understood as a perpetually changing set of individual interactions that effectively ignores such inequalities is the fundamental empirical contradiction of neoliberal archaeology. Similarly, we know that social structures such as kinship, moieties, totems and clans existed historically (e.g., Gifford 1918; Tooker 1971), and that certain cultural practices, like mother-​in-​law avoidance, likewise were widely practiced in traditional, non-​Western societies. Some neoliberal archaeologists argue that relational ontologies, generally perceived in terms of animism for example, somehow negate the existence of formal social structures such as totemism, or belief systems like shamanism (e.g., Skousen and Buchanan 2015). Willerslev and Ulturgasheva (2012) show in contrast how animistic relational ontologies co-​exist with hierarchical totemic structures in Siberia; Viveros de Castro (2007) illustrates the relationship between animistic thought and Amazonian shamanism; while Descola (1988) argues that complex societies are incompatible with animistic ontologies. The binary opposition between relational ontologies and social structure itself is then a contemporary Western essentialist construct, not an empirical reality. Indeed, as Costa and Fausto (2010: 95) have observed, “the ‘ontological turn’ conserves a defining element of structuralism: a privileging of the order of concepts over the order of practice”. Moreover, we know that other traditional, non-​Western societies, such as the pre-​contact Aztec, Inca, Hawai’ians, and some Southern Bantu, made distinctions between elites and commoners (e.g., Graeber and Sahlins 2017). All of these constrained social interactions, resulting not in an endlessly changing meshwork of individual exchanges, but in a partly pre-​determined set of interaction networks. Are we really to believe that none of these existed prehistorically, and that ethnographic accounts of these systems do not at least pertain to the recent prehistoric past? In his critique of methodological individualism, Stinchcombe (1968: 67–​ 8) demonstrates, furthermore, that collective generalities (e.g., about beliefs) may be widely shared and stable, even in the face of change in any given individual’s belief. This is because others may at the same time adopt the belief, just as population size may remain constant, even as some individuals

 

Cognitive archaeology revisited 29 die, through population replacement. As studies of social communication demonstrate more generally, aggregate beliefs and opinions develop partly due to interaction with other individuals (e.g., Adjodah et al. 2017). Psychological research, in turn, demonstrates that the nature and intensity of individual human action is partly motivated by perceived collective efficacy (Bandura 2000) and that a sense of individual agency plays a causal role in group actions (Gómez et  al. 2011; Swann and Buhrmester 2015). Perhaps most importantly, as extensive research on social networks has demonstrated, an individual’s position within any given network plays a significant role in that individual’s opportunities and constraints (e.g., Borgatti et al. 2009). Conceptualizing human social life as a network or web of interactions is analytically useful. Assuming that such a network has no definable structure, or that any such structure would be at best ephemeral and always changing, are a denial of social reality, past and present, based on a contemporary political-​economic ideology. This conclusion is not surprising, given earlier warnings of just this possibility. Twenty-​five years ago, Barbara Bender (1993: 258) cautioned that: The emphasis on the autonomy of the individual and on individual agency mirrors contemporary western politics. It fails to stress either the severe limits on autonomy (‘people make themselves, but not under conditions of their own choosing’—​Marx, emended), or the way in which some voices, some people, are empowered (authorized), and others marginalized. Similarly, Dobres and Robb (2000: 13) warn that: Agency theories can thus be peculiarly insidious tools for populating the past with ‘actors’ whose situated experiences and activities do little more than recreate those of the theorist … If we are not careful, an unconsidered version of agency can be used to reproduce, and indeed naturalize, the political forms of relations and dominations within which we now live … Thus, a particularly controversial question for potential agency theorists is how agency theory in archaeology can be used for purposes other than legitimizing modern social relations by uncritically projecting them back in time. Despite the realization of these predictions, the unintended irony of neoliberal archaeology is that it has often produced interesting if not compelling archaeological interpretations. This is ironic inasmuch as these results have been achieved not by analyzing changing configurations of individual prehistoric actions and practices so much as by identifying and examining collective behavioral patterns over time, sometimes involving natural constants and in most cases interpreted in terms of ethnographic data and analogies (e.g., papers in Buchanan and Skousen 2015; Pauketat 2015). Neoliberal

30  David S. Whitley archaeology is successful at interpreting the past when it violates its theoretical and methodological commitments and prescriptions, and practices archaeology in a fashion, as we shall see, similar to the southern African cognitive archaeological approach. With very few exceptions (such as the chaîne opératoire approach to technology), that is, we commonly interpret the archaeological record in terms of aggregate data and group behavior. This is true even in terms of reconstructing the ‘micro-​histories’ that Pauketat (2011) claims can be used in a wholly action-​theoretic archaeological approach.4 Despite the importance of individual agency in social relations, archaeology is largely unsuited to studying individual behavior.5 To contend otherwise—​that we can everywhere or even commonly discern significant, history-​changing individual actions from archaeological data—​risks one of two inferential fallacies: an ecological fallacy, where conclusions about individuals are derived from analyses of aggregated data; or an exception fallacy, where an interpretation about a collectivity is based on an individual exceptional case.

Cognitive archaeology revisited I have thus far emphasized the neoliberal turn and its impact North American archaeological theory. This provides a useful contrast to southern African cognitive archaeology which developed at about the same time. For more occurred intellectually in the 1980s than neoliberalism alone, with a widespread cognitive re-​orientation in social research more generally (cf. Zerubavel 1997; Alexander 2003; Ortega and Vidal 2016), including in anthropology (e.g., D’Andrade 1981). As already noted, this influenced archaeology in at least two slightly different though compatible forms. One was the development of what is generally labelled as cognitive-​ processualism, sometimes alternatively labeled neuroarchaeology:  the evolution of the Homo sapiens mind-​brain, language and other traits of cognitively ‘modern’ humans, as inferred from the archaeological record and based in part on psychological models. The second development was the emergence of southern African cognitive archaeology, the emphasis of this chapter and topic of this volume. David Lewis-​Williams, initially working in Africa and subsequently in the European Upper Paleolithic and Middle Eastern Neolithic (e.g., 1981, 1982, 2002; Lewis-​Williams and Dowson 1988; Clottes and Lewis-​Williams 1998; Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2005), is perhaps the best-​known proponent of southern African cognitive archaeology. Although Lewis-​Williams is well known as a rock art researcher, the southern African cognitive archaeological approach was also applied to ‘dirt’ archaeological research, especially the African Iron Age, by Thomas Huffman (e.g., 1981, 1982, 1986) and his students (including Jannie Loubser and Gavin Whitelaw, co-​editors of this volume). In all cases this research has been closely linked to ethnographic data and anthropological theory and models. Huffman’s work

 

Cognitive archaeology revisited 31 itself was heavily influenced by South African social anthropologist Adam Kuper (e.g., 1982); other research has had more disparate anthropological influences but, in all cases, these have emphasized symbolism, meaning and how they relate to and express social and cultural structure. Though theoretical and methodological summaries have been presented previously (Lewis-​Williams 1983, 1990, 1991, 2006; Huffman 1986, 2001; Lewis-​Williams and Loubser 1986; Whitley 1992, 1994b; Laughlin and Loubser 2010), these warrant formalization and, in some instances, expansion here. The following are salient aspects of southern African cognitive archaeology, as I interpret it. Cognition and culture As suggested by its name, cognitive archaeology prioritizes the place of the mind in any understanding of human life. This reflects a widespread recognition, beyond archaeology and anthropology, of the importance of cognition in human social life (e.g., Alexander 2003; Mandler 2014; Ortega and Vidal 2016). Bloch (2012: 8) states that: All anthropologists and similar social scientists, inevitably, in all their writings, are continually and centrally handling issues concerned with cognition and they are continually using cognitive theories to build the very core of their arguments. However, because anthropologists usually do their ‘cognitive anthropology’ in an unexamined and unselfconscious fashion, the cognitive theories they actually use are the hazy cognitive theories of folk wisdom … precisely the kinds of theories which the cognitive sciences have so often shown to be misleading. Cognitive archaeology, accordingly, maintains that the archaeological record is our evidence; that this evidence is a reflection of behavior; and that our research should interpret or explain behavioral evidence in terms of human cognition: human thought explains human action. Cognitive archaeology is then a rejection of the tautology of behaviorist approaches,6 and its goals are to explain the archaeological record in terms of the worldviews (systems of symbolism and meaning) and ideologies (socio-​political and economic doctrines and beliefs) of prehistoric peoples. This approach explicitly recognizes that cognition may be embodied (e.g., Whitley 1994a, 2008a, b; Blundell 2004; Culley 2008; Loubser 2010; Hampson 2016), and it rejects the processualist notion that cognition is epiphenomenal (Whitley 2008a). It also acknowledges the connection between emotion and so-​called rational thought (e.g., Whitley 2008a, 2009; Whitley and Whitley 2015). But none of this requires a commitment to mental templates or norms, as some neoliberal archaeologists have falsely assumed, based on long outdated culture theory, which is exactly the kind of view of culture and cognition that Bloch criticizes.

32  David S. Whitley The belief that culture, cognition and mental representations are reducible to mental templates in fact reflects the behaviorist theory of culture that was enshrined in processualist archaeology (Peebles 1992; Whitley 1992). Following American anthropological thinking since 1957—​for over a half-​century—​cognitive archaeologists understand culture in terms of constitutive or performative rules; guidelines in other words, rather than culture as regulative or prescriptive norms (e.g., Keesing 1974; D’Andrade 1981; Schneider 1982). Culture can be then understood as akin to the rules for a game of chess: a specified series of procedures that govern how the game is played but do not dictate the results of any individual competition. The relationship of agency and culture then has been well-​expressed by Ratner (2011: 183): Agency is not a private, personal attribute that seeks personal expression; it is cultural in the sense of striving to acquire cultural competencies. Agency is the subjective side of socialization that complements objective pressures from macro cultural factors … Agency is not only constrained by culture and draws upon culture for its motivation and direction; it is located in the elements of a cultural system. The cultural system is literally the operating mechanism of agency. Put another way, archaeological concern with human cultural and social life cannot avoid the importance of cognition expressed in terms of culture. The question then is whether we recognize this fact and operate accordingly, or instead stall under a fundamental misapprehension about the nature of social research. Cognitive universals, natural constants and structural principles Cognitive archaeologists acknowledge the existence of cognitive universals resulting from the fact that humans have shared roughly the same neuropsychological system since the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, circa 50,000 years ago. The best studied of these universals are, first, the mental imagery and somatosensory effects of altered states of consciousness (ASC) (Lewis Williams and Loubser 1986; Lewis Williams and Dowson 1988; Whitley 1994b, 1998; Lewis-​Williams 2002). The second are embodied metaphors (e.g., Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 1999; Whitley 1994a, 2000, 2008b; Culley 2003, 2008; Loubser 2010). My use of ‘cognitive universals’ here does not mean that all humans think alike.7 All humans instead have the capacity to think alike and, in certain limited circumstances, have similar cognitive, emotional and bodily reactions. Cognitive archaeologists also acknowledge the importance of natural constants and their significance with respect to many beliefs and rituals (Wilbert 1987; Whitley 1994a, 2001, 2006; Hollmann 2002; Hampson

 

Cognitive archaeology revisited 33 2016). I  refer to cognitive universals and natural constants as ‘natural models’ (Whitley 2001: 132–​3): These are natural phenomena, like animal behavior, that served to structure the logic underlying aspects of religious symbolism and ritual, usually by some form of analogical reasoning. In this sense, the thought underlying these models is rational and systematic. When natural models are based on phenomena that themselves involve invariant principles, uniformitarian laws, or timeless characteristics, the models have the potential to inform our understanding of truly prehistoric religious phenomena, without benefit of informants’ exegesis, and sometimes even without ethnohistorical connections. Five general types of natural models often serve to support the symbolic logic of a particular cultural system of meaning (ibid): Chemical—​e.g., tobacco as a sacred and powerful substance due to its effectiveness as an intoxicant, insecticide and vermifuge (e.g., Wilbert 1987); Behavioral/​physiological—​ e.g., animal behaviors and characteristics, such as aggressiveness and strength as signs of supernatural potency, or movement between environments (liminality) as a metaphor for an ability to move between realms (e.g., Whitley 1994a); Ecological—​ e.g., characteristics of the landscape, like the colored layering of a mountainside as a model for the layers of the cosmos (e.g., Goss 1972; Francis and Loendorf 2002); Neuropsychological—​e.g., the shared visual, emotional and physical-​ tactile effects of altered states of consciousness (e.g., Lewis-​Williams and Loubser 1986; Lewis-​Williams and Dowson 1988); and Physical—​e.g., observed and noted but unusual physical properties in the natural world, such as the triboluminescence of quartz, astronomical phenomena, or the physical qualities of caves (e.g., Whitley et al. 1999; Montello and Moyes 2012). The acknowledgment of natural models as the basis for much symbolism then tacitly rejects the Saussurean notion that signs are arbitrary. Many symbols are instead based on a natural logic, by which I mean logic based on natural world observations or somatosensory effects, at least some of which may be discoverable by careful contemporary analyses. (Many of us have studied the ethology and physiology of specific animal species, for example, to understand the prehistoric symbolic importance of these particular animals.) Natural models thus play an important role in cognitive archaeological analyses inasmuch as they serve as an interpretive bridge to the prehistoric past. They can explain continuity in symbolism, for example,

34  David S. Whitley not due to psychologisms (like Jungian archetypes), nor necessarily due to some unspecified process of cultural continuity. Instead, as Montello and Moyes (2012: 386) have observed, [M]‌ental models of the world come from one’s experience with it … experiences of the world are shaped in consistent ways by its physical nature, by the physical nature of our individual senses, and by the physical nature of our own bodies and how they interact physically with the world … the formulation of concepts cannot be divorced from sensory-​ motor regions of the brain and are thus grounded in material reality and experience. Symbolism then may be continually experienced and thereby reinforced in human interaction with the natural world. To cite one especially well-​known example, both the traditional Jivaro in South America and 1960s Western drug-​users referred to their ASC experiences metaphorically as ‘going on a trip’. This resulted not from the cross-​cultural diffusion of terminology but from widely shared somatosensory reactions to hallucinogens, the so-​called ‘mystical flight’ reaction, and thus convergent uses of the same bodily metaphor to describe these otherwise ineffable experiences (Whitley 1994a). While cognitive archaeologists who study art, symbolism and religion tend to emphasize cognitive universals and natural models, those concerned more with social relations often include structural principles in their analyses, especially as derived from the Direct Historical Approach (see later). As Huffman (1986: 85) has observed with respect to the African Iron Age: If wealth … is necessary to political power in the Bantu-​speaking world, then this correlation can be used to interpret the past because it is an ahistorical principle; that is to say a behavioural regularity that is not restricted to a specific place or time. … In science it is a common procedure to define regularities in such a way that the definition is not contingent upon a specific example. Cognitive archaeologists have then developed a number of analytical techniques intended not to impose a static or essentialist model on the past, but instead to provide keys to the social and cultural lives of prehistoric peoples. Commitment to scientific method The southern African cognitive approach also entails a commitment to scientific method, understood in the philosophical sense as a systematic means for evaluating hypotheses, and practiced following the precepts of post-​ positivist science:  inference to the best hypothesis (Lewis-​Williams 1983, 1985, 1990, 1991, 2006; Huffman 1986, 2001, 2004; Whitley 1992, 2006).

 

Cognitive archaeology revisited 35 Analogical data and reasoning are included as an important component of research, and are used to construct inferential cables, with multiple strands of evidence, rather than chains based on individual links (Lewis-​Williams 1991). Cognitive archaeology differs due to this commitment to scientific method from other approaches to symbolism and belief, such as hermeneutics and phenomenology. Ethnography and the Direct Historical Approach Many cognitive archaeological studies practice the Direct Historical Approach (DHA) (Wedel 1938) in the sense of starting with ethnography and working with it backwards in time to interpret the archaeological record (cf. Marcus and Flannery 1994). This approach is criticized by some archaeologists as an imposition of an essentialist model on the past, one that cannot possibly apply prehistorically due to change over time. This is a central methodological confusion that warrants discussion. First, three decades ago Huffman (1986) observed that, inasmuch as social and cultural change are central archaeological research topics, significant change should be archaeologically visible. Archaeologists are fully capable of determining when the DHA is applicable and when prehistoric conditions have changed sufficiently to disallow its use. While some archaeologists certainly could over-​extend the use of the DHA by ignoring evidence of change, this is a specific analytical and empirical error rather than a general methodological problem with the approach. Second, as Loubser (2008) has observed, many archaeologists necessarily assume a catastrophic cultural break, due to colonial conquest, between the prehistoric past and the ‘ethnographic present’, thereby rendering the DHA unusable (e.g., Ethridge and Shuck-​ Hall 2009; see contrasting opinions in Moore 1994; Grantham 2002). In part the perception of catastrophic change results from the failure to make a distinction between what Horton (1982) has labelled ‘open’ versus ‘closed’ societies and thought systems. This is a distinction that is important in understanding the impacts of events like colonization and cultural continuity, especially on religion (Whitley 2011). Contemporary Western Christianity is closed in the sense that it promotes only a single belief system:  Christianity (of whatever preferred variant) is correct, and all other systems of faith are false religions that are in competition with the true faith. Many if not most traditional non-​ Western religions, in contrast, exist/​existed in open societies and are more susceptible to syncretization—​hybrid combinations of beliefs and rituals (as well as other cultural practices). There is often thus no necessary contradiction in the adoption of certain beliefs or practices of an invading or conquering culture by traditional non-​Western cultures while retaining other elements of their own (Elkin 1964; Bean and Vane 1978; Kuper 1987; Levi-​Strauss and Eribon 1991). Indeed, Dimaggio (1997: 268) has noted that cognitive psychological research “explains the capacity of individuals to participate in

36  David S. Whitley multiple cultural traditions, even when those traditions contain inconsistent elements”, emphasizing that syncretization is a common and not unusual, process. Julian Steward (1955: 58), for example, then noted that a century of acculturation among the western Shoshoni: has not wiped out all Indian practices. Acculturation has consisted primarily of modifications of those patterns necessary to adjust to rural white culture … The Shoshoni retain, however, many practices and beliefs pertaining to kinship relations, child-​rearing, shamanism, supernatural power and magic. Raymond White (1963: 355) observed similarly: That religion frequently shows great resistance to change and is deeply involved in the social structure as well as the psychological patterns of a culture has been repeatedly demonstrated in anthropology. This is also true for the Luiseño. A rich body of the central characteristics of the old native religion has persisted in spite of missionary influences for nearly two centuries … Many features of the old Luiseño culture have been preserved. The underlying point here is that certain aspects of social life change more rapidly than others. Lithic or pottery technology, for example, may change rapidly, whereas belief systems and ideology may be slower to alter (Sahlins 1985). This raises the larger issues of how societies and cultures, including religions, change. Bloch (1986, 1992) has shown how, with socio-​political shifts, rituals tend to oscillate over time around a series of core practices, sometimes becoming elaborated and at other times returning to the central or core pattern, but always with continuity. Catastrophic culture change certainly can occur. But the assumption that conquest and colonization everywhere resulted in complete socio-​cultural change is an unsupported assumption that itself, ironically, involves an essentialist projection on the relatively recent past. This is ironic because use of the DHA has been criticized as resulting in essentialist reconstructions:  a projection back onto prehistory, creating an unchanging prehistoric past. The problem with this essentialist critique, aside from its mischaracterization of proper use of the DHA, is its unintended outcome, critical to heritage management: It supports arguments for a complete disjunction between contemporary Native Americans, ethnographic accounts, and the archaeological record. In the guise of giving traditional peoples back their histories and individualities, the essentialist critique moves even further backwards from this goal … helping to strip Native Americans of their historical

 

Cognitive archaeology revisited 37 heritage. For the contemporary Native American the essentialist critique yields … no historical identity whatsoever. (Whitley 2010: 126) The DHA, when combined with natural models and invariant principles, then provides us our surest approach for interpreting the past. More than this alone (in the absence of true laws of human behavior), critical use of ethnography more generally provides the only reasonable guidelines for understanding prehistory. This is not because the prehistoric past necessarily was the same as any given ethnographic case. Instead it is because the ethnographic record provides a range of variation within which we can expect prehistoric examples to fall or, if they do not, it may suggest clues to the kinds of extraordinary evidence that would justify inferring an exception (Whitley 2008b). Put another way, critical use of ethnography provides hypotheses that allow us to examine the archaeological record without the weight of our contemporary ideological biases; otherwise, as Bender (1993) and Dobres and Robb (2000) warn, we stand risk of projecting our contemporary ideologies onto the past.

Culture, society and cognitive archaeology Integrating the relationships of individual action to socio-​cultural structure, to be sure, is critical to the social sciences, including archaeology. But no viable synthesis has so far been outlined, despite the efforts of the most significant of our intellectual forebears. Southern African cognitive archaeology certainly has not achieved this goal, and I  do not here purport to suggest such a synthesis. But I raise two observations that I believe are critical to such a synthesis and that potentially highlight the part that cognitive archaeology can play in it. The first is that previous theorists failed to achieve an integration of individual action and structure not because they had a poor understanding of the problem they confronted, nor due to the fact that their inferences were faulty, nor resulting from inadequate analyses. Instead it was because this central problem involves a complex series of underlying issues concerning individual and group psychology, social networks and hierarchies, economic interactions and systems, social and inter-​personal communication, and cognitive processes. Historically, at least, the baseline research on these individual components of the larger problem had not themselves been adequately explored, let alone resolved. A recent example here is Giddens’s (1984) structuration. Building on earlier research, Giddens recognized the importance of the psychological component of individual motivation in collective action. The difficulty he unknowingly confronted was that his understanding of psychology was based on what he assumed was a solid—​ Freudian—​ explanation of this topic, but unfortunately at a time when

38  David S. Whitley academic psychology was rejecting Freud’s theories as fantasy (Whitley 2008a; Blunden 2016; see also Whitley 2009). Put another way, Giddens’s problem was timing. He took a key component of his model, one that was outside of his area of expertise, as an established given when, in fact, our empirical understanding of it was in the process of major revision. We confront the same difficulty today: the integration of individual action with socio-​cultural structure involves social, psychological, economic, communication, cognitive and cultural variables (as I have attempted to illustrate with some of citations above), many of which we do not yet fully understand. While I  would hope we are advantaged by recognizing this problem, we cannot achieve a synthesis until these various issues are better understood. Yet second, there is one component of the larger problem that I  believe is resolved in Bryce Huebbner’s (2014) theory of macrocognition, or distributed cognition. This is more than simply a theory of collectivities (or collective structure). Many types of collectivities, such as animal herds, lack macrocognition, for example, while some kinds of collective behavior, like movements of shoals of fish, do not even require mentality. There are however collectivities that involve macrocognition, including different kinds and scales of these structural entities. Macrocognitive structures represent a key aspect of the relationship of individual action to social and cultural structures. Following Huebbner, macrocognitive collectivities are distributed but integrated computational systems, built on informational specializations. A  simple example is the transactive memory systems common among married couples: one partner may know how to balance the check book and remember where the car keys are kept; the other may know how to change the oil and remember when to rotate the tires. Both sets of memories and expertise are not only necessary for the smooth functioning of the pair, but they entail the existence of individual meta-​representations:  each partner knows where the other memories are ‘stored’. More generally, macrocognitive collectivities reflect the facts that: • • • • • •

Individuals are cognitive resources that can be integrated and can work together towards shared goals; Different memories and information are stored by different individuals; Via coordinated or collaborative action, groups may remember things that individuals cannot; Individual intentions and capacities for strategic planning and decision-​ making drive human behavior; Macrocognitive collectivities then can complete tasks that individuals cannot; and Importantly, collaborative cognition can yield meta-​representations.

Although, as I have emphasized earlier, more is involved in the integration of agency and structure, the macrocognitive collectivity may be understood

 

Cognitive archaeology revisited 39 as one component of socio-​cultural organization. In this case, with thinking human beings, individual mentalities are the agency. As Huebbner (2014: 14) then has noted: Where we find collectivities whose flexible, goal-​directed behavior is subserved by a computational architecture of this sort, I  argue that this provides us with good evidence that the operation of the system is determined both by the intentional states of individuals and by the architecture of the system. [Emphases added] Specialized collectivities represent specific kinds of cognitive architecture. In a social sense, these may be understood as sub-​sets of a larger collectivity or cognitive network. Belief systems with religious specialists are one type of specialized macrocognitive collectivity, with images, icons and linguistic utterances providing the explanatory role of mental representations: [S]‌pecialized individuals encode information in iconic and linguistic formats, and rely on interpersonal transactions to convey computationally salient information to guide flexible, skillful, goal-​directed collective behavior. (Huebbner 2014: 14) Rock art motifs can be then understood as materialized expressions of specialized metacognitive structures. As Far Western North American ethnography demonstrates, this may involve ritual specialists as well as a variety of social subgroups, such as age-​cohort, gender-​group and even clan-​group initiates. Yet the symbols created by these individuals have wider meanings and implications. As has been demonstrated elsewhere, they illustrate how the individual actions of these creators influence if not create larger social structures (e.g., Lewis-​ Williams 1982; Dowson 1994; Whitley 1994b; Whitley et al. 2007; Whitley and Whitley 2012).

Conclusion In an important paper, David L.  Clarke (1973) distinguished three stages of disciplinary growth: consciousness, to self-​consciousness, to critical self-​ consciousness. Although in the latter Clarke was primarily concerned with a self-​examination of disciplinary structure in terms of the philosophy of science (a sociology of science, in effect), critical self-​consciousness should pertain to more: the critical evaluation of the ideological presuppositions and social biases of our archaeological commitments and theories. Neoliberal archaeology outwardly adopted many of the goals of post-​processual archaeology, not least being acknowledgement of the importance of symbolism and ritual in human life. Yet it also enshrined a misreading of post-​modernist theory, most notably Lyotard’s foundational critique of our post-​modern condition;

40  David S. Whitley that is, his review of the circumstances under which the Western world currently lives, not (as neoliberal archaeologists somehow inferred) a statement about how all humans everywhere have always operated. This misreading was of course supported by the rapidly-​ developing neoliberal political-​ economic worldview, ultimately resulting in archaeological theorists promoting the same extreme views of human social life as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Critical self-​consciousness was clearly lost in this process, as was any claim to political objectivity or disciplinary innocence, as many archaeologists fully committed to the ultimate essentialist fantasy: prehistoric past social lives everywhere modeled on a utopian, internally contradictory view of contemporary Western life. The southern African cognitive archaeological approach in contrast was developed during the 1980s, the last decade of South African apartheid. Perhaps for that reason it has always been more politically self-​ critical and more consciously involved in intellectual concerns beyond the post-​ modernist theoretical critique. No one exposed to the extreme systemic racism of apartheid, whether black, white or ‘colored’, could possibly accept that human social life could be reduced to an unstructured “web of interactions in a constant state of becoming”. Regardless of cause, it has developed an approach that addresses many of the same kinds of problems that have interested many neoliberal archaeologists, meanwhile maintaining a commitment to scientific method yet acknowledging that past societies differed dramatically from our own. Equally importantly, it has always recognized the importance of integrating individual actions and intentions with social and cultural structure—​and how both contribute towards creating the other. I would hope that, writing in 2018 when the Western world is in political and economic crisis, archaeologists would widely re-​consider the current political-​economic implications of their theoretical agendas and examine in more detail the potential of the southern African cognitive archaeological approach.

Notes 1 AMS Affiliates, Tehachapi, California, and Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. 2 While there are many kinds of agency and agents (e.g., see papers in Enfield and Kockelman 2017), here Pauketat suggests that meaning somehow resides in an external, passive agent. This is incorrect. As Bloch (2012: 4) has demonstrated, meaning always exists in individual human minds. This is why even though an external object may elicit similar feelings and reactions in some groups of people, it can yield very different responses in other groups. Bloch’s example is the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and the different meanings ascribed to it by Jews versus Muslims. Pauketat’s argument then contradicts itself here:  there are meanings associated with and affects influenced by external phenomena; these meanings and affects may influence individuals and thus the external objects may constitute a particular kind of passive agent. But these meanings only matter, beyond a

 

Cognitive archaeology revisited 41 concern with individual psychology, for social analysis to the degree that they are shared collectively (cf. Bandura 2000, 2001). 3 Perhaps not surprisingly and in support of this conclusion, the neoliberal perspective is also evident in recent evolutionary approaches, especially their emphasis on ‘freeloaders’ or ‘free-​riders’ versus altruism (e.g., Aviles 2002; Bettinger 2015). Freeloaders have always been over-​emphasized and vilified by neoliberals. Reagan, for example, called such individuals ‘welfare queens’ and ‘welfare moochers’ (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018), and used them as a rhetorical device to argue against social-​welfare programs, as well as a dog-​whistle against ethnic minorities. Implicitly following this lead, evolutionary archaeologists assume that the ‘freeloader problem’ is and always has been a significant factor in social relations, without clear empirical support for this position. 4 Micro-​histories, first, are at best generational in length, and thus in no sense truly pertain exclusively to individual actors. The archaeological record, second, is not everywhere sufficiently fine-​grained to allow for the reconstruction of micro-​ histories, making this at best a limited, not general, potential analytical approach. 5 It is important to emphasize here the distinction between agent-​based models and modeling, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, from the interest in individual agency, taken alone. Agent-​based modeling specifically aims to define structure in terms of individual rules of action and processes of interaction, and thus contrasts sharply with claims that social interaction is a constantly changing web of relations. 6 As John Searle (1982:  2) has observed in a similar context, “One uses human behavior as evidence for the operation of the human mind, but to suppose that the laws must be laws of behavior is to suppose that the evidence must be the subject matter”. 7 Cognitive archaeology, that is, acknowledges cognitive pluralism but recognizes the existence of some cognitive universals. This, however, is not ‘cognitive universalism’, which would imply that everyone thinks the same (cf. Zerubavel 1997).

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3 E  thnographic texts and rock art in southern Africa A personal perspective J.D. Lewis-​Williams1

Rock art worldwide is intrinsically enigmatic. Doubly so, because on the one hand some of the images seem naively self-​evident: in numerous cases anyone can see what they depict and, surely, they mean what they depict. On the other hand, if we ask further questions, we seem to face a brick wall. Why did the image-​makers bother to make them? Why did they depict these subjects and not others? Apart, in some few instances, from present-​ day descendants, there is no one whom we can ask. Nor is consulting the numerous ethnographies on foraging societies that have accumulated over the years as easy or as acceptable to many archaeologists as it may at first seem.

A journey to ethnography As a first-​year undergraduate in the early 1950s, I thought I knew all there was to know about southern African San rock art, as everyone at that time did. The simple, ‘little people’, the so-​ called ‘Bushmen’, naïvely painted the world around them to exercise an inherent aesthetic drive; they used their hunter-​gatherer lives as a source on which they could draw to make striking, even amusing, objets d’art. After all, the famous Cambridge archaeologist Miles Burkitt had summed up this view after his 1928 whirlwind tour of southern Africa:  he concluded that the San painted “because the folk themselves were artistic and expressed themselves in this way” (Burkitt 1928: 158). For him, it was essentially an art of contemplation and admiration rather than one that exercised any social, political or religious role. With the matter of motivation thus settled by an eminent authority, we believed that we could infer from the images information about the San way of life. We could, for instance, see bows and arrows in action or people marching along with all their equipment. It was all so obvious. Yes, perhaps the oft-​depicted eland antelope was an object of, shall we say, veneration. Perhaps, too, some of the much rarer antelope-​headed people were ‘mythical’, though the tales in which they may have featured were forever lost. We could never know: the people who made the images were long dead and their beliefs were all irretrievable.

 

Ethnographic texts and rock art 49 Then, in 1952, I  took an undergraduate course in social anthropology at the University of Cape Town. I  was privileged to have such authorities as Monica Wilson and John Goodwin among my lecturers. Wilson, daughter of an Eastern Cape missionary family, had studied at Cambridge and had attended Bronislaw Malinowski’s London School of Economics seminars. Goodwin was South Africa’s only professional archaeologist. Born in Pietermaritzburg, he had studied under Burkitt in Cambridge. In addition, a visiting lecturer was the eminent A.R. Radcliffe-​Brown, who in 1922 had founded what eventually became the UCT Department of Social Anthropology (Hammond-​Tooke 1997). Although I majored in geography, it was under the guidance of such anthropological luminaries that I came to see that ‘primitive people’ were far from primitive. Especially, it was Malinowski’s insights into the way in which Trobriand symbolism merged with pragmatic activities that set me thinking (Malinowski 1948). At the same time there was another ‘presence’ at UCT. Dorothea Bleek had died in 1948, only four years prior to my arrival at the university, and her work on the San was very much alive (Fig. 3.1) (e.g., Bleek 1932a, 1933,

Figure 3.1 Southern Africa showing nineteenth-​and twentieth-​century San groups. Stars indicate the locations of sites discussed in the text. Image courtesy of the Rock Art Research Institute

50  J.D. Lewis-Williams 1935, 1956; Van der Riet et al. 1940; Spohr 1962). She was acknowledged and indeed venerated as the preeminent authority on the San. Her seminar room was still to be seen in the university’s Jagger Library. The vast collection of verbatim |Xam San texts that her philologist father, Wilhelm Bleek, and her aunt, Lucy Lloyd, had amassed in the 1870s was lodged in the Jagger Library. This 12,000 page manuscript collection of |Xam San beliefs, myths, rituals, word lists, drawings and biographies is, I believe, unparalleled worldwide (e.g., Lewis-​Williams 1981, 2002a; Deacon 1986, 1988; Skotnes 1996, 2007, 2014; Bank 2006; Wessels 2010; Deacon and Skotnes 2014). Nowhere else do we have so much ethnographic material recorded phonetically in a now-​extinct language. San beliefs about their imagery were, it was to turn out, not altogether lost. Certainly, the canard that the Jagger Library staff had lost or mislaid all the Bleek and Lloyd notebooks and that they were rediscovered in the 1970s as a result of a researcher’s enquiry has no foundation (Lewis-​Williams 2014). In fact, they were on my doorstep, although understanding them was decidedly another matter. When we explore the Bleek and Lloyd notebooks, we must remember that the recording context was very different from traditional San contexts in which the tales would have been enlarged and dramatized to suit immediate social circumstances. In their original context, parts of a tale may have been retold in a single performance and thus emphasized. There would also have been gestural embellishments, enactments and songs with their “ ‘catch words’, crammed full of meanings” (England 1968: 343–​4). Another caveat is that, if the Kalahari San are anything to go by, the |Xam informants seem to have bowdlerized their narrations to conform to Victorian norms. To a certain degree the texts inevitably reflect the interests of the recorders. Then, too, the recording of some tales extended over a number of days during which narrators had to pause repeatedly while Bleek or Lloyd wrote down their words. Despite their verbatim transcription, we are, for the most part, dealing with pared down narratives. As would later become apparent, ethnography, even this exceptional material, is not in itself explanatory. It is essential to note that it is couched in the same terms and idioms as the rock paintings that researchers may wish to explain; the texts too require interpretation. This is a key point: beliefs, as depicted in the art, cannot be identified as easily as bows and arrows. Nevertheless, despite all the reservations that one must bear in mind, the Bleek and Lloyd Archive remains an unparalleled resource, one that can all too easily overwhelm a researcher and, as a result, be ignored. In 1952 these caveats were problems that awaited me in the future. On leaving UCT I  followed my geomorphological training and worked on changes in sea-​level and associated stone industries along the Eastern Cape coast. At the same time, I  began exploring rock art in the Queenstown-​ Tarkastad district (Lewis-​ Williams 1962). Seeing the resultant article in print and with Malinowski looking over my shoulder, I found it shallowly

 

Ethnographic texts and rock art 51 descriptive. Mortified, I did not publish again for ten years. Much happened in the intervening decade. One could say that it all began as early as 1956. It was then that Alex Willcox published the first book of color photographs of San rock art. Today it is hard to believe that at that time all we knew about San rock art, notwithstanding George Stow’s artistically contrived copies that Dorothea Bleek annotated and published (Stow and Bleek 1930; Skotnes 2008; Lewis-​ Williams and Challis 2011: 40–​2), was based on comparatively few, sometimes misleading, early copies. Willcox’s book was a milestone: it presented not only the beauty of the art but, more importantly, also some of its enigmas. Willcox himself was not too bothered by those enigmas. He followed Burkitt and concluded that San rock art was essentially art pour l’art: for him, the painters were members of a universal category of rather especially talented people whom we label ‘artists’; all societies, he thought, had them. Further questions were superfluous. But, for me, it still seemed improbable that there was no symbolism, no deeper meaning, in San rock art. At the time when Willcox was writing and subsequently, rock art researchers were aware of the Bleek and Lloyd Archive as a possible source of information, though their opinion of it was divided. Referring to the San way of life rather than their rock art, Willcox himself wrote: “Our greatest debt is to Dr W.H. Bleek”. And he described Bleek’s daughter Dorothea as “the greatest expert of her generation on the Bushman race” (Willcox 1956: 17). He cited her views on a number of points (Bleek 1932a), but he did not explore the texts themselves in any depths. On the other hand, Jalmar and Ione Rudner thought that the comments that Bleek and Lloyd’s informants made on copies of rock paintings were “of little value except to indicate caution in our own interpretations”. They believed that the San would “obligingly … unfold a tale backed up only by a lively imagination and an eagerness to please the investigator” (Rudner and Rudner 1970:  207). For whatever reasons, rock art researchers of that time did not appreciate how the Bleek and Lloyd Archive was compiled, nor had they actually read the texts with any appreciation of their riches. As is still the case, very few, if any, rock art researchers had read and studied the entire archive. When people know nothing, they tend to assume that there is nothing to know. In 1963 I  moved to Natal and found the breath-​taking painted rock shelters of the Drakensberg only a few kilometers away. There was no turning back. But with such riches readily at hand and the photographs in Willcox’s book on my shelf, I increasingly sensed a disjunction between the current approaches to San images and what I  had learned about ‘primitive’ symbolism in my undergraduate years. Moreover, by the 1960s, the anthropological field itself was opening up. Radcliffe-​Brown’s Structure and function in primitive society had been published in 1952 (my first year at UCT) and Evans-​Pritchard’s Theories of primitive religion appeared in 1965. Victor

52  J.D. Lewis-Williams Turner’s Forest of symbols, for me a hugely influential work, was published in 1967. Claude Lévi-​Strauss, unknown when I was an undergraduate, was now famous and the center of fascinating controversies. Symbolism was flourishing in anthropological discourse and, along with semiotics, became the central principle of my PhD thesis (1977, published 1981). In the late 1970s I  moved to the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. By that time, new (largely Marxist) social theory was challenging the older structural-​functionalist approach, as advocated by Radcliffe-​Brown and others. Claude Meillassoux and Maurice Godelier, for instance, were opening up promising theoretical avenues that could lead to an understanding of how ‘art’ may have been situated in pre-​capitalist societies. I found myself drawn increasingly to this sort of materialist theory and published an article on the economic and social circumstances in which the San made rock paintings (Lewis-​Williams 1982). What, I  asked, were the art’s own ‘social relations of production’? These were heady times. In South Africa, academic pursuits, especially those that related to indigenous peoples (and which were in some way not?), were inevitably situated in the growing resistance to apartheid. Marxism was the language of liberation: Marx was the bogeyman, and his name could land you in jail. One Wits colleague, social anthropologist David Webster, was assassinated by a right-​wing hit-​squad. Police came on campus to disperse protest gatherings, and our lectures (including my own, I later learned) were spied upon by the state Special Branch. In that milieu, archaeology, at least at some universities, was showing that, contrary to the apartheid government’s teaching, black farming people were living in what is now South Africa over a millennium before whites settled at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. The San, probably autochthonous, had lived throughout the subcontinent for many millennia, as indeed their rock art proclaimed. The apartheid government’s myth of an empty interior was being decisively challenged.

New approaches At the same time, there was within archaeology a new and growing emphasis. Following the trend in lithic archaeology towards quantification and ‘science’ that started in Europe (Bordes and Bourgon 1951), Revil Mason (1957) undertook comparable studies in southern Africa. Calls to make rock art research similarly ‘scientific’ and to ground it in ‘objective’ numbers led Patricia Vinnicombe (working in the southern Drakensberg) and Tim Maggs (in the western Cape) to initiate a quantitative revolution in rock art studies (Maggs 1967; Vinnicombe 1967a, b, 1976). The approach attracted some, though by no means all, rock art researchers. The fieldwork was, after all, arduous and time-​consuming. Gone, at least for some, were the days of taking a few snaps and then moving on to another rock shelter. Using adaptations of Vinnicombe’s numerical system, Harald

 

Ethnographic texts and rock art 53 Pager (1971) undertook his studies of all the 3,909 images in the Didima (Ndedema) Gorge in the central Drakensberg and the great many more in the Brandberg (Namibia); Lucas Smits (1971) tackled the images of southern Lesotho, and I turned to an area in the Drakensberg (Giant’s Castle) that lay between the regions studied by Vinnicombe and Pager and, after that, to a second farther to the west in the vicinity of Barkly East (Lewis-​Williams 1972, 1974, 1981). The quantitative approach led to the accumulation of an early form of ‘big data’, but—​and this is the important point—​it did not bring with it a way of making sense of those data. Rather, it created data of a particular and tendentious kind, data that would lend themselves to a certain type of preconceived, if tacit, explanation. The problems of empiricism in rock art research were becoming all too evident. The creation of data is an underappreciated problem in matters concerning the ‘recording’ and ‘documentation’ of rock art. Some researchers speak of sites being ‘documented’ as if that is a one-​off, unquestionable process. But objectivity and comprehensiveness are both chimerical. At the very outset, the concept of creating categories that can be studied numerically carries with it hidden assumptions about how meaning is encoded in the art. Then, even simple distinctions, such as that between animal and human representations, do not derive from the actual images but rather from the minds of researchers. Indeed, all categories are created by researchers according to their preconceived ideas about ‘art’ and what the rock art in question might (even in very general terms) mean. That is a well-​known philosophical point. It was, however, in the field, as we imposed our categories on the images in shelter after shelter, that the futility of our supposedly empirical work became painfully evident (Lewis-​Williams 1983, 1984, 1990; Lewis-​Williams and Loubser 1986). In response to that realization, I seasoned my rather sterile 1972 tables, histograms and graphs with some explicit interpretation. I  took recently published theoreticians as my guides:  Marshall McLuhan (1967), Noam Chomsky (1957) and Claude Lévi-​Strauss (1968). Having digested rather than abandoned the theoreticians (including now Roland Barthes (1967)), my second fundamentally quantitative article turned, by contrast, to ethnographers: Richard Lee (1968), Lorna Marshall (1962) and, of course, Dorothea Bleek (e.g., 1932b, 1933). I had in fact ended my 1972 quantitative article with a prediction that intentionally echoed one of Wilhelm Bleek’s phrases: “The only possibility of clarifying the themes which most deeply moved the mind of the prehistoric Bushmen lies in the, albeit fragmentary, mythology” (Lewis-​Williams 1972: 64). It seemed, however, that both the theoreticians that I  espoused and the numerical inventories that Vinnicombe, I and others had constructed afforded only a priori frameworks for thinking about the art. They did not provide specific content—​clues to the culturally situated meanings of images. Lest there be any misunderstanding let me state right away that I think that useful rock art research depends on a mixture of theoretical innovation

54  J.D. Lewis-Williams and empirical investigation. I say a mixture rather than a balance between them because the one should sustain and interact with the other. Like some other disciplines, rock art research has in more recent times suffered from a surfeit of theory, a situation that has come about through the belief that theory should precede and be independent of empirical work. It should be noted here that empirical work is different from empiricism—​the belief that explanations can be inferred from ‘theory-​free’ data. Today it is possible to read some writing on rock art and wonder if the writers would have said this or that if they had seen many more rock art sites and examined (literally) thousands of images one by one and as closely as we had to when we were compiling the numerical inventories of the late 1960s. Had they done so, they would have come to realize, as I and others did, that rigid theory can distort empirical observation. Some theory is indistinguishable from explanation: in ‘applying’ a theory, a researcher is, in some cases, imposing an explanation. Like the Bleek and Lloyd Archive, the sheer vastness of San rock art is daunting: it seems to drive some researchers to books rather than to the rock shelters. In the event, the shift in emphasis from numbers and theory to meaning (unavoidable as theory is) derived from practical, fieldwork experience. Working in a large number of sites, as I have indicated, I found myself forced to examine closely each of nearly 4,000 images as to the numerous features dictated by the recording system (e.g., size, color, head types, action, body decoration). Soon, I  grew uneasy about aspects of the work. In the first place, just how many images should I record in my demarcated geographical areas? Beyond, say, a thousand images, the relative percentages of categories seemed to remain constant. For instance, eland were dominant amongst animal images, and human figures remained at about Vinnicombe’s 53% of the total number of images (cf. Vinnicombe 1976:  363). There seemed to be no reason for increasing my total number of images if percentages of subject matter were all that I was after. Ultimately, and worse, what could percentages, by themselves, possibly mean? Then, recalling Malinowski’s Trobriand work and Turner’s understanding of Ndembu symbolism, I realized that the eland probably meant whatever it meant for the San no matter how many times they painted it. Numbers could not point to meaning. The wildebeest, to take another example, appeared only three times in Vinnicombe’s sample of 1,850 antelope representations (Vinnicombe 1976: 364) and not at all in my two areas. Perhaps, one could argue, it was so sacred that few dared to depict it. The eland, on the other hand, may have been a common or garden animal that anyone could paint. The usual argument could be turned on its head. Whatever other uses they may have had (e.g., establishing putative ‘regions’, an unfulfilled aim that Vinnicombe had in mind), the numbers told us very little, if anything, about the meanings of the images (Lewis-​Williams 1990). My unease was mirrored in Vinnicombe’s own experience, though in her splendid book People of the eland (1976) she tended to remain closer

 

Ethnographic texts and rock art 55 to the numbers than I  did in Believing and seeing (1977, 1981). By the time that we had completed our numerical inventories, we both knew that the answers to questions about the meanings of the images lay in San ethnography, but getting at them proved difficult. Our first challenge was to overcome our and other researchers’ reluctance to use both the nineteenth-​ century verbatim records of the southern |Xam San that Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd had compiled in the |Xam language (along with English transliterations) and the twentieth-​century summary ethnography that was coming from researchers who were working with Kalahari San groups (Fig. 3.1). Using ethnography to project the working of recent foraging societies into the past has, for good reasons, long been acknowledged as problematic (e.g., Bloch 1983: 67ff). In southern Africa, however, the analogical component of the argument is greatly reduced. The temporal gap between the rock paintings and San ethnographies is comparatively slight. The Bleek and Lloyd Archive and the collection of Maloti myths and comments on images made by Joseph Orpen (1874) both date from the time when the final images were being made. Methodological questions like these confront researchers in other parts of the world as well. The way in which we should use ethnography (if at all) in our attempts to understand rock art seems to be a worldwide topic of debate. The southern African experience may cast some light on the problem.

Unities in diversity Obvious differences between the two major southern African sources in time, language, environment, material culture and varying contacts with other peoples at first led me and others to believe that researchers should not draw on the northern ethnography when they are trying to understand nineteenth-​ century southern beliefs and the southern rock art (Lewis-​ Williams 1975: 414). Later, having noted parallels as well as differences between northern and southern San girl’s puberty rituals, hunting observances, marriage and what Bleek and Lloyd called ‘sorcery’, and having set aside the suggestion that the paintings are merely illustrations of now largely lost myths, I revised my earlier view (Lewis-​Williams and Biesele 1978; Lewis-​Williams 1981). It became clear that the recent Kalahari material can be used to explicate and supplement the comparatively limited, though none the less considerable, nineteenth-​century southern San records, not indiscriminately but rather in those conceptual areas where fundamental parallels can be demonstrated (Lewis-​Williams 2015a). The southern nineteenth-​century |Xam and the more recent Kalahari ethnographies, though by no means identical, are, in some respects, complementary. The differences between them undoubtedly point to a need for caution, but they do not cancel out empirically identified parallels. This pivotal conclusion was not merely intuitive. It derived originally from a 1975 visit to the Kalahari in the company of Megan Biesele, who is fluent

56  J.D. Lewis-Williams in the Ju|’hoan language. As we compared what I had read in the nineteenth-​ century Bleek and Lloyd |Xam manuscripts with what she was learning from the present-​day Ju|’hoansi, we were surprised to find parallels. Influenced by Isaac Schapera’s 1930 verdict that the |Xam were different from other San groups, we had assumed, incorrectly as it turned out, that differences would have been more prominent than parallels. We therefore published a detailed comparison of hunting observances as practiced by the two geographically, linguistically and temporally widely separated groups. The commonalities were numerous and striking (Lewis-​Williams and Biesele 1978). Since then, a number of anthropologists have further noted the essential unity of fundamental San religious beliefs and practices (Barnard 1992; Biesele 1993, 1996; Schmidt 1996; Guenther 1999). Mathias Guenther (1996: 98), for instance, revisited the view that Schapera had published in 1930: The special status some might want to ascribe to the myth and lore of the |Xam Bushmen—​for instance, Schapera (1930:  398) who deemed the Southern Bushmen to ‘stand apart from the rest’—​is seen to dissolve and the fact that Bushman expressive and religious culture does indeed constitute one unit … becomes the more apparent. In his thorough discussion of this component of Schapera’s work, Guenther explains: “The uniqueness attributed by Schapera to [the southern] |Kaggen-​ Mantis may derive from the fact that this early writer failed to appreciate the trickster nature of the ||Gauwa-​figure found far and wide in Bushman folklore” (Guenther 1989: 35). Guenther thus confirms Lloyd’s much earlier assessment in which she noted “a good deal of resemblance” between |Xam and Ju|’hoan beliefs about the trickster-​deity (Bleek and Lloyd 1911: xiii). This does not mean that narratives about the Mantis are identical to those in which the northern trickster features (Biesele 1993:  17), only that, in essence, the Mantis and ‘the ||Gauwa-​figure’ perform similar roles. In his overall discussion of the San trickster-​ deity Guenther (1999:  101–​ 25) considers various aspects of those roles. He concludes that, in his person, this figure held together ambiguities and contradictions in a way that the San in general accepted as true and indicative of the essence of life. This example illustrates how deeper knowledge can uncover parallels that superficial readings of ethnography can easily miss. Other writers have also confirmed that the ‘general character’ that Bleek (1874) found was shared by the myths of the southern nineteenth-​century |Xam and the Maloti-​Drakensberg San (Orpen 1874; McGranaghan et al. 2013) in fact extends much farther to the north. Barnard (2007:  96), for instance, concluded that “religion is far more uniform throughout Bushman and even Khoisan southern Africa than are material aspects of culture and society”. Here, he echoes Guenther’s (1996:  98) phrase that “Bushman expressive and religious culture” constitutes “one unit”. Guenther (1989: 33, 34) wrote:

 

Ethnographic texts and rock art 57 As one would expect from a society with vibrant oral traditions, there is a good deal of regional variation, as one moves from one linguistic or dialectic group to another, indeed, from one band to another within the same region …. However, in broad outline the mythological patterns are the same from one group to the next and everywhere they approximate the general outline just presented. … The mythology of the Bushmen, and their religion and art as a whole, thus reveal a considerable degree of homogeneity which cuts across the linguistic diversity of the Bushmen of southern Africa, as well as the diversity of economic and social patterns which are a good deal more varied than has been commonly assumed and display more than just the basic hunting-​gathering band complex. To Guenther’s reference to social groups between which we may expect differences in oral traditions we can add ‘one person to another’. Even within the Bleek and Lloyd Archive we should expect personal variations: people hold beliefs with different degrees of clarity and intensity. Turning to mythology and analyzing a |Xam tale about men who fought with lightning, Biesele concluded:  “There is much in this |Xam fragment which can also be elucidated by reference to Ju|’hoan oral tradition and ethnography, despite the intervening years, distances, and linguistic differences” (Biesele 1996: 145; cf. Lewis-​Williams 2019). I have repeatedly found this to be true in my own studies of San folklore (Lewis-​Williams 1996, 1997a, 2015b). In sum, researchers have come to an important conclusion with far-​ reaching consequences for rock art research. There are ‘expressive and religious’ parallels between the major San linguistic groups, despite a range of ecological, linguistic and social differences. This is not a broad, superficial overview, a vague generalization. It is founded on the empirical study of specifics. Furthermore, the parallels that those studies specify are not trivial: they are fundamental to an understanding of San folklore and art. This southern African conclusion has wider implications. It seems that geographical and temporal differences between ethnographies in other parts of the world, such as North America and Australia, may have blinded some researchers to underlying parallels.

A central San ritual Working from this multi-​ component ethnographic foundation, southern African researchers have drawn on a central element of San religion—​the trance, or curing, dance—​as it is variously recorded to explain, or explicate, a range of features of San rock art. Those features and their ethnographic explanations have been discussed in numerous publications, and I need not rehearse them all here (e.g., Lewis-​Williams 1981, 2015a; Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004a; Lewis-​Williams and Challis 2011). The tight focus on

58  J.D. Lewis-Williams this one component of San belief has been questioned by some researchers. It did not emerge overnight: at first it seemed to me counterintuitive. At the start of my work I  had thought that San rock art dealt across the board with girls’ puberty rituals (the Eland Bull Dance), boys’ first-​kill observances, marriage rites and the trance dance (Lewis-​Williams 1981). It seemed that San ‘art’, like all ‘art’, would be an autonomous practice that could be harnessed to deal with a wide range of interests. Yet, when I came to seek paintings to illustrate this diversity, I could find no, or very few, persuasive images that may possibly relate to rituals apart from the trance dance. Other researchers have fared no better. Empirical work was challenging theory. In a fundamental shift in thought, the broad view of ‘art’, as propagated by Burkitt, Willcox and others, had to give way to an understanding of San image-​making as a ritual practice that articulated with the pattern of San religious beliefs, cosmology and experience. There is, none the less, still some doubt in a few researchers’ minds as to the central role of the San’s principal religious experience: the altered states of consciousness that grade in intensity and that routinely occur in the frequently performed and socially important trance dance, as well as in other circumstances, such as dreaming and ‘special curings’. Perhaps uncomfortable with this form of mysticism and, importantly, the ways in which its experiences and imagery infiltrate other aspects of San life, some writers still ignore or downplay the reports of ethnographers who have lived with the San. One of these ethnographers, Biesele (1993), has shown that to ignore, or marginalize, these experiences in their variety, power and idiosyncrasy (trance experience in San contexts is a complex, personal phenomenon) is an assault on the interrelatedness of San life. As a conduit to and from another realm, trance is not the only access to spiritual experience and information, but it, not mythology (important though it be, e.g., Lewis-​Williams 1996, 1997a, 2015b) is fundamental in the formation and modification of central religious concepts. The evidence for this view is strong. As Guenther puts it, the trance dance is “the central ritual of the Bushman religion and its defining institution” (Guenther 1999:  181). It is still performed in the Kalahari and has been described and discussed many times (e.g., Lee 1967, 1968, 1979, 1993; Marshall 1969, 1976, 1999; Katz 1976, 1982; Silberbauer 1981:  175–​8; Valiente-​Noailles 1993:  182–​4; Guenther 1999:  180–​98; Low 2008:  86–​ 109, 167–​227). Very briefly, the women sit around a central fire and clap and sing ‘medicine songs’ believed to be imbued with a supernatural potency that the Ju|’hoansi call n|om. The men, half of whom at any given time may be ritual specialists, dance in a circle around the women, now clockwise, now anti-​clockwise. Their dancing produces a circular rut in the sand. About a third of the women try to become healers, but only about 10% succeed (Katz 1982: 160). Ju|’hoansi believe that during childbearing years women should not engage in altered-​state healing. Thus the 10% figure reflects not a struggle to succeed but fewer years available to try (Biesele pers. comm.).

 

Ethnographic texts and rock art 59 Without recourse to hallucinogens, some of the ritual specialists enter a frenzied trance. Those who have learned to control their level of trance move around laying hands on all present to remove sickness, perceived or unperceived, from their bodies. In trance (and dreams; Guenther 2014), they go on out-​of-​body travel and protect their people from malevolent spirits. In doing so, they dramatize and draw people’s attention to the inter-​camp, rather than intra-​camp, social relations of production that are fundamental to the reproduction of the San social formation (Lewis-​Williams 2019). Writing about this dance, Biesele notes succinctly and clearly that “the central religious experiences of Ju|’hoan life are consciously and, as a matter of course, approached through the avenue of trance” (Biesele 1993: 70). Similarly, Marshall (1969: 373) wrote that, among the Ju|’hoansi, “trance is a normal, habitual, common experience”. Ranging more widely than just the Ju|’hoansi, Guenther (1999: 181) concludes: “The fact that trance dances are described by all writers who have visited the Bushmen, even nineteenth-​century ones, further attests to the ubiquity and antiquity of this key Bushman ritual”. He adds, “In the fashion of shamans all over the world, the [San] trance dancer, by means of altered states, enters the spirit world and obtains from it the wherewithal to restore the health of sick fellow humans” (Guenther 1999:  186, see also Guenther 1989). There can be no doubt that the trance dance is central to San religious experience; it is not a religious sideshow, an optional add-​on that researchers can ignore. Guenther (1999:  4) goes further and makes a far-​reaching point. He identifies a close relationship between the mythical trickster and the trance dancer: The trickster and the trance dancer are the two central, key figures of Bushman religion (and the pivotal characters of this study). … We will see the trickster figure as the embodiment of the ambiguity that pervades Bushman mythology and cosmology, much the same as the trance dancer embodies this state with respect to ritual. Both are ontologically ambiguous, confounding such basic categories as natural–​ supernatural, humanity–​divinity, human–​animal; in addition to these the trickster confounds every other conceivable category. Both figures are also ontologically fluid, ever ready to change who, what, and where they are, through transformation and, in the trancer’s case, transcendence by altered states of consciousness. Both figures are equivalents of each other, the trickster active primarily in the sphere of myth and lore, the trance dancer in ritual, and thereby embedded in real-​life society. Yet the two figures frequently enter one another’s domain, such as at the trance dance, at its climatic moment, when the trancer ‘dies’ and his spirit takes over and proceeds with the curing task on a mystical plane. At this moment of the trance dance the trancer’s spirit may encounter the trickster-​god, who is attracted to the curing dance.

60  J.D. Lewis-Williams The interweaving of beliefs about the trickster and trance dancers clearly exemplifies the interrelatedness of San thought and belief. It also shows how unwise it is to marginalize the role of the dance in studies of San society, belief and, of course, rock art. Elsewhere, I  have explored the role of the Mantis and the trance dancer in the creation of the eland, the animal that the San believe to have more supernatural potency than any other (Lewis-​ Williams 2015b). The trance dance should, however, not be considered a monolithic, unchanging ritual. Richard Lee (1993:  119–​21), for instance, describes the women’s Drum Dance. Unknown to the Ju|’hoansi in the 1950s, it became popular in more recent times in some parts of the Kalahari. At first, it was seen as training for aspirant female ritual specialists, though it came to rival the men’s trance dance in popularity by the 1960s. One of the originators of the Drum Dance, a woman named |Twa, was still alive at that time. Similarly, potent new trance dance songs seem to originate sometimes with known individuals and then become widespread, as did the Giraffe Song that came in a dream to Beh, a Ju|’hoan woman. There are different versions of her epiphany (Biesele 1993: 70). Although San rock art is by no means a ‘true reflection’ of daily life, as the older rock art researchers thought it to be, the images suggest that there were various trance dance choreographies:  some images show circular dances like those still performed in the Kalahari, others more scattered dancers or a prominent dancer surrounded by seated people (Lewis-​Williams and Dowson 2000: figs 14, 15, 17, 76a; Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004a: 97–​ 100; 2012; cf. Guenther 1975). In 1873, the young San man Qing told Orpen about two versions, or contexts, of the dance as they existed in the southern Drakensberg. One was the general circular dance that is “danced all night”. The other was performed when a person was sick: “this dance is danced round him” (Orpen 1874: 10). As Beh’s revelation of the Giraffe dance shows, in San life there is a constant interplay between individuals and overall beliefs (Biesele 1993). This is evident in both their mythology and their rock art. Aron Mazel, acknowledging the central role of the trance dance in San life and thought (Wright and Mazel 2007:  69–​71), suggests that individuals, via trance experience, influenced the making of a prominent kind of Maloti-​Drakensberg rock art: a group of potent and innovative shamans may have inspired the emergence of a new painting tradition through translating a series of particularly powerful and remarkable visions onto the rock face in the form of shaded polychrome eland and associated features. (Mazel 2009: 109; cf. Dowson 1994, 2000) Contrary to an unfortunate misapprehension (Skotnes 1996: 238; Solomon 2007: 157; Bahn 2010: 101; Wessels 2010: 277), there is evidence that the southern San did indeed practice trance dancing. Amongst other published

 

Ethnographic texts and rock art 61 evidence (e.g., Lewis-​Williams 1992, 2015a) I mention here only that one of Bleek and Lloyd’s informants, Diä!kwain, on being shown a copy of a rock painting depicting a line of men apparently dancing, indicated that the leading figure was a “great sorcerer” who was dancing first because “he wants people who are learning sorcery to dance after him” (Stow and Bleek 1930:  caption to pl. 2a; Lewis-​Williams and Challis 2011:  53–​60). This is what happens in the Kalahari when novices are learning to enter trance:  they dance behind their teacher at a regular trance dance, not at a socially convened ‘initiation dance’ (Marshall 1999: 50–​3). Moreover, in the Maloti-​Drakensberg, Orpen’s informant Qing also described a trance dance in which participants “become as if mad and sick”, who suffer a nasal hemorrhage as |Xam trancers did and who were “spoilt” by the dance (Orpen 1874: 10; cf. Arbousset and Daumas 1846: 246–​7; Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004a:  90–​7). In the Kalahari, the Ju|’hoansi use their word for ‘spoil’, kxwia, to mean ‘to enter deep trance’ (Biesele pers. comm.). At this point, Qing was not using his word for ‘spoilt’ in a general sense: he said specifically that the paintings of antelope-​headed figures depicted “men who had died and now lived in rivers … [and] were spoilt … by the dances of which you have seen paintings” (Orpen 1874:  2, original italics). The trance dance is clearly an instance in which the northern and southern ethnographies are complementary (Lewis-​Williams and Challis 2011; Lewis-​ Williams and Pearce 2012, 2015). However, given the disintegrating small groups to which the |Xam were reduced in the mid-​and late nineteenth century by the violent incursion of white settlers (e.g., Anthing 1863; Blundell 2004; Adhikari 2005; Penn 2005; Challis 2012), they probably performed full trance dances involving many people less frequently than the northern people still do. In any event, we should remember that Wilhelm Bleek and Lloyd were never able to study the San in the field and observe their daily lives. They were dealing with a small sample of informants drawn from a disintegrating society. They interviewed them in their Cape Town home. Working in the Kalahari, Lee (1993: 116) found that the frequency of dances among the Ju|’hoansi depended on “the season, the size of the camp and other factors” but mostly involved large numbers of people. A large dance may comprise fifty to eighty people (Katz 1982: 38). Also amongst the Ju|’hoansi, the Marshalls observed “one intense and ardent little dance” performed by eight people (Marshall 1999: 64), but that was unusual. In the second half of the nineteenth century and some 400 km to the east of where the |Xam lived, Stow (1905:  111) found evidence for what was probably trance dancing in every San camp and, as he noted, every large rock shelter that he visited: The universality of this custom was shown by the fact that, in the early days, in the centre of every village or kraal, or near every rock-​shelter, and in every great cave, there was a large circular ring where either the

62  J.D. Lewis-Williams ground or grass was beaten flat and bare, from the frequent and constant repetition of their terpsichorean exercises. These dances, northern as well as southern, were not an isolated, self-​ contained component of San life. Nor should it come as a surprise that trance dances, or elements thereof (Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004b), are frequently depicted in San rock art. Some rock arts in other parts of the world may appear repetitive and limited in their motifs. Not so San rock art: it is remarkable for the diversity and detail of its images within a few broad categories. This means that the multiplicity of ‘fit’ between the images and proposed explanations can be evaluated point by point. A number of different details of images, not just a general impression of ‘the art’, can be shown to be consonant with the ethnography. When this kind of crucial, point-​by-​point assessment is undertaken, it soon becomes clear that the broadly ‘religious’ explanation of the art as it exists in, literally, thousands of rock shelters, accounts for far more of the imagery than any other explanation. (On the specifically San form of shamanism and their rock art see, for example, Lewis-​Williams 1980, 1981, 1992, 2001, 2012; Lewis-​Williams and Dowson 2000; Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004a; Lewis-​Williams and Challis 2011.) Evidence for this view accumulated throughout the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and into the twenty-​first century where it continues to do so. It led Vinnicombe to revise her early understanding of many of the painted images. Referring to distinctive trance-​dance postures, she wrote: Although I recognized the recurrence of these postures in the painted record, their significance escaped me. One of my principal reactions therefore, when unfolding the images that had been stored in a tin trunk for so long [her own copies made largely in the 1960s and 1970s], was the inescapable realisation that many of them (though not necessarily all) undoubtedly relate to the trance experience as initially defined by Lewis-​Williams. Aspects of People of the eland will definitely need re-​ thinking. (Vinnicombe 2001: 2) Of her tracings of two ‘part human/​part animal figures’ she wrote: When these painted details were recorded in 1974, the specific associations with supernatural power, trancing and the spirit world were not yet clear. Thanks to later ethnographic deductions made by David Lewis-​ Williams, these formerly elusive links are now readily recognisable. (Vinnicombe 2001: 1) As Vinnicombe’s more recent remarks imply, the ‘religious’, or ‘shamanistic’, explanation is not a vague, blanket hypothesis like, say, ‘art for art’s sake’. Rather, it is tied to a suite of specific features of images. Researchers have shown

64  J.D. Lewis-Williams To explain this feature, we turn to San cosmology and the ways in which people experienced that cosmology. Bleek and Lloyd’s |Xam informants of course never expounded their cosmology in logically formulated accounts. Rather, they lived and thought within it. Researchers must therefore track key words and incidents through the texts and piece together the coherent framework that underlay their thought and lives. It then appears that the Kalahari San hold similar beliefs. All San envisaged, and still envisage, three levels of existence:  the level on which people lived their daily lives, a subterranean realm in habited by spirits and another spiritual realm in the sky (Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004a:  51–​5). In their altered states of consciousness, San shamans were (and still are) believed to traverse this three-​tiered cosmos. One could go so far as to say that this activity, |xãũ in the |Xam language, is their raison d’être. For instance, Old Kʺxau, one of Biesele’s informants, spoke of entering a hole in the ground, traveling underwater, emerging and then ascending to the sky to learn how to dance and to plead with god to spare the sick (Biesele 1975, 2:  151–​74). It is only shamans, not ordinary people, who were (and still are) believed to accomplish such out-​of-​body travels. They bring back accounts of what is happening in the spirit realms, and, after a trance dance, they tell the people about their experiences. Even though these reports often seem to us to be stereotypical, everyone listens carefully to what they take to be unique revelations (Biesele 1993: 76). When we see the rock face in the light of San cosmology rather than Western notions of a neutral ‘support’, we conclude that it was not a meaningless tabula rasa on which people painted whatever they wished. That is an essentially Western concept that, though tacit, unfortunately underlies much rock art research. For the San, the wall of a rock shelter was an interface, a veil, between this world and the spirit realm (Lewis-​Williams and Dowson 1990). Just as verbal reports brought back from the spirit realm were attended to by everyone, it seems that emerging images were probably regarded in a similar light. An implication of this point is that the images were more than just ‘pictures’. If they were actually emerging from the spirit realm, they must have been things in themselves, not just representations of other things. This conclusion is borne out by what we know about the making of San rock paintings. Whenever possible in the manufacture of paint, San image-​ makers tried to incorporate eland blood, a substance believed to be imbued with strong potency; to this they added a special, sparkling type of ochre known as qhang qhang (How 1962:  37–​ 8; Lewis-​ Williams and Pearce 2004a: 100–​4; Lewis-​Williams and Challis 2011: 175–​7). The images thus became reservoirs of potency to which people dancing in a shelter could turn when they desired more potency—​as indeed an old woman of mixed descent from a shaman-​painter demonstrated. She took my companions and me to the shelter where, in the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth, her father had painted. There, she danced and, turning to the

 

Ethnographic texts and rock art 65 rock face, raised her hands: she spoke of receiving potency from the images (Jolly 1986; Lewis-​Williams 1986; Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004a: 180; Lewis-​Williams and Challis 2011: 176–​7). San images were made not just to be looked at, but, more importantly, to be used. Among the most illuminating of the images that enter and leave the rock face are what have become known as ‘threads of light’ (Lewis-​Williams et al. 2000). San shamans trancing in the Kalahari speak of seeing lines which they take to be paths or ropes. By walking along or climbing them they cross over into the spirit realm (Schapera 1930:  198; Katz et  al. 1997:  108–​9; Keeney 2003:  42). Paintings of lines, often meticulously fringed with tiny white dots, meander through many panels. Sometimes people are shown walking or dancing along them, sometimes they are held as if they are ropes, sometimes they enter and leave the bodies of eland and people (Fig. 3.2). Each painting of threads of light is a personal take on a visual percept of scintillating, moving lines that the human nervous system generates in certain altered states of consciousness, a point which I elaborate shortly (Lewis-​ Williams et al. 2000). In the Maloti-​Drakensberg these lines, especially those fringed with white dots, appear in many rock shelters. They are so similar to one another that at one time researchers wondered if they could all have been painted by a single painter. Their number and wide distribution, along with idiosyncratic variations (e.g., some do not have white dots, other have white strokes across a double line) discount this view. It does, however, seem possible that the lines were believed to enter the rock wall at one site and emerge at another. The painted sites would thus have implied a network of the routes that shamans believed they traveled across the landscape and through the levels of the cosmos. The routes linking sites may have become more important as other peoples occupied San territory and endangered the whole San way of life (Lewis-​Williams 2010; Lewis-​ Williams 2019: Chapter 8). I have so far mentioned a number of features of San rock paintings that, though in some instances apparently insignificant, carry much meaning and indeed situate the images of which they are a part in the sphere of San religious experience. I call them ‘nuggets’ (Lewis-​Williams 2015a: 42–​6). In both imagery and folklore, nuggets are small but highly significant items. In ethnographic texts, especially myths, nuggets may be idiomatic turns of phrase that are opaque to outsiders, items of material culture with rich associations, or parts of the natural environment with wide connotations. They invoke reticulations of fundamental beliefs that narrators not do spell out: they assume everyone knows them. Over half a century ago one of the leading anthropologists of the time saw the importance of nuggets:  “[A]‌s every experienced fieldworker knows, the most difficult task in anthropological fieldwork is to determine the meanings of a few key words, upon an understanding of which the success of the whole investigation depends” (Evans-​Pritchard 1951: 80).

66  J.D. Lewis-Williams Importantly for our understanding of San rock art, Biesele found that the metaphors of the trance dance permeate Ju|’hoan folklore (Biesele 1993: 83ff; Lewis-​Williams 2013, 2015b). Though she does not use the word, she realizes the importance of nuggets. The phrase that I have italicized in the following quotation is central to the approach that I advocate: Picking out comparable ‘elements’, however defined, becomes a challenging detective game involving much social knowledge and a wide grasp of the themes and plots in the body of narratives. Often a concrete detail, merely mentioned in passing, is enough to give a social clue with enormous ramifications. (Biesele 1996: 145) Biesele emphasizes the “extremely elliptical and … very puzzling” nature of many Ju|’hoan idiomatic phrases (Biesele 1975:  176). Likewise, Nicholas England (1968:  343–​4), who studied Ju|’hoan music and song, wrote of “ ‘catch words’, crammed full of meanings and surrounded by an extensive halo of implicit meanings”. Sometimes such words are omitted from the précis with which many writers have to work when they deal with myths worldwide, and indeed with the tendentious summaries of San tales that one sometimes encounters in the literature. Yet, severally and in combinations, nuggets underpin and make indigenous sense of San mythical narratives, rather than some universal sense that may appeal to some mystically minded Westerners. This approach contrasts strongly with claims that understanding |Xam texts “does not require extensive anthropological expertise” (Solomon 2009:  33), an obscurantist view that has undermined much research on the San. There is a comparable situation in San imagery: painted nuggets may be postures, as is the case with the arms-​back figures, items of material culture (such as flywhisks), physical reactions (such as nasal bleeding), or other features. Importantly, a single nugget has the effect of situating a whole group of images in the pattern of San thought and ritual. For instance, in a clear group of, say, six walking figures one may have its arms in the backward posture. It ‘infects’ the whole group:  the others, whether they have features that may be nuggets or not, are in some way part of a trance ‘scene’. Over the decades the ‘vocabulary’ of San nuggets has grown as we have worked through the ethnography. We have probably not yet exhausted the full repertoire on which San painters could draw. Nevertheless, what we already know opens up access to the underlying beliefs that, for the San, made sense of panels of images that would, without such knowledge, appear to us to be no more than a meaningless jumble of unrelated images. An at least partial answer to that problem lies in an altogether different discipline. The ethnographically based conclusion that San shamans enter a trance state led to an investigation of neuropsychological studies of altered states of consciousness (Thackeray et al. 1981; Maggs and Sealy 1983; Lewis-​Williams

 

Ethnographic texts and rock art 67 1997b, c). We found that research had shown that, universally, the human nervous system in its generation of altered states of consciousness passes through what we called three inter-​ leading stages (Lewis-​ Williams and Dowson 1988; Lewis-​Williams 2002b). They range from a comparatively light initial stage in which subjects see luminous geometric forms, known as phosphenes or entoptic phenomena (e.g., Klüver 1966), such as zigzags, undulating lines, grids clouds of dots, to a second stage in which they try to make sense of these forms (by, for instance, taking a zigzag line to be a snake), to a deep third stage in which they see full-​blown hallucinations that may include frightening monsters and the sense of being part of their own mental imagery (Siegel and Jarvik 1975; Siegel 1977). As I have mentioned, the ‘ropes’ of which San shamans speak and the painted threads of light probably derive from Stage One experiences. We also found that the Stage One geometrics seem to have meant more to the San rock engravers of the central subcontinent than they did to the rock painters. Worldwide some subjects, depending on their socially constructed expectations, tend to dismiss the early geometrics as ‘noise’. San painters, however, combined them with iconic imagery. This turn to neuropsychology has been misunderstood by some writers. It is therefore necessary to emphasize the subsidiary role that neuropsychology has played in our understanding of San rock art (Lewis-​Williams 2001). The shamanic nature of much, probably all, of the art was established by recourse to San ethnography:  the San indisputably experienced, and still do experience, altered states of consciousness. It was only thereafter that researchers turned to neuropsychology and found that some aspects of San imagery could be explained by what neuropsychologists have learned about the mental imagery that human beings experience in trance. From there, it was a short step to consider Upper Paleolithic cave art and the decorated megalithic structures of western Neolithic Europe (Lewis-​Williams 2002b; Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2005). Even in these ethnography-​free studies we did not rely on neuropsychology only. Other factors taken into consideration included the contexts of the imagery and the interaction between imagery and rock surface (Lewis-​Williams 2012).

The fit between San ethnography and rock art To exemplify the general points that I have so far made I turn to a specific panel of images. San rock painting sites vary in the size of their content from one or two images to well over a thousand. When contemplating this diversity we must recognize an obvious point: it is the large sites with densely painted panels of images that hold the most information. They offer the best chance of unravelling the meanings of the images. At the same time, the exigencies of publication have meant that readers who do not have an opportunity to visit a large number of sites inevitably form their ideas of the art from groups comprising only a few images that have been extracted from

68  J.D. Lewis-Williams large panels so that they may fit onto the pages of a publication. Reasonably enough, writers choose these images because they illustrate particular points that they wish to make. The process of accumulation that led to the dense panels as we find them today is seldom addressed (Lewis-​Williams 2019). To show that it is the crowded panels that take us into the cognitive context that led to the build-​up of dense panels of images I have selected a site in eastern Free State province of South Africa (Fig. 3.3). Overall, the panel comprises two parts that are separated by a small step in the rock face. Unfortunately, the break occasioned by this step seems to have been enlarged by vandals attempting to remove paintings. The blank area below the broken line that indicates the step was probably filled with images. The most striking element of this panel is the large mass of red paint. It is representative of those much larger panels in which the accumulation of images has produced an indecipherable saturation of paint. Why did the San painters pile images one on top another until they became indistinguishable? There is no evidence that they ever erased images. Clues as to the content of the red mass are the heads of seven or more eland which protrude from it. Three of the heads have non-​realistic red lines painted on their faces. The lines on the head hanging from the lower part are particularly complex. The mass, as elsewhere, comprises the superimposed red bodies of eland. Then,

Figure 3.3 San rock art panel from the eastern Free State. Scale in cm. Site location indicated by northernmost star on Figure 3.1. Image courtesy of the Rock Art Research Institute

 

Ethnographic texts and rock art 69 superimposed on the red mass are a number of more recently painted eland, the white parts of which have faded; they too point to the identity of the individual elements that have coalesced into the red mass of paint. What appears to be an antelope skin with white dots down one side is another apparently more recently added image. To the left of the red mass are five buck-​headed creatures that are variously known as ‘flying buck’, ‘trance-​buck’ or ‘alites’ (Lee and Woodhouse 1970; Pager 1971; Lewis-​Williams 1981: 84–​100). Four of the trance-​buck have flywhisks: three hold them, but the fourth has two whisks protruding from its chest and another two from its n||au spot, the ‘hole’ in the nape of the neck through which a San shaman expels sickness and which has other important associations (Biesele 1978: 929). Three of these trance-​buck have their arms in the significant backward posture that some San shamans adopt when they are asking Gau||wa for more potency (Lewis-​Williams 1981: 88). One places a hand on an eland’s nose, and another below this one has lines leading from its chest to an eland’s nose. A  further six eland are painted either under or over these trance-​buck. There is also a prostrate man with lines falling from his armpit. The section above the step appears to be related to the part below because the line leading from the upper of the two trance-​buck reappears below the step. This trance-​buck is especially interesting: its arms are in the backward posture, it has emanations from its n||au and its chest, and it has a flywhisk tucked behind an ear. Farther to the right is a very complex section that includes a line of human figures holding hands, a standing and two seated kaross-​clad figures, a number of bags and a double chevron. Two of the large figures have flywhisks protruding from them. The standing figure may also be carrying an antelope head, though it is not actually attached to him. A curiously shaped line, which may comprise a series of cordate hoofprints, falls from the antelope head; another section of the line is lower and slightly to the left. A painting like this is overwhelming in its complexity (I have not mentioned all its points of interest). At one time the red mass was explained as “a milling crowd of eland, probably stampeded into a dead end by beaters” (Lee and Woodhouse 1970: fig. 60), but the large number of features associated with the trance dance and its experiences suggests that we should move away from literal depictions of daily life. The panel is in fact crowded with nuggets, all of which point to San religious experience. Space does not permit full explication of each one. They include: • •

Nasal blood. Often depicted, San shamans experienced nasal hemorrhages (Bleek 1935:  12, 19, 34; Lewis-​ Williams and Pearce 2004a: 90); The red lines on the faces of the eland heads connect them with images elsewhere in which shamans have red lines on their faces (e.g.,

70  J.D. Lewis-Williams

• •

•

• •

•

Figure 3.2, figure at center with outstretched arm; Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2009); The arms-​back posture that shamans adopt when they ask god for more potency (Lewis-​Williams 1981: 88); The lines falling from the prostrate man’s armpit, a feature frequently depicted, probably represents sweat that the San believed to be a manifestation of potency (Bleek 1936: 149; Marshall 1962: 251; Silberbauer 1965: 99; Lee 1967: 33); Flywhisks. Made from giraffe, eland and wildebeest tails, Lee (1969: 31) describes flywhisks as “indispensable” at a dance, and Marshall (1999: 69) found that they “appear only at the dances”. One Kalahari shaman said that flywhisks were used to remove “arrows of sickness” from people (Keeney 2003: 102); Threads of light (without fringing white dots) link images; Antelope-​headed figures. One Kalahari shaman said: “We doctors may become many animals” (Keeney 2003:  53). Another said:  “You may … see an animal appear in the [dance] fire. It can turn you into that animal” (Keeney 2003: 85). They often bleed from the nose; One figure reaches out to touch an eland’s nose. The ‘calming’ of animals was part of a shaman-​of-​the-​game’s hunting techniques (McGranaghan and Challis 2016). They also guided animals into the hunters’ ambush (Bleek 1935: 45).

These nuggets, all ethnographically based, mesh with one another. They add up to a highly complex array of accumulated images that is clearly and closely associated with San shamanistic experience. We can go further. What I have called ‘a meaningless jumble of images’ was in fact what the San desired. What is disorder for us was, for them, a form of order:  an accumulation of potency and spiritual revelations (Lewis-​Williams 2019). The ‘jumble’ in some respects resembles the mercurial, kaleidoscopic mental imagery that San shamans experienced in their altered states of consciousness. As the years went by, the painted revelations of predecessors prepared San shamans for their own experiences, even as verbal reports in the Kalahari prepare novices for what they will experience in trance (Biesele 1993: 70, 72, 76). When the painters made images in rock shelters, they must, having seen older superimposed and faded images, have expected that their participation in the on-​going tradition of revelation would possibly lead in the future to other shamans’ own experiences.

Ethnography and rock art I have tried to show that San ethnography is not a simple source—​ a dictionary—​on which rock art researchers can easily draw. Puzzled by an image, you cannot ‘look it up’ in the ethnography. The answer may be there,

 

Ethnographic texts and rock art 71 but more than likely it will be a nugget couched in San, not Western, language and metaphors and thus hidden from a superficial reading. Nor is the fit between the ethnography and the images a simple one-​to-​one affair that can be revealed mechanically by the application of certain techniques. Reflecting on his South American experiences, Claude Lévi-​ Strauss (1961:  55–​ 6) summed up what I and other researchers have found in the southern African San ethnography and, especially, in the Bleek and Lloyd Archive: Exploration is not so much a matter of covering ground as of digging beneath the surface:  chance fragments of landscape, momentary snatches of life, reflections caught on the wing—​such are the things that alone make it possible for us to understand and interpret horizons which would otherwise have nothing to offer us. Ulysses, in Tennyson’s take on his life, also invokes the concept of exploration. He says that “all experience is an arch where thro’ Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move”. So is it when we delve into those ‘momentary snatches of life’ that the San ethnographies—​and many others around the world—​hold. The margin—​ horizon—​fades as we move towards the frontiers of knowledge. Continually, in a seemingly never ending process of mutual illumination, the images send us to the ethnography, and the ethnography sends us back to the images.

Acknowledgments I thank colleagues who kindly commented so usefully on drafts of this article: David Pearce, David Witelson, Johannes H.N. Loubser and David Whitley. Figure 3.1 was prepared by David Pearce. Figures 3.2 and 3.3 were prepared by members of the Rock Art Research Institute in the University of the Witwatersrand. The research was funded by the National Research Foundation.

Note 1 Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, PO Wits, Johannesburg, South Africa 2050; email: [email protected].

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Ethnographic texts and rock art 77 Silberbauer, G.B. 1981. Hunter and habitat in the Central Kalahari Desert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Skotnes, P. 1996. Miscast:  negotiating the presence of the Bushmen. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press. Skotnes, P. 2007. Claim to the country: the archive of Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd. Cape Town: Jacana; Athens: Ohio University Press. Skotnes, P. 2008. Unconquerable spirit: George Stow’s history paintings of the San. Johannesburg: Jacana. Skotnes, P. 2014. The courage of ||kabbo. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press. Smits, L.G.A. 1971. The rock paintings of Lesotho, their content and characteristics. South African Journal of Science Special Publication 2: 14–​19. Solomon, A.C. 2007. Images, words and worlds: the |Xam testimonies and the rock arts of the southern San. In P. Skotnes (ed.), Claim to the country: the archive of Lucy Lloyd and Wilhelm Bleek. Cape Town: Jacana, 149–​59. Solomon, A. 2009. Broken strings:  interdisciplinarity and |Xam oral literature. Critical Arts 23: 26–​41. Spohr, O.H. 1962. Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek:  a bio-​bibliographic sketch. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Libraries. Stow, G.W. 1905. The native races of South Africa: a history of the intrusion of the Hottentots and Bantu into the hunting grounds of the Bushmen, the aborigines of the country. London: Swan Sonnenschein. Stow, G.W. and Bleek, D.F. 1930. Rock paintings in South Africa: from parts of the Eastern Province and Orange Free State. London: Methuen. Thackeray, A.I., Thackeray, J.F., Beaumont, P.B. and Vogel, J.C. 1981. Dated rock engravings from Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa. Science 214: 64–​7. Valiente-​Noailles, C. 1993. The Kua: life and soul of the Central Kalahari Bushmen. Rotterdam: Balkema. Van der Riet, J., Van der Riet, M., and Bleek, D.F. 1940. More rock-​paintings in South Africa from the coastal belt between Albany and Piquetberg. London: Methuen. Vinnicombe, P. 1967a. Rock-​painting analysis. South African Archaeological Bulletin 22: 129–​41. Vinnicombe, P. 1967b. The recording of rock paintings—​an interim report. South African Journal of Science 63: 282–​4. Vinnicombe, P. 1976. People of the eland:  rock paintings of the Drakensberg Bushmen as a reflection of their life and thought. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press. Vinnicombe, P. 2001. Forty-​odd years down the track. The Digging Stick 18 (2): 1–​2. Wessels, M. 2010. Bushman letters:  interpreting /​ Xam narrative. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Willcox, A.R. 1956. Rock paintings of the Drakensberg. London: Parish. Wright, J. and Mazel, A. 2007. Tracks in a mountain range: exploring the history of the uKhalamba-​Drakensberg. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.

4 Cultural traditions on the High Plains Apishapa, Sopris, and High Plains Upper Republican Thomas N. Huffman1 and Frank Lee Earley2

Cultural identity in the archaeological record is a long-​standing issue. In this case study, we turn to the Middle Ceramic period (AD 1000–​1300) on the western edge of the High Plains (Fig.  4.1) where investigations have yielded a complex record (Zier and Kalasz 1999) involving three archaeological signatures: Apishapa (Gunnerson 1989), Sopris (Ireland 1970), and Wallace (Ireland 1968). All three have been considered as local hunter-​ gatherers influenced by different groups in various ways (Cassells 1983; Zier and Kalasz 1999:  198, 203). We have argued instead that Apishapa people formed the eastern extension of the Great Basin Desert Culture and probably spoke Uto-​Aztecan (Huffman and Earley 2017), while the Wallace (5PE349) and Hobson (5PE172) sites near Pueblo, Colorado, were bison-​ hunting farmers who probably spoke Northern Caddoan (Huffman and Earley 2014, 2015a). For the third entity, we show here that Sopris people were closely related to Puebloan agriculturalists. To make these identifications, we focus on the social organization of settlement space. This focus is based on the general principle that human groups everywhere divide their spatial environment into discrete categories where only a limited range of culturally related activities are permitted. As other social scientists have noted (e.g., Rapoport 1969), spatial categories and related activities have a reciprocal relationship: physical spaces interact on, and are in turn shaped by political, social, and religious beliefs and practices. Past societies can therefore be understood in terms of beliefs and social conventions related to spatial organization. We then show that the substantial variability noted in the Apishapa archaeological record was due to interaction with Sopris and High Plains Upper Republican. At the same time, we present new interpretations of the Avery Ranch site and Ocean Vista on the Fort Carson Military Reservation. Although our focus is on the High Plains, our anthropological approach is relevant to other archaeological records. Because this approach comes from a different paradigm than the traditional concerns with artifact typologies, taxonomies, and cultural ecology, we first clarify our theoretical stance.

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 79

Figure 4.1 Map of Colorado showing sites mentioned in the text. PCMS  =  Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site

Cultural traditions By cultural traditions we mean a worldview—​ an aggregate of symbols that give meaning and expression to social organization, a series of rules to govern behavior, and a set of values to guide choice. Such a worldview constitutes a system of beliefs about people, society, and the natural world that is passed down successive generations. We then mean the associated behavior that is recognized by others as distinctive. Although both are emic in origin, cultural traditions are not the same as ethnic identity. Cultural traditions represent a large-​scale ethno-​linguistic identity where membership depends on a common language and common worldview; they are not about ethnicity where membership depends on acceptance by other members. When Culture History was the dominant paradigm in North America, the limited geographical distributions of archaeological cultures were thought to match ethnic groups, such as tribes:  both were presumed to be relatively isolated, discrete, homogeneous, stable, and static wholes (Jones 1997; Trigger 2006). At that time, archaeological cultures were based on a list of material-​culture traits that were thought to be more-​or-​less equal for group identity, such as projectile points, stone tools, pottery, and grind stones. From this normative perspective (following Binford 1965), small artifacts, which could

80  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley be traded, were equated with such complex entanglements as the spatial components of social organization. In Plains archaeology today, a focus on taxonomic issues and archaeological units as cultural entities shows the continuing impact of the Culture History paradigm (Mitchell 2006). This is not our position. Instead, we accept that archaeological cultures are artificial constructs (Shennan 1989), that not all material traits are of equal value (for any purpose, let alone ethnicity), and that ethnicity is real but sustained ethnic groups may not be (Brubaker 2004). Because archaeologists study material culture, it is easy to over-​ emphasize the importance of physical objects versus social aspects of culture. Culture and worldview, however, are far removed from a list of material-​culture traits. Such traits can be symptomatic of different kinds of society, but they can never be definitive:  only social phenomena can define social formations. Many archaeologists are wary of studying social phenomena because they are not directly observable in the archaeological record. It is nevertheless possible to study social aspects of culture in the same way as natural scientists study unobservables, that is, through their material effects. Indeed, this is what archaeologists really do. We do not excavate technology, subsistence, or adaption, for example. These concepts are no less abstract than worldview, and all are derived from theory. Even though we cannot observe prehistoric worldview directly, it was no less real: it guided technology, subsistence, and adaptive behavior and in many cases caused it. To outline the cultural traditions, we focus on ethnographic data derived from communities closely related to the archaeological entities. We justify this approach by appealing to a universal principle: to understand another society’s choices, we must understand to some degree their worldview. Indeed, if we lack an indigenous interpretative framework, we impose our own—​a pervasive problem throughout archaeology. Once formulated, the ethnographically derived descriptions then become models to recognize cultural traditions in the archaeological record. Note that our use of models is not circular or tautological as some have claimed (Blakeslee et al. 2015). In circular arguments, premises are re-​stated as conclusions, while a tautology is where a statement has to be true because of its logical form. In our case, the models do not have to fit. The fact that they do fit to various degrees is not evidence for circularity. Instead of circularity, we follow the normal scientific approach by constructing models using data independent of the archaeology and then applying them to the archaeology record. Moreover, we assess competing hypotheses using ampliative criteria, such as the number of data covered, the diversity of data, and the potential to predict new data (Lauden 1996). Once different traditions are recognized, we can then untangle interactions. We present three models to help recognize different traditions: Great Basin hunter-​gatherers, Northern Caddoan bison-​hunting farmers, and Puebloan agriculturalists. Although the use of such models has its own difficulties,

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 81 critics have not developed viable alternatives that provide equally valid windows into another culture’s worldview.

Ethnographic models Great Basin hunter-​gatherers Worldwide, hunter-​ gatherers usually lived in small mobile social units. Eastern Shoshone in the Great Basin, for example, seldom stayed in one place for more than eight to ten days (Shimkin 1986: 309). When sufficient resources were available, people came together for such activities as communal hunts, fish runs, and pinon harvests (Hultkrantz 1986: 633). Overall, Great Basin peoples followed an aggregation–​dispersal pattern typical of other hunter-​gatherers. In the camps, people usually slept in simple brush shelters, such as the single family wickiups of Southern Utes, Paiutes, and Shoshoni (e.g., Callaway et al. 1986: 353; Simms 1989). The spatial organization of a typical household was simple and minimal: an extended family slept inside the shelter, while cooking and artifact production took place outside (Fig. 4.2). There were two exceptions: the birth hut where husbands kept a fire burning continuously for a month or more (Callaway et al. 1986: 350) and the winter shelters of Northern Ute who were profoundly influenced by Plains buffalo-​ hunting people (Smith 1974: 35–​6). Otherwise, this organization was generally true for summer and winter encampments (R. Clemmer-​Smith, pers. comm., March 2017). Generally speaking, households were organized into bands integrated by kinship ties without permanent leaders. The spiritual world, however,

Figure 4.2 Model of Great Basin hunter-​ gatherer camp. Photo courtesy of Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (NAA 1635)

82  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley was the domain of shamans. In the Great Basin, different shamans were concerned with healing, soul loss, weather, and hunting. They received power for these tasks through altered states of consciousness, connecting them to supernatural forces concentrated in such places as springs, caves, and mountains (Miller 1983; Hultkrantz 1986). To them, humanity came from the underworld. To help make sense of the archaeological record, we use Numic ethnography from the southern and eastern Great Basin (e.g., Callaway et al. 1986; Hultkrantz 1986; Shimkin 1986) to extract six principles that affected the organization of space and distribution of artifacts: • • • • • •

Basin Principle I:  The Supreme Being created the world, embuing various animals, plants, rocks, and places (caves, mountains, lakes, fountains, and streams) with supernatural power; Basin Principle II:  Shamans acquired supernatural power through visions and dreams in order to influence game, heal sickness, and retrieve souls captured by ghosts; Basin Principle III: Shamans and neophytes sought guardian spirits at places imbued with supernatural power; Basin Principle IV: Relationships between families and with guardian spirits helped to structure society; Basin Principle V: The domestic economy was based on procuring large and small game and foraging, following an aggregation–​dispersal cycle; Basin Principle VI:  The domestic economy relied on and produced an appropriate tool kit that was manufactured and utilized in gender-​ related activity areas largely outside temporary dwellings.

Overall there was little ceremonialism, especially compared to Northern Caddoan and Puebloan societies. Northern Caddoan bison-​hunting farmers Within Northern Caddoan, the estimated split between Wichita and Pawnee/​ Arikara was about 2,000 years ago (Parks 1979: 205); and so we are most concerned with the late prehistory of Pawnee and Arikara. Linguistically, Pawnee contains remarkably few borrowings from neighboring Indian and European languages (Parks 2001: 90). Since most exceptions are personal names derived from ceremonies such as the Calumet, the twelfth-​century Pawnee worldview was probably not substantially affected by interaction with later peoples. Nevertheless, we use Pawnee ethnography as a window into the worldview of Northern Caddoan people in general, rather than the beliefs of a specific ethnic group. Historically, Pawnee lived in substantial earthen lodges clustered in villages that were occupied for many years (Hyde 1974: 3–​4). The large lodge accommodated multiple families and multiple activities organized along

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 83

Figure 4.3 Model of Northern Caddoan lodge, adjusted for the twelfth century

gender lines. Inside, fireplace and kitchen nestled between central supports, while men made and repaired arrows and related paraphernalia between the kitchen and entranceway. For their part, women used the surrounding sleeping and storage areas for food processing and other related activities (Fig. 4.3). Moreover, the lodge was a cosmogram (Grinnell 1893; Fletcher 1903): the arch of the roof paralleled the dome of the sky, while the easterly facing entrance allowed the morning light to cross the central hearth, replicating humanity’s cosmic origins (the moon and Venus created the first person). Four central posts, representing semi-​cardinal directions, held up the roof as the deities held up the heavens. Thus, the supernatural cosmos was not just a religious foundation; it was also the basis of a social order embedded in lodge organization (Weltfish 1965: 76–​7, 108). In further contrast to Great Basin hunter-​gatherers, Pawnee society had permanent leadership, as well as institutionalized priests concerned with the regularities of the universe (Weltfish 1965: 97–​106). Among other roles, priests looked after sacred bundles that hung on the back west wall of the owner’s lodge, above the altar. Significantly, these bundles were central to a ritual system based on the life history of maize (Murie 1914; Murie and Parks 1989: 30). In terms of the domestic economy, people usually alternated between raising maize and other crops in spring and fall (when all crops needed processing before storage) and hunting bison in summer and winter. In the

84  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley Northern Plains, maintenance of grasslands and repeated use of the same jumps represents a structured activity well beyond casual hunting (Oetelaar 2014). In the Central Plains, large-​scale hunting twice a year was equally structured. Perhaps it is time to consider this part of the domestic economy as bison ‘harvesting’ similar to Northwest Coast fishing. To contrast with Great Basin hunter/​foragers, we extracted six general principles from Pawnee ethnography (e.g., Grinnell 1893; Murie 1914; Weltfish 1965; Fletcher and Murie 1996): • • • •

• •

Caddoan Principle I: Cosmic forces created the structure and regularities of the universe (including maize horticulture); they belonged to the domain of priests and chiefs; Caddoan Principle II: The earth (including wild animals and people) and its waters were untamed, irregular, and unpredictable; they belonged to the domain of doctors; Caddoan Principle III:  Ritual places formed a framework for ceremonial activity inside and outside the lodge; Caddoan Principle IV:  A complex set of reciprocal relationships between people (north and south sections of the lodge) and between people (doctors and priests) and the supernatural (animal and celestial deities) structured Pawnee society; Caddoan Principle V:  The domestic economy was based equally on maize horticulture (spring and fall) and bison harvesting (summer and winter); Caddoan Principle VI:  The dual economy relied on, and produced, an appropriate tool kit that was manufactured and utilized in gender-​ related activity areas inside the semi-​permanent lodge.

Significantly, Puebloan peoples had a different economic focus, political structure, and ceremonialism. Puebloan agriculturalists Anthropologists (e.g., Dozier 1970) generally divide Pueblo communities in the Southwest into at least two groups: Western Pueblos (e.g., Acoma, Hopi, and Zuni) versus Eastern, or Rio Grande Pueblos (Keresan and Tanoan). Among other things, the two groups varied in the importance of clans (West) versus sodalities (East), as well as matrilineal (West) versus patrilineal (East) descent patterns. In general, the people were full-​time agriculturalists (dry farming in the West, irrigation in the East), cultivating maize, beans, squash, tobacco, and cotton. Men were the farmers and weavers, while women processed the harvest and produced copious pottery within the village. This pottery occurred in a multiplicity of shapes and sizes to serve various agricultural needs, such as storage (dry and liquid), cooking, and serving. Permanent villages consisted of contiguous alignments of rectangular rooms,

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 85 including multi-​tiered terrace houses, either as a parallel alignment (Keresan as well as some Western Pueblos) or single and multiple plazas (Eastern). Different rooms served different purposes, such as storage (in the back), ritual, or sleeping (in the front). Many rooms were relatively small, and so many activities took place in open spaces, such as the porches of terraced houses, and communal courtyards. In addition to rectangular rooms, circular pit structures served various private ceremonial purposes (the well-​ known kivas), and all were usually made with adobe or stone-​and-​adobe masonry (Fig. 4.4). As a rule, pueblos were autonomous:  each was the center of the world where people, animals, plants, and mountains lived in balance. To circumscribe this world, concentric circles emanated from the center (particularly characteristic of the Tewa): the center was the domain of women (agriculture); the middle zone was for both men and women (gathering and some hunting); while the outer zone was for men (winter hunting). Within each zone, small shrines marked the four cardinal directions. As another commonality, people were said to have emerged from the underworld, assisted by twin war gods, through a hole in the roof (sipap, sipophene, or sipapu). To some, this hole was under a lake (Eastern); to others it was under the earth (Western). Many, but not all, Pueblo kivas had a hole in the floor representing this place of emergence. Some of these historic features are well known in Puebloan archaeology (e.g., Cordell 1979). Large, single Pueblos were late phenomena, however, and scattered homesteads may instead have formed earlier communities.

Figure 4.4 San Ildefonso, 1984

86  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley Because of proximity and known trade connections (Kessell 1979:  16, 364), Eastern Pueblo ethnology is most relevant to the cultural traditions in southeastern Colorado. Here dualism structured much of ceremonial and political life (Parsons 1969). During the year, for example, senior priests from winter (associated with North, hunting, and the sun) and summer (South, agriculture, and moon) moieties alternated leadership. During their term, the priests organized a ceremonial cycle of ritual dramas using highly costumed dancers (kachina, katsina) attuned to seasons, solstices, and equinoxes (Ortiz 1969, 1972): rain, fertility and ancestral spirits were major themes. In opposition, costumed clowns reinforced social norms through burlesque and caricature (Hieb 1972). Priests also led or appointed the leaders of associations dedicated to hunting, general town order, or warfare: every boy joined one of these associations. As a result, hunting was a specialized winter activity (zone 3), which supplemented agricultural products (zone 1). Even though government was a theocracy, war chiefs rather than priests were intermediaries between the sacred and profane. To contrast with the other two worldviews, we extracted six principles from Eastern Pueblo ethnography (Ortiz 1969, 1972; Parsons 1969; Dozier 1970; Hieb 1972): • • • • • •

Puebloan Principle I:  On emergence from the underworld, people created a unity with nature and centered each pueblo within activity zones circumscribed by natural features in the four cardinal directions; Puebloan Principle II: Ritual moieties supplied community leaders who alternated authority from summer to winter; Puebloan Principle III: Annual and seasonal cycles of sacred ceremonies took place in public spaces and private kivas; Puebloan Principle IV: Interaction between moieties and ritual associations structured society; Puebloan Principle V: The domestic economy was first based on maize agriculture and then supplemented by hunting; Puebloan Principle VI: The dualistic economy relied on and produced agriculturally orientated and hunting orientated tool kits manufactured in communal spaces inside a village of rectangular room blocks.

Summary For southeast Colorado, then, we have three ethnographic models with archaeological implications. We can summarize the implications as follows: • •

Great Basin hunter-​ gatherers:  simple temporary shelters for small mobile social units, following an aggregation–​dispersal cycle, aided by informal leaders and shamans who harnessed supernatural power; Northern Caddoan bison-​hunting farmers: substantial complex lodges in semi-​permanent hamlets, focused on a dual economy, organized by

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 87

•

chiefs and priests concerned with universal regularities, and doctors concerned with individuals and the unpredictable natural world; Puebloan agriculturalists:  rectangular room complexes in permanent settlements, located near arable land, with a rich ceremonial life organized by priestly moiety leaders and ritual associations that, together, kept humanity and the natural world in harmony.

With these three models in mind, we turn to a wide assortment of archaeological data with the potential to reveal different cultural traditions. We first use the social organization of space as a framework to discuss economic and material-​culture differences.

Archaeological traditions Apishapa Other than rock shelters and defensive locations, many Apishapa sites were open encampments (Campbell 1969: 320–​39). In the Pinyon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS), many of these open sites overlooked small arable plots and were most likely occupied during summer (Owens 2015). On the other hand, some sites, such as those in Turkey Creek south of Colorado Springs (Withers 1964), incorporated stone-​slab rings comprising a single course of upright stones some 3–​4 m across (Fig. 4.5): these were probably winter encampments. Although these slab rings may appear substantial, they most likely served as braces for light brush and pole structures. Their small size shows that they could only accommodate a single family, and they usually lacked internal features (e.g., Drake 1992). Instead (following Basin Principle VI), fireplaces and production areas were usually located outside (Nowak and Kingsbury 1981; Evans 2012), sometimes in a separate C-​ shaped stone enclosure (e.g., Zier and Kalasz 1999: 206; Evans 2012: 98). All things considered, Apishapa structures resemble the simple brush shelters of Uto-​Aztecan speakers in the Great Basin. Moreover, Apishapa sites usually yield little deposit, few artifacts, and sometimes no pottery (Campbell 1969:  390). Test excavations and surface examinations of the 15 units at the large defensive Sorenson site (Chomko and De Vore 1990), for instance, yielded only 113 artifacts; mostly flakes and no ceramics (Table 4.1). Likewise, the C-​shaped enclosure at Site LA73996 in New Mexico yielded only 13 artifacts with just four more from the surface (Drake 1992). And extensive excavations at the Steamboat Island Fort (5LA768) in southeast Colorado yielded only 12 points, 12 more stone artifacts, 426 pieces of debitage and 65 pot shards, some of which were Sopris in origin (Campbell 1969:  230–​5). As a result of these and similar data, Apishapa sites appear to have been occupied briefly by small groups, moving seasonally between encampments located in different ecological zones (Zier and Kalasz 1999: 195). As sites in the PCMS and elsewhere show, some Apishapa people were small-​scale horticulturalists, growing types of maize that originated in the

88  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley

Figure 4.5 Artist’s reconstruction of Apishapa winter wickiup and photos of stone-​ slab foundations. Bottom photo from Withers (1964)

Southwest (Campbell 1969: 146). Even so, horticulture was most likely a minor aspect of the domestic economy. Instead, investigations commonly yielded small mammal remains, such as cottontail rabbit, jackrabbits, and prairie dog, as well as deer, antelope, and the rare bison (Campbell 1969). Although some large mammals were procured, Apishapa sites normally

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 89 Table 4.1 Apishapa, Wallace, and Sopris artifact comparison Points Stone Utilized Debitage tools flakes, cores Apishapa Sorenson 5 (3 m2) LA73996 (6 m2) Canterbury 2 (±21 m2) Steamboat 12 Island Fort (103 m2)

9

98

3

6

8

2

±22

±180

12

10

426

High Plains Upper Republican Wallace (5 94 144 247 partial lodges, ±60 m2) Hobson (18 17 97 50 m2) Ocean Vista 27 31 Structure 1 (4 m2) Ocean 60 81 Vista total (10 m2) Sopris 1211 (±86 m2) 1416 (±73 m2)

Manos, Pottery Total metates

1

15+ 98 flakes 9+8 flakes 47

73

65

109+426 flakes

Several 38 thousand (5 shoe boxes) Not counted 8

689

1,231+ many flakes

33

207+flakes

610

4

39

101+610 flakes

1,233

9

156

306+ 1,233 flakes 3,048+ 10,308 flakes 5,787+ 49,727 flakes

5

73

78

361

10,308

134

2,402

538

434

964

49,727

179

3,672

lack the typical hide-​processing tools of Plains Village assemblages (e.g., Hoard and Banks 2006), and the inventory is best linked to foraging by small groups and to an emphasis on small mammals. Moreover, rock shelters have yielded twined rabbit-​fur cordage, as well as yucca-​fiber snares and sandals (Campbell 1969: 390; Zier and Kalasz 1999: 196, 212; Evans 2012: 31)—​not hide moccasins important on the Plains. From these data, the domestic economy of Apishapa (following Basin Principle V) resembles that of hunter-​gatherers in the Great Basin: family-​level procurement with the occasional communal hunt. Note that the hunter-​gatherer model applies to over 95% of recorded Apishapa sites. We discuss the anomalies shortly.

90  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley

Figure 4.6 Similarity in abstract rock art in the Great Basin (4.6a courtesy Jannie Loubser) and Apishapa area (4.6b). (cf. Handbook to North American Indians. Volume 11: Great Basin, 1986: 217)

Apishapa rock art provides a further link to the Great Basin. As Schaafsma (1980, 1986) shows, Apishapa engravings are remarkably similar to those in the Great Basin (Fig. 4.6). Both make sense in terms of the Great Basin concept of dynamic supernatural power, or puha (Stoffle and Zedeño 2002), and in the social context of long-​distance pilgrimages (Huffman and Earley 2017). Shamans sought visions at places filled with puha (Shimkin 1986; Whitley 2000) and recorded various aspects of their visionary experiences, including power lines, soul loss, and spirit helpers (following Basin Principles II and III). Had Apishapa been Northern Caddoan (e.g., Loendorf 2008), Great Basin concepts would not make sense of the art. We turn now to the second cultural tradition High Plains Upper Republican The Wallace site In contrast to Apishapa sites, structures in the Wallace homestead (following Caddoan Principle VI) were variations of pole-​and-​daub lodges (±7.5 × 9.5 m) with central fireplaces, kitchens, and extended entranceways: stone slabs or coursing were not integral to the wall construction of any structure. Although our reconstructions are hypothetical (Fig.  4.7), they are based on original field data (Huffman and Earley 2014). Remote sensing, furthermore, recorded a buried rectangular feature (House 8)  outside the excavated zone (Huffman and Earley 2015b). The source of the rectangle is unknown (our permit did not allow ‘ground truthing’), but the rectangular shape supports our reconstruction of the House 1 complex. This complex (H1, H4 and part of H2) included patches of floor and daub fallen from

 

Figure 4.7 Hypothetical reconstruction of pole-​and-​daub lodges at the Wallace site

92  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley the roof and sides, and post holes marking a wall and rounded corner (with a storage cyst) 3 m away from the central kitchen. Overall, these lodges were substantial: House 1, for example, yielded 1 m2 of burnt daub from the center, c. 1.7 m2 from the northwest corner and another c. 5.1 m2 from the southwest corner. Together with House 5 (c. 3.4 m2), House 6 (9 m2), and House 7 (5.79 m2), the Wallace hamlet has yielded more daub than all recorded Apishapa sites combined. These semi-​permanent lodges were thus quite different from ephemeral Apishapa shelters. Using the five organizational principles derived from Caddoan ethnography, we identified House 5 with a priest (east facing, multiple smoking pipes and paint stones) and House 1/​4 A  and B and House 2 with chiefs (large size and probable female sweat lodge). Overlapping strata and the geophysical survey suggest that Houses 7 and 8 were probably other priests’ lodges. Thus (following Caddoan Principles I and II), a priest and chief were probably both present at any one time. Wild meat was processed outside the lodge (following Caddoan Principle II), while the main production zone was inside (following Caddoan Principle V). In contrast to Apishapa camps, many artifacts, such as arrowheads with impact fractures (and thus brought back for repair), were found concentrated inside rather than outside the lodges. Indeed, excavations at Wallace recorded over 1,000 lithic and clay artifacts from inside four lodges (as well as five shoeboxes of debitage), while the single Hobson lodge yielded 205 artifacts, mostly from the front production area (Table 4.1). Overall, scrapers show a formal blade technology. These concentrations and technology are similar to the inventories recovered from Upper Republican lodges in the Central Plains (e.g., Macy 2009). In both areas, artifact numbers are considerably higher than in typical Apishapa sites. Furthermore, the Wallace economy (following Caddoan Principles V and VI) had a dual focus on horticulture (maize cobs, a mandibular-​sheller/​ sickle, large maize grindstones, scapula hoe) and large-​scale bison hunting and associated hide processing (bison bones, bone flesher, numerous bone awls, stone drills, and scrapers). The raw material for these lithics included multi-​colored cherts and multi-​colored quartzites available on high river terraces upstream of the Hobson site, as well as petrified wood derived from the Black Forest area north of the Arkansas (we return to the significance of this raw material shortly). The pottery associated with High Plains Upper Republican settlements was made by mass modeling, similar to the manufacturing steps of Upper Republican pottery in the Central Plains, not by coiling (Lindsey and Krause 2007). According to Krause’s analysis, these ‘Barnes’ ceramic types represent a local development from the same Woodland base that generated Upper Republican. Although not dominant, modeled pottery is present in both Wallace and Hobson assemblages. The link between Upper Republican and Northern Caddoan is not about a continuity in tribal entities but the larger scale ethno-​linguistic identity encompassing a common language and common worldview. Thus, it is

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 93

Figure 4.8 Distribution of rock art themes below the Wallace site. Note similarity with lodge organization

unnecessary to have an unbroken continuity in ceramic style to make this link (e.g., Roper 2007); such a link would be more appropriate for social identity. Overall, a Northern Caddoan model, rather than Apishapa, fits the Wallace hamlet better. Moreover, the rock art (5PE81) at the Wallace site was different from Apishapa (Huffman and Earley 2014:  figs 13, 14). Among other painted images, the Wallace art included shield men well known throughout the Plains (Fig.  4.8). Furthermore, the spatial organization in the rock art chamber was similar to that of the lodges above:  it makes sense in terms of the dichotomy between priests and the regularities of the universe versus doctors and the unpredictability of human and animal behavior (following Caddoan Principles I, II and III).

94  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley The Buick Camp site Rather than broad-​spectrum hunter-​foragers, Wallace and Hobson people had a dual economy based on maize horticulture and bison harvesting. To harvest in winter, hunting camps were sited on the edge of broken land where bison sought protection from severe storms. The Buick Camp site (5EL1) near Limon, Colorado, is a case in point. Besides classic collared rims (Wood 1971), the Buick ceramic assemblage shares some Upper Republican-​related types with the Barnes site (5LA9187) in the Pinyon Canyon area (Lindsey and Krause 2007). Because Barnes types represent a local development from an original Plains Woodland base, these types provide support for the ‘Buick focus’ (now High Plains Upper Republican) originally proposed by Withers (1954). Known as the ‘bone yard’, the Buick site was located in an ideal position to access the valleys where bison could shelter each winter. Various springs, one below the camp site, provided a further attraction. The camp itself included some sort of pit structure with a central fireplace: a more substantial structure than the small open tent, with an exterior fireplace, typical of Pawnee summer hunts (Weltfish 1965: 201). Winter camps such as Buick, we argue, were most likely attached to more permanent settlements, such as Hobson and Wallace. We turn now to the third cultural tradition. Sopris Several Sopris settlements were clustered in the Upper Purgatoire basin near Trinidad and were different from both Apishapa and Wallace. First (following Puebloan Principle VI), some settlements comprised a contiguous series of rectangular rooms made with adobe or stone-​and-​mortar masonry, or jacal (pole and daub), plastered on the interior, with collared hearths and bell-​shaped pits inside (Fig. 4.9). Smaller outside rooms were probably used for storage, while larger central rooms probably served more domestic and general functions (Ireland 1970, 1974; Ireland and Wood 1973; Wood and Bair 1980). Some walls enclosed communal work spaces, while several burials were recovered from under floors. At 5LA1416, an ovoid pit structure (Structure 5) contained a large fire pit in the center (too large for normal cooking), low perimeter bench, and five burial niches (four with burials) (Fig. 4.10). These features indicate a ceremonial function somewhat like a kiva (following Puebloan Principle III). Rather than a sequence of architectural changes (cf. Cassells 1983:  224), pit structures were more likely contemporaneous with rectangular room blocks (Mitchell 1997:  98) and together formed small pueblo-​like villages. We argue that Structure 5 with its shape, internal bench, and large fire pit was a kiva equivalent. Because of the prominence of dualism among Eastern Pueblos, we wondered whether it was an organizing principle in Sopris villages. Fowles (2005) recognized moieties at the Northern Rio Grande site of Pot Creek Pueblo through the spatial distribution of room blocks and kivas. Following

 

Figure 4.9 Plans of two Sopris house complexes. Redrawn from Ireland and Wood (1973) and Wood and Bair (1980)

96  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley

Figure 4.10 Kiva-​like structure at 5LA1416. Redrawn from Wood and Bair (1980)

his lead, we point to the possibility of dualism at site 5LA1416 where the kiva-​like structure (Structure 5) separates two room blocks: adobe Structure 3 to the north and slab-​ masonry Structure 1 to the south (Fig.  4.11). Regardless of the precise function of Structure 5 in the middle, the circular form, internal bench, large fire pit, and burial niches show it was different. Next to this mortuary was another circular structure (Structure 2), and it is not unreasonable to consider a ritual function for it, too (e.g., preparation for one and performance for the other). A third shallow pit-​structure with a large fire pit stood to the west (Structure 6). In addition to its oblong form, the south-​facing entrance ramp sets it apart from the easterly facing room blocks. It is noteworthy that site 5LA1211 also had ovoid to circular structures (5 and 6) separating north (Structure 3) and south (Structure 1, level 2)  room blocks. In this case the north and south room blocks faced different directions (southeast and east respectively) as if they corresponded to different lunar or solar events (cf. Fowles 2005). The probability of dualism (following Puebloan Principles II and IV) is thus high.

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 97

Figure 4.11 Plan of 5LA1416. Structure 1 was plastered masonry and Structure 3 was adobe. Redrawn from Wood and Bair (1980)

This probability helps to explain the disparity in certain artifact categories. Structure 3 to the north, for example, yielded over 500 arrow points (Wood and Bair 1980:  table ix), while Structure 2 in the middle yielded only 39, and Structure 1 to the south no more than about 60 (Ireland and Wood 1973: 19–​25). Stone debitage reflects this same disparity with some 42,980 flakes in the north versus 1,143 in the south. People in Structure 3, then, appear to have produced the majority of primary hunting equipment. These differences make sense in that the north moiety in Eastern Pueblos was associated with winter hunting.

98  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley Although small (n = 13), the distribution of burials appears to reflect a concern with cardinal directions in relation to the community as a whole (Puebloan Principle I). Within the residences at 5LA1416, for instance, burials were either placed at the north–​south ends of the room block (Structure 1) or against the north–​south walls of individual rooms (Structures 2 and 3). Outside the residences, one adult male each was buried on the east and west sides of Structure 3. More people may have been buried outside, but not inside:  the three structures were completely excavated. In the historic Santo Domingo Pueblo, men are buried in the north and women in the south sections of the town cemetery (Lange 1979:  387). Thus the concern with cardinal directions at 5LA1416 was not unique, and the correlation appears to be a real pattern. In terms of other material culture, rooms and exterior activity areas yielded copious artifacts. For ceramics, Site 5LA1416 yielded over 3,500 sherds (Wood and Bair 1980), including 2,813 Taos Gray and Sopris Plain (locally made), as well as 347 Taos Incised (some locally made) and 104 black-​ on-​ white sherds (mostly Taos black-​ on-​ white). This huge number is commensurate with the needs of full-​ time agriculturalists (following Puebloan Principles V and VI). For the domestic economy, carbonized corn cobs were recovered from numerous locations as well as slab and trough metates, while settlements were sited on low terraces overlooking arable floodplains. Rabbits and deer added to nutrition. Eagles, hawks, herons, and owls, on the other hand, along with tubular and elbow pipes, and graphite and hematite most likely denote ritual activities so characteristic of Puebloan societies (following Puebloan Principle III). These large stone, ceramic, faunal, and ritual assemblages—​ coupled with the burial pattern and north–​south distribution of rectangular room blocks—​show that the Puebloan model fits Sopris better than the other two models. The burial pattern and dualism, moreover, highlights the model’s predictive potential. The absence of true kivas makes an imperfect fit, but Structure 5 at Site 5LA1416 was most likely a kiva equivalent. These Puebloan features suggest that Sopris may have had a common origin with Northern Rio Grande pueblos. Although important, details of this origin are outside our present concern: we are more concerned with Sopris interaction with their immediate neighbors.

Interaction Apishapa and Sopris The Island (5LA2220) and Snake Blakeslee (5LA1247) sites stand on opposite sides of the Apishapa River. The Island includes several independent stone-​slab circles, suggesting these were individual family structures

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 99

Figure 4.12 Plan and photo of The Island site. Note rectangular structure. Redrawn from Gunnerson (1989)

in a winter camp (Fig. 4.12). One structure had horizontal dry-​laid coursing forming three sides: this is not typical of Apishapa. Other structures at Snake Blakeslee also had stone coursing and central stone pillars (Gunnerson 1989:  76):  these are also not typical. Moreover, Snake Blakeslee yielded black-​ on-​ white Puebloan sherds, probably dating to between AD 1275 and 1400. These dates, however, are probably too late for a direct Sopris connection (Mark Mitchell, pers. comm., 2018). A few cord-​marked vessels in Sopris settlements mark interaction in the other direction, and perhaps some Sopris and Apishapa people had intermarried.

100  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley

Figure 4.13 Distribution of Barnes (upper photo) and Apishapa sites (lower photo) in the Pinyon Canyon Maneuver Site. Map redrawn from Owens (2015: fig. 3.5)

Apishapa and High Plains Upper Republican Pinyon Canyon In the PCMS, Apishapa and High Plains Upper Republican people occupied the same landscape at the same time (Owens 2015:  Chapter  3, pp.  17–​24). Apishapa sites typically overlooked small arable plots, while sites with Barnes pottery (High Plains Upper Republican) were located in an open upland zone (Fig.  4.13):  both locations and lack of slab circles suggest summer camps. Further, the expedient technology of Apishapa stone tool manufacturing contrasts with the more formal blade technology in Barnes, Wallace, and Hobson assemblages. Furthermore, local raw materials, such as grey quartzites, argillite, and fine-​grained basalts, dominate Apishapa lithic assemblages, while exotics, such as colored quartzites, colored cherts, and Black Forest silicified wood (BFSW), characterize Barnes assemblages. It is significant that this same range of exotic raw material, including BFSW, characterized Wallace and Hobson assemblages in the Arkansas Valley. While individual stones used by Apishapa and Wallace communities might have diverse origins, this contrasting

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 101 pattern of raw material remains valid and significant. Consequently, Barnes pottery and exotic lithics in the PCMS presuppose an association with High Plains Upper Republican settlements to the north. The residential stability of the Wallace and Hobson settlements in turn shows that the perceived mobility of Barnes communities (Lindsey and Krause 2007) requires qualification:  it derives from the misidentification of High Plains Upper Republican people as mobile hunter-​gatherers. Rather, the number of Barnes sites (±24) suggests repeated visits to the same area with people placing their camps near ephemeral streams and springs that shift from year to year. Perhaps High Plains Upper Republican people went to the Pinyon Canyon area in order to amass large number of helpers for large-​scale hunting. Whatever the intention, summer hunting camps there would have required cooperation from Apishapa communities. Intermarriage may have been one mechanism for assuring cooperation. Cramer Rather than typical Apishapa architecture, Room A  at the Cramer site at the mouth of the Apishapa Canyon was a Central Plains-​type lodge placed inside an unusually large (7–​ 7.5 m) circular stone foundation (Gunnerson 1989:  25, 130). The stone walls were also unusually thick (±1 m) and high (±2 m) and enclosed a purposefully made clay floor with a central hearth (Fig. 4.14). The large size and central fireplace of Room A  show that multiple families could have been accommodated, rather than the single family in typical Apishapa structures. Further, Room A  was full of artifacts (Table  4.2):  including 9,640 lithic debitage and 1,671 pottery fragments (Gunnerson 1989:  39). These numbers are in marked contrast to the 253 artifacts (202 flakes) in total from the two stone rings at the Canterbury site (5PE387) on the opposite side of the canyon (Gunnerson 1989: 65). Rather, the concentrations in Room A and elsewhere at Cramer are like the semi-​permanent Wallace hamlet rather than temporary Apishapa encampments. While many artifacts were made from the local grey quartzite, exotic lithics, including BFSW, parallel the raw material in the Barnes, Wallace, and Hobson assemblages. Furthermore, a few vessels represent Upper Republican types (Gunnerson 1989:  37–​40). In all, the foreign pottery, exotic raw material, and concentration of artifacts inside a Central Plains-​ like lodge are explicable in terms of intense interaction between Apishapa and High Plains Upper Republican people:  we suggest intermarriage. Further evidence for interaction occurred at sites on the Fort Carson Military Reservation. Avery Ranch The Avery Ranch site (5PE56) is located about 20 km (12 miles) from the Wallace complex, and thus within a day’s walk. In May 1965, we were

102  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley

Figure 4.14 Photo and artist’s reconstruction of Room A at the Cramer site. Redrawn from Gunnerson 1989

part of the student crew (Ireland 1968) that excavated six features (F1 to F6). Later, Howard Watts (1971, 1975) excavated more for his Master’s thesis. From 1984 to 1986, teams from Centennial Archaeology Inc. (Zier et  al. 1988) excavated a pentagonal-​ shaped house (Structure 2)  and a C-​shaped enclosure (Structure 1) that conforms to Apishapa stone architecture (Fig. 4.15). The stone foundations of our F1 and F2 likewise probably belong to the Apishapa occupation.

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 103 Table 4.2 Interaction sites Points

Apishapa and Sopris Snake 97 Blakeslee (±120 m2)

Stone Utilized Debitage Manos, Pottery Total tools flakes, metates cores 70

9

501

Apishapa and High Plains Upper Republican Cramer, A  73 66 19 9,640 (±56 m2) Cramer total 277 175 358 24,090 (±364 m2) Avery, Lodge 1 28 58 (±20 m2) Avery C-​ 8 31 10 shaped structure (±18 m2) Avery Structure 8 18 18 2 (8 m2) Avery total 44 107 28 (±46 m2)

43

816

1,105+501 flakes

10

1,637

16

5,619

19

118

8

47

103

4

46

94

31

211

1,842+9,640 flakes 6,537+24,090 flakes 245+flakes

441+flakes

Our features F3 to F6, on the other hand, appear to be remnants of a single pole-​and-​daub lodge. This is a departure from the original interpretation of a natural depression and separate storage/​processing racks. The evidence for this revision includes a line of posts (F5) marking an extended entrance, a workshop inside the entrance (F3), a line of rocks and posts (F4) forming the southern wall, a central kitchen (part of F6), and a trench for the north wall (part of F6). Rather than separate racks, F4 and F5 were more probably components of a single lodge about the same size as the Hobson farmstead. Moreover, the presence of fragments of the same Southwestern corrugated pot in F3 and F4 emphasizes the unity of these features. Like the structures at the Wallace and Hobson settlements, this is not the shape of an Apishapa house. The wide range of artifacts from Lodge 1 matches that at the Wallace hamlet. The 1965 inventory included several grindstones and bone tools, as well as many arrow points, stone drills, scrapers, and knives (Table 4.1). Most came from the workshop area (F3). The inventory also included many cord-​marked pottery sherds made by mass modeling (Krause 2011:  319), while an Upper Republican collared pot came from F3 (Fig. 4.16). The workshop inside this lodge also yielded considerable bison bone: a total MNI of 27 came from the University of Denver excavations, and the

Figure 4.15 Plan of the Avery Ranch site. Redrawn from Zier et al. (1988: fig. 10)

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 105

Figure 4.16 Collared pot from Lodge 1 at the Avery Ranch site

later CRM excavations added six more. This overall collection ranged in age from old to fetal, suggesting winter hunting. More analyses are possible, but these MNI’s are sufficient to highlight an important contrast with Apishapa faunal assemblages. Like Cramer, the Avery Ranch site appears to be another multicultural settlement. For one, the stone supports in the F4 wall of Lodge 1 were similar to the construction of Structure 2. Likewise, Structure 2 was not a typical Apishapa house: it included interior fireplaces, many artifacts, and a pentagonal shape. This shape is not on record for any other Apishapa house, while the interior hearths and high number of artifacts and bone are also not typical:  these features suggest mutual influence. As in the Pinyon Canyon area, the two groups may have met here for communal hunting, in this case in winter. A second settlement 1 km upstream is relevant to this interaction. Ocean Vista Ocean Vista straddles a low knoll on the same side of Turkey Creek as Avery Ranch. Good arable lands on both sides were probably cultivated because excavations yielded several carbonized maize kernels and maize metates (Kalasz et al. 1993). In addition, excavations revealed what appears to have been the corner of a rectangular pole-​and-​daub lodge (Fig.  4.17) with a stone and post foundation similar to the southern wall (F4) of the Avery Ranch lodge. Other test pits may have uncovered a second residence. Considering the limited excavations, both areas yielded a considerable quantity of stone tools, bison bone, and ceramics, especially in relation to other test pits (Table 4.2). The ceramic assemblage included modeled cord-​ marked pottery, a Southwest corrugated vessel, and two Upper Republican collared rims (Krause 2011: 319). Ocean Vista thus appears to have been a

Figure 4.17 Ocean Vista. Note daub, posts, and upright stones. Redrawn from Kalasz et al. (1993: figs 33 and 36)

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 107 High Plains Upper Republican hamlet, like Wallace, or a mixed settlement like Avery Ranch. All three settlements may have been contemporaneous, and Southwestern vessels suggest they had at some time been in contact with Sopris communities to the south. Calumet connections Trade and marriage alliances could have been facilitated through the Pawnee Hako (Fletcher and Murie 1996; Hall 1997), the famous Calumet or peace pipe ceremony. In the nineteenth century, Pawnee made extensive trade expeditions. These trips could take a year to organize, and the resulting party always included a chief, priest, and doctor. Typically, Pawnee designated the visitors as ‘fathers’ to the host ‘children’ to incorporate them into the Pawnee kinship system (Weltfish 1965: 211). The ceremony created bonds of friendship between otherwise unrelated people, including non-​ Pawnee, and at the same time, facilitated trade. Moreover, as part of the lengthy festivities, many items were exchanged as gifts, including pottery. When the ‘children’ became ‘fathers’ to another group later, the regalia and other objects could be passed on as well. Such exchanges would explain foreign trade vessels in Apishapa and High Plains Upper Republican communities without the need for hunter-​gatherer type residential mobility. At its core, the Calumet ceremony symbolized conception and rebirth. For this reason, a child was an integral part of the ceremony: the child’s feet were placed in four circles (NE, SW, NW, SE) filled with downy feathers, thereby giving life (laying eggs) and security (the feather nest) to the adoptee. There was always a pair of pipes (male/​female, night/​day, and sky/​earth) with various objects attached to the stems. The paired stems were either hollow, symbolizing the creative breath of Tirawahat (God), or solid, representing an arrow shaft that also had procreative referents (Hall 1997: 153). Shells also played an important role, symbolizing the interrelated concepts of purity, the waters of the earth before humans were created, long life, and fertility (Fletcher and Murie 1996). At one time, the Calumet ceremony was thought to be a nativistic movement in response to European contact (Turnbaugh 1979). But as Blakeslee (1978, 1981) showed, evidence exists for a greater time depth (see also Springer 1981). Indeed, Blakeslee traces the ceremony back to the Nebraska phase, contemporaneous with the Wallace hamlet. One line of evidence is the change in smoking-​pipe morphology. During the Nebraska phase, elbow pipes appear with a sufficiently wide aperture to hold an auxiliary stem, and they are usually made of red stone. Of the nine smoking pipes from the Wallace site, two (one elbow type and one tube) were made from a pink stone, and one complete example of an elbow pipe has a 5 mm aperture. This is probably too small for a calumet stem, but the two types are nevertheless present. With regard to shells, it is noteworthy that two shell objects from House 3 were fashioned to look

108  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley like serrated arrow points. Neither the shells or pipe remains are conclusive evidence for the Calumet, but they nevertheless point to a symbolic nexus concerning cosmic origins, arrows, and fertility that is a prerequisite for the ceremony.

Discussion As these case studies show, it is possible to recognize different cultural traditions when the time period is relatively recent, when ethnographically derived models are applied to archaeological data, and when the scales of analysis are appropriate to both the archaeology and cultural associations. At the scale of worldview, the three cultural traditions were distinct. An aggregation–​ dispersal cycle typical of hunter-​ gatherers makes sense of Apishapa camp sites that housed relatively small temporary shelters suitable for single extended families, while rock engravings expressed the Great Basin concept of supernatural power harnessed by shamans. For Wallace, a Northern Caddoan model makes sense of the internal organization, production debris, and orientations of the substantial rectangular lodges, while concerns of priests and doctors explain the ritual middens and associated rock art. For Sopris, rectangular room blocks and kiva-​like pit structures expressed a dualism inherent in the moieties and ritual associations typical of Eastern Pueblos. Furthermore, burial locations reflect a focus on cardinal directions, while the copious artifact assemblages were appropriate to an economy first based on maize agriculture. These distinct traditions could be described and recognized archaeologically because we focused on the social organization of household space in terms of the three models. For Wallace, the rectangular lodges show an affiliation with people in the east, and a farming component shows that the settlement belongs within the Central Plains tradition (following Roper 2009). If the Wallace and Hobson community moved up the Arkansas River from, say Kansas, they would have formed a wedge of Northern Caddoan people in an otherwise Apishapa area. Alternatively, if the Hobson and Wallace settlements represent a development from the Woodland in central Colorado, and if Apishapa developed to the south from a Great Basin Archaic, the upper Arkansas Valley would have been a frontier zone. The Wallace and Hobson lodges call into question the perceived mobility of High Plains Upper Republican communities (see Scheiber and Reher 2007 for a discussion). Among other points, the lodges show that the contrast between sedentary horticulturalists in the core area of Nebraska and Kansas versus mobile hunter-​foragers on the western periphery no longer strictly applies. Likewise, hunting forays by core communities is equally inappropriate as an overall explanation, although it may explain some special purposes sites (e.g., Wood 1971, 1990; Roper 1990, 2009). Residential mobility can be challenged on other grounds. Theoretically, mobility is one feature associated with hunter-​foragers in Service’s (1963)

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 109 well-​ known evolutionary scheme. Here technology and economic productivity are correlated with integrative mechanisms (kinship, sodalities, chiefs, etc.) to produce five levels of socio-​cultural integration (bands, tribes, chiefdoms, etc.). For Service, integrative mechanisms are paramount. Many archaeologists, on the other hand, try to deduce cultural levels from subsistence data. Not only is the link not direct (and therefore not possible to deduce), the incomplete recovery of poorly preserved faunal and floral remains from limited excavations make subsistence reconstructions problematic (Drass 2008). A long list of diverse resources, for instance, does not in itself demonstrate a hunter-​forager economy. Economy is more than nutrition: it involves the social organization of procurement (e.g., casual versus structured, household versus community), of distribution (e.g., adults versus children, men versus women), and of consumption (e.g., domestic versus ritual). In all, the archaeological use of the Service scheme underestimates social complexity. In this respect, High Plains Upper Republican society has been misrepresented. Rather than mobile foraging, there was a regular pattern of interaction. High Plains Upper Republican people went south for summer hunting, while Apishapa people went north for winter hunting. Bison products may well have been traded to Sopris communities, and all may have exchanged marriage partners. A  Calumet network in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is a reasonable proposal for the social mechanism of this interaction: it could explain the distribution of trade vessels; it could have laid the foundation for economic cooperation between Apishapa and Wallace communities; and it could have led to the multicultural residences at Cramer and Avery Ranch which helped to maintain economic alliances. Furthermore, a Calumet network may well have contributed to the multicultural landscape that produced the archaeological record.

Acknowledgments We thank Brooke Rhode, Mary and Roberta Wallace, Pamela Miller, Jennifer Kolise, Mark Owens, and Mark Mitchell for their help. Britt Bousman, David Lewis-​Williams, Richard Clemmer-​Smith and Mark Mitchell commented on the manuscript. Wendy Voorvelt prepared the illustrations. Support for this research has come from the South African National Research Foundation and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Our interpretations do not necessarily reflect the opinions of these sponsors or commentators in any way.

Notes 1 School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, PO Wits 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa. Email [email protected].

110  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley 2 Emeritus Faculty at Arapahoe Community College, 5900 South Santa Fe Drive, Littleton, Colorado, USA and Honorary Research Associate, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, PO Wits 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa. Email FrankLEarley@AOL. com.

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112  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley Krause, R.A. 2011. An inventory and analysis of ceramics from sites on the Fort Carson Military Base. Plains Anthropologist 56 (220): 305–​22. Lange, C. 1979. Santo Domingo Pueblo. In A. Ortiz (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 9:  Southwest. Washington, DC:  Smithsonian Institution, pp. 379–​89. Laudan, L. 1996. Beyond positivism and relativism: theory, method and evidence. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Lindsey, R.M. and Krause, R.A. 2007. Assessing plains village mobility patterns on the Central High Plains. In S.A. Ahler and M. Kay (eds), Plains village archaeology:  bison-​ hunting farmers in the central and northern plains. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, pp. 96–​104. Loendorf, L.L. 2008. Thunder and herds: rock art of the High Plains. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Macy, J.N. 2009. A study of variability of a Medicine Creek Upper Republican lithic assemblage. Plains Anthropologist 54 (212): 310–​23. Miller, J. 1983. Basin religion and theology: a comparative study of power (Puha). Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 5 (1 and 2): 66–​86. Mitchell, M.D. 1997. Interregional perspectives on the Sopris Phase: an examination of prehistoric frontiers in southeastern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico. MA thesis, University of Colorado, Denver. Mitchell, M.D. 2006. Research traditions, public policy, and the underdevelopment of theory in Plains archaeology: tracing the legacy of the Missouri Basin project. American Antiquity 71: 381–​96. Murie, J.R. 1914. Pawnee Indian societies. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 11 (7): 543–​644. Murie, J.R. (author) and Parks, D.R. (editor). 1989 (1981). Ceremonies of the Pawnee. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. (First published in Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology No. 27, Washington,  DC.) Nowak, M. and Kingsbury, L.A. 1981. Archaeological investigations in southeastern Colorado. Colorado College Publications in Anthropology No. 4. Colorado Springs: Colorado College Department of Anthropology. Oetelaar, G.A. 2014. Better homes and pastures: human agency and the construction of place in communal bison hunting on the Northern Plains. Plains Anthropologist 59 (229): 9–​37. Ortiz, A. 1969. The Tewa world: space, time, being & becoming in a Pueblo society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ortiz, A. 1972. Ritual drama and the Pueblo world view. In A. Ortiz (ed.), New perspectives on the Pueblos. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pp. 135–​61. Owens, M. 2015. Cultural resources survey/​inventory for Fort Carson and Pinon Canyon maneuver site in Training Areas 12, 13, and others. Report prepared for the U.S. Army, Directorate of Public Works, Fort Carson and United States Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City (Contract No. W912-​DQ-​13-​C-​3001). Elverson, Pennsylvania:  Stell Environmental. On file, Fort Carson Cultural Resources Management Program. Parks, D.R. 1979. The Northern Caddoan languages:  their subgrouping and time depth. Nebraska History 60: 197–​213. Parks, D.R. 2001. Caddoan languages. In R.J. DeMallie (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 13: Plains. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, pp.  80–​93.

 

Cultural traditions on the High Plains 113 Parsons, E.C. 1969 (1939). Pueblo Indian religion. 2  vols. Bison Books edition. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Rapoport, A. 1969. House form and culture. Foundations of Cultural Geography Series. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Roper, D.C. 1990. Artifact assemblage composition and the hunting camp interpretation of High Plains Upper Republican sites. Southwestern Lore 56 (4): 1–​19. Roper, D.C. 2007. The effect of the Direct Historical Approach on the development of theory in Plains archaeology:  a comment on Mitchell’s analysis of the MBP legacy. American Antiquity 72 (4): 785–​8. Roper, D.C. 2009. 100°W longitude: exploring cultural dynamics at the western edge of the Central Plains tradition. Central Plains Archaeology 11 (1): 21–​40. Schaafsma, P. 1980. Indian rock art of the Southwest. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Schaafsma, P. 1986. Rock art. In W.L. d’Azevedo (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 11: Great Basin. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 215–​26. Scheiber, L.L. and Reher, C.A. 2007. The Donovan Site (5LO204):  an Upper Republican animal processing site on the High Plains. Plains Anthropologist 52 (203): 337–​64. Service, E.R. 1963. Profiles in ethnology. New York: Harper & Row. Shennan, S. (ed.). 1989. Archaeological approaches to cultural identity. One World Archaeology 10. London: Unwin Hyman. Shimkin, D.B. 1986. Eastern Shoshone. In W.L. d’Azevedo (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 11: Great Basin. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 308–​35. Simms, S.R. 1989. The structure of the Bustos wickiup site, eastern Nevada. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 11 (1): 2–​34. Smith, A.M. 1974. Ethnography of the Northern Utes. Papers in Anthropology No. 17. Albuquerque: Museum of New Mexico Press. Springer, J.W. 1981. An ethnohistoric study of the smoking complex in Eastern North America. Ethnohistory 28 (3): 217–​35. Stoffle, R.W. and Zedeño, M.N. 2002. The concept of power in Numic and Yuman epistemology. High Plains Applied Anthropologist 22 (2): 172–​93. Turnbaugh, W.A. 1979. Calumet ceremonialism as a Nativistic response. American Antiquity 44: 685–​91. Trigger, B.G. 2006. A history of archaeological thought. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Watts, H.K. 1971. The archaeology of the Avery Ranch site on Turkey Creek, southeastern Colorado. MA thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Denver. Watts, H.K. 1975. The Avery Ranch site. Southwestern Lore 41 (1): 15–​27. Weltfish, G. 1965. The lost universe. New York: Ballantine Books. Whitley, D.S. 2000. The art of the shaman:  rock art of California. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Withers, A.M. 1954. University of Denver archaeological fieldwork 1952–​1953. Southwestern Lore 19 (4): 1–​3. Withers, A.M. 1964. Archaeological survey of northwestern Pueblo County, Colorado. Report to National Park Service. On file, University of Denver Anthropology Museum. Wood, W.R. 1971. Pottery sites near Limon, Colorado. Southwestern Lore 37 (3): 53–​85.

114  Thomas N. Huffman and Frank Lee Earley Wood, W.R. 1990. A query on Upper Republican archaeology in Colorado. Southwestern Lore 56 (3): 3–​7. Wood, C.E. and Bair, G.A. 1980. Trinidad Lake cultural reservoir study Part II. The prehistoric occupation of the Upper Purgatoire River Valley, southeastern Colorado. Report prepared for the National Park Service (Contract No. C3565 (75)). On file, US Army Corps of Engineers, Albuquerque District Environmental Resources Section. Zier, C.J. and Kalasz, S.M. 1999. Colorado prehistory: a context for the Arkansas River Basin. Denver: Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists. Zier, C.J., Kalasz, S.M., Peebles, A.H., Van Ness, M.A. and Anderson, E. 1988. Archaeological excavation of the Avery Ranch Site (5PE56) on the Fort Carson Military Reservation, Pueblo County, Colorado. Fort Collins, CO:  Centennial Archaeology.

 

5 Paquimé’s appeal The creation of an elite pilgrimage site in the North American Southwest Todd L. VanPool1 and Christine S. VanPool2

The emergence of Paquimé as a religious center Paquimé was the center of the Medio period Casas Grandes culture, which encompassed northern Chihuahua, southwest New Mexico, and a bit of northeast Sonora (Fig.  5.1). The Medio period was characterized by an expansive, politically complex cultural system reflected in distinctive polychrome pottery and architectural features such as ballcourts and raised platform hearths (Di Peso 1974; Whalen and Minnis 2009). As the economic and ritual heart of the Medio period system, Paquimé included a large apartment-​like room-​block filled with habitation and ritual rooms, platform mounds where public ceremonies were completed, a reservoir system that brought running water through the community, two I-​shaped ballcourts and a T-​shaped ballcourt, and large ovens for making sweet roasted agave and, likely, alcohol (Di Peso 1974). The architecture is atypical for most Southwestern groups in terms of its size and embellishment (Fig. 5.2). It is massively ‘overbuilt’ with adobe walls often over 50 cm thick and is ornately constructed (Di Peso 1974; Whalen and Minnis 2001; Bagwell 2006). When the Spanish first visited the site in the 1500s, they likened its beauty to a Roman city, filled with colorful paved alleyways and beautifully painted mosaics on walls rising three or more stories tall (Gamboa 2002:  41). Unfortunately, the settlement has been impacted by weather, an earthquake that toppled many walls and more than 100 years of looting, but the site remains one of the most impressive in the North American Southwest as reflected by its 1998 designation as a World Heritage site. Paquimé was the largest settlement in the Casas Grandes region, and was unique with regards to the quality and quantity of non-​local ritual architecture and trade goods. Although only half of the site was excavated, it produced over a ton of ocean shell, the largest, most diverse assemblage of copper items in the North American Southwest, and the largest and best-​formed Mesoamerican-​style ballcourts north of West Mexico (Di Peso 1974; Vargas 2001; Harmon 2006). West Mexican architectural features, trade goods, and even burial patterns including the use of trophy skulls and shaft tomb burials indicate that the Medio period people of Paquimé were influenced by the Aztatlán tradition of West Mexico (Foster 1999;

Figure 5.1 The Casas Grandes Region

Figure 5.2 Site overview of Paquimé

 

Paquimé’s appeal 117 Kelley 2000; Riley 2005; T. VanPool et al. 2008; Mathiowetz 2011; Waller 2017). As such, Southwestern archaeologists generally agree that Paquimé was the focus of a regional hierarchy in which its elites integrated communities across the landscape using West Mexican religious concepts (Searcy 2010; C. VanPool and T. VanPool 2015). Furthermore, the settlement’s mortuary record indicates political differentiation unparalleled elsewhere in the region, demonstrating that elites were successful in their quest for authority (Ravesloot 1988; Rakita 2009; Waller 2017). Here, we follow previous research (e.g., Di Peso 1974; Whalen and Minnis 2009; Whalen 2013; T. VanPool and C. VanPool 2016) to propose that one of the means by which elites gained power was by establishing Paquimé itself as a special, unique spot on the landscape. Once established, the unique historical and cultural importance of the settlement could not be duplicated by others living elsewhere, even if they built similar architecture; the Paquimé elites’ claim to religious (and hence social) authority could not be counterfeited by competitors. We further suggest that authors such as Fish and Fish (1999), Pitezel (2011), and Douglas and MacWilliams (2015: 146; see also T. VanPool et al. 2005), who have proposed that Paquimé was the focus of regional pilgrimages are correct, and that such pilgrimages were central to the elites establishing their authority. Our interpretative approach is derived in large part from our experience working as archaeologists in the American Southwest. This has benefited us in two ways. First, the Southwest is a theoretical hotbed in United States archaeology. The extensive research in the area, paired with the excellent preservation, provides a wealth of information that allows new analytic and theoretical approaches to be developed and evaluated. The cleverness and creativity of our colleagues such as Bob Leonard has given us both the inspiration and the freedom to pursue a variety of intellectual and analytic approaches, including the research presented here. While not a Southwestern archaeologist, Garth Bawden has also been particularly influential to our thinking. Much of our research has focused on pairing the evolutionary approaches reflected by Leonard (2001) and the interpretative approaches advocated by Bawden (1996) into a coherent framework. Cognitive approaches are of course ideal for this effort, and we are certain that many others will benefit from works such as Whitley (2001) and Lewis-​Williams and Dowson (1988) that we have found so useful. Second, archaeology in the United States has had a long history as part of anthropology, which includes the ethnographic study of Native groups throughout North America. The Southwest is one of the places where this collaboration between anthropological archaeology and Native peoples has been most productive in helping archaeologists understand the past (e.g., Adler and Bruning 2008). This tradition of merging ethnographic and archaeological information to create a holistic, detailed understanding of human behavior and specific cultures was stressed to us by Native scholars such as William Hawk, an Algonquian anthropologist who taught us a great deal while we

118  Todd L. VanPool and Christine S. VanPool were undergraduate students at Eastern New Mexico University. Likewise, the University of New Mexico, where we completed our graduate degrees, has a fine tradition of collaboration with Native American anthropologists and other Native scholars.

Pilgrimages Many definitions of pilgrimages have been proposed, ranging from definitions that do not differentiate between pilgrimages, tourism, and other forms of planned journeys (e.g., Collins-​Kreiner 2010) to more limited definitions that identify pilgrimages as a special, distinctive form of travel (e.g., Turner and Turner 1978; Palmer et al. 2012). Instead of providing a complete consideration of the various benefits and problems of each potential definition, we simply wish to use the term pilgrimage to refer to religious pilgrimages (e.g., Muslim pilgrimages to Mecca), as opposed to ‘pilgrimages’ focused on secular contexts (e.g., United States Servicemen’s Honor Flight pilgrimages to the War Memorials placed on the National Mall in Washington D.C.), personal contexts (e.g., to a loved one’s grave site), or of ‘self-​transformation’ (e.g., a vision quest). Our usage is consistent with the Oxford Dictionary of Travel and Tourism’s (Beaver 2012) definition of pilgrimage: A journey to a holy place for religious reasons. Following Palmer et  al. (2012), this implies four characteristics: (1) the pilgrimage is religious in the sense that it communicates acceptance of supernatural claims; (2) the pilgrimage requires movement; (3) the pilgrimage is considered distinct from other movement that a traveler might undertake in different circumstances (even if traveling to the same place); and (4) the pilgrimage includes some form of sacrifice, either as part of the journey or upon the visitation. Furthermore, holy places that are the destinations of pilgrims incorporate religious symbolism (e.g., sacred architecture, painting of deities) that evokes emotional and physiological responses (Mach 1993). As part of their activities, pilgrims often procure objects, both sacred and utilitarian, for later use. For example, the Zuni Katcina priests of the Southwest undertook pilgrimages to Sacred Lake (about 130 km to the west of the main pueblo) once every four years (Bunzel 1932a:  519–​20, 538) to visit the home of the Katcinas (supernatural entities that control rain and are associated with masks worn by deity impersonators). There they collected yellow pigment from the lake shore that was later ground and mixed with dried petals of yellow flowers, abalone shell, and other materials (Bunzel 1932b:  860–​1). This mixture, called katcina clay, was then used to paint prayersticks and the bodies and masks of the deity impersonators (Bunzel 1932b: 860–​1; Tedlock 1983: 94, 103). Access to the clay was controlled by the kiva chiefs (religiously powerful individuals who oversee the all-​male kiva societies responsible for religious activities) (Bunzel 1932b: 860). Even when pilgrims gather utilitarian resources, the material gathered from the pilgrimage site often has special significance. The Tohono O’odham

 

Paquimé’s appeal 119 of the North American Southwest, for example, had annual pilgrimages in which male volunteers went to the Gulf of California (a two-​to four-​day one-​way trip) to collect salt, which had obvious utilitarian importance in the arid Sonoran desert where they lived (Underhill 1946: 211–​42). The pilgrims intentionally made the trip more difficult than necessary by carrying limited water and imposing other hardships on themselves (e.g., only one horse could be taken by each pilgrim and the pilgrim led it on foot by its reins on the return trip; first time neophyte pilgrims had to run whenever they were in motion, as opposed to walking). When collecting the salt, the pilgrims gave offerings of corn meal and prayersticks to the ocean (which provided the salt) and referred to the salt using the same term they used for corn, a term that has special religious/​symbolic significance in O’odham cosmology. At its core, pilgrimages are trips, but these trips are fundamentally about social relationships. The trips require movement that transcends, and can therefore transform, the typical social relationships found in everyday life (Skousen 2016). Ultimately, pilgrimages can create/​transform relationships among people of different communities, commoners and elites, people with the landscape, people with ancestors, and people and deities (Skousen 2016: 21–​46). The Salt Pilgrimages of the Tohono O’odham, for example, were one of the primary ways men could gain social prestige, thereby transforming their social status. Completing a Salt Pilgrimage allowed men to earn the title ‘ripe man’, which was otherwise reserved for warriors who killed an enemy in battle or killed eagles for ceremonial purposes (Underhill 1946: 212). Although the idea is not universally applicable, Turner and Turner’s (1978: 185) view of communitas is another way in which relationships can be transformed; during communitas, pilgrimages in societies characterized by factional strife, segmentation, and conflict transform these conflicts in favor of “universalism and openness” as pilgrims form a single, undifferentiated group. Another example is the Navajo and Tewa speakers of the North American Southwest who were traditionally bitter enemies in a constant state of low-​level warfare, but undertook pilgrimages to the same sacred mountain to perform rain ceremonies. While the pilgrims from each group kept themselves separated from one another, they did not attack the other group during chance encounters on the mountain (Parsons 1929: 29; Ortiz 1979: 278). In this case, the sacred pilgrimage location transformed enemies, who were otherwise expected to kill one another on sight, into noncombatants. Pilgrimages are a common cross-​cultural feature of religion and ritual (Palmer et  al. 2012), including the West Mexican and Southwestern groups around the Casas Grandes region. The Huichol of West Mexico, for example, made pilgrimages of over 600 km to gather peyote for ritual purposes (Schultes and Hoffman 1992: 148–​50; see Wells and Nelson 2007 for a general discussion of West Mexican pilgrimages). In addition to the aforementioned examples, other Southwestern pilgrimages include the Hopi pilgrimage to Kiisiwu (a spring to the east of Hotvela, near Pinyon) and other springs in the region (Titiev 1971: 122; Geertz and Lomatumay’ma 1987:  78), and the yearly pilgrimage conducted by the Akimel O’odham

120  Todd L. VanPool and Christine S. VanPool and Tohono O’odham on October 4 to the Magdalena church in Sonora, Mexico. The latter pilgrimage is to honor San Francisco Xavier (the patron saint of the Franciscan Catholic order). It started in 1711 after Padre Kino, a Jesuit priest who served the O’odham people, took ill while at the altar during the church’s dedication ceremony, died, and was buried nearby. The week-​long pilgrimage was one of the most significant religious events of the year for the Akimel and Tohono O’odham, and was a time of feasting and economic transactions. At least once during the week, each pilgrim family entered the church to touch the image of the Saint and make a donation in his honor. While there, the family members collected consecrated ribbons that were worn around the neck until they fell apart. Ribbons were further given to those who were unable to undertake the pilgrimage to help ensure they have prosperity and good health for the coming year. Feasts were held for the returning pilgrims who describe their journeys to those who could not go, thereby allowing these individuals to participate vicariously in the event (Joseph et al. 1949: 85–​8).

Paquimé as a pilgrimage location Pilgrimages were held in the prehistoric past as well. Kelly and Brown (2012), for example, discuss pilgrimages from Cahokia (an important prehistoric regional center near modern-​day St. Louis) to the St. Francois Mountains in the Ozarks of Missouri. Closer to our study area, Wells and Nelson (2007) discuss the ubiquity and economic importance of prehistoric pilgrimages in West Mexico, and Renfrew (2001) argues that Chaco Canyon, another large ceremonial center in the North American Southwest that predates Paquimé’s rise, was the focus of pilgrimages during the tenth and eleventh centuries AD (see also Malville and Malville 2001). Yuman-​speakers along the Colorado River likewise conducted shaman-​led pilgrimages focused on visiting prehistoric rock art sites “during which supplicants were purified and re-​experienced the mythic creation of the world” (Whitley 2011: 316). The age of the rock art suggests this ritual activity extended into the prehistoric period, likely as do the salt pilgrimages and other pilgrimages mentioned above (with the obvious exception of the pilgrimage to the Magdalena church in Sonora). The Casas Grandes region was surrounded by cultures with documented pilgrimage events, and it should be expected that such behavior was present there as well. As with Chaco Canyon, we suggest that one aspect of this pilgrimage system was focused on people living in outlying communities traveling to Paquimé to perform required ceremonies and engage in economic exchange. Supporting evidence includes architectural features at the site and evidence from other sites in the region. Features internal to Paquimé include enormous agave roasting ovens that are far larger than the typical roasting ovens found throughout the Southwest (Fig.  5.3). Minnis and Whalen (2005) argue they were built and used by specialists for feasts that drew people from outside the site (see also Minnis 1988). Another line

 

Paquimé’s appeal 121

Figure 5.3 Significant features at Paquimé. The aerial view is courtesy of Thomas Baker. The depictions of the Mound of the Cross, the Mound of the Offerings, the Mound of the Serpent, and the I-​shaped ball courts are adapted from Di Peso et  al. (1974) and used courtesy of the Amerind Foundation

of evidence is large, distinctive public ceremonial mounds that are indicative of large gatherings of people from outside the community, such as the cross-​shaped Mound of the Cross with four smaller mounds adjacent to each arm that aligns with the cardinal directions (Fig.  5.3) (Di Peso et  al. 1974, 4: 287–​9). Di Peso (1974: 407, 409) suggested it was used for ceremonies associated with astronomic events. Another mound, the Mound of the Offerings, contained postcranial human remains in large polychrome, ceramic jars called ollas that Rakita (2009) and Waller (2017) have suggested were revered people, possibly ancestors, whose bones were manipulated during ceremonies. The bones were kept within a small, private structure in the Mound, but the Mound itself was very public:  priests entering and exiting the ceremonial rooms containing the ollas would have been visible to onlookers (Fig. 5.3) (Di Peso 1974: 419–​21; Di Peso et al. 1974, 4: 305–​15). Furthermore, two elaborate I-​shaped ballcourts were placed in public spaces (Fig. 5.3) (Di Peso 1974: 411–​13; Di Peso et al. 1974, 4: 293–​304). These ballcourts are similar to other courts found throughout the region (Whalen

122  Todd L. VanPool and Christine S. VanPool and Minnis 1996), but are much more elaborate, including central ballcourt markers, burials of likely sacrificial victims, and adjoining formal mounds. Harmon (2006, 2008) and others (e.g., Di Peso 1974: 411–​13; Whalen and Minnis 1996; Skibo and Walker 2002) argue these courts are part of the Mesoamerican ball game imported from West Mexico that reflects intercommunity interaction. The elaborate and public nature of the ballcourts suggests they were designed for public displays to large numbers of people, most likely including people from the various communities represented by the players (Harmon 2008). This is in contrast to a private ballcourt deep inside Paquimé where access could be easily monitored and only few people could have watched the game. Buried under this court were additional human sacrifices (Di Peso 1974: 414–​17; Harmon 2006). Additional evidence suggesting pilgrimages includes stone thermal structures called atalayas, which are built on hilltops throughout the region and were probably signal towers (Di Peso 1974:  362–​5; Swanson 2003). These hills have greater intervisibility with each other and the surrounding settlements across the landscape than is typical of randomly selected hilltops (Swanson 2003). The most elaborate of the atalayas is Cerro de Moctezuma, which is associated with a ceremonial complex on a 400 m tall hill directly overlooking Paquimé (Pitezel 2007). It also has the greatest intervisibility with other atalayas (12 line-​of-​sight convergences with other atalayas) and is linked to Paquimé through a well-​developed trail (Di Peso 1974: 360–​1; Swanson 2003:  764; Pitezel 2007). Di Peso (1974:  362–​5) suggested that the atalayas were used for signal fires to warn of approaching enemies, but recent interpretations suggest that they were primarily used for ceremonial signal fires (Swanson 2003; Pitezel 2007). As such, the atalayas system may have been used to signal the start of public rituals that drew people from the outlying settlements to Paquimé. Pottery indicates people throughout the region gathered items while they were at Paquimé during their pilgrimages. Ramos polychrome was likely made by specialists at or near Paquimé (Woosley and Olinger 1993; Rakita and Cruz 2015: 62–​5; Topi et al. 2018), but was found in substantial quantities throughout the region (Carpenter 2002). It is specifically associated with the rise of Paquimé (Whalen and Minnis 2012). The polychrome is decorated with symbolically significant designs that include the horned serpent, a strong emphasis on duality, and highly structured and repetitive design elements (C. VanPool and T. VanPool 2002; Hendrickson 2003; Whalen and Minnis 2012; Guzmán 2015). Ramos Polychrome is one of the most widely distributed ceramic types in the Southwest, and its relative proportion in a settlement’s ceramic assemblage is often viewed as a measure of religious integration with the Paquimé elites (Carpenter 2002). As illustrated in our previous examples of Southwestern pilgrimages (and indeed pilgrimages throughout the world), pilgrims typically take some sort of item, including items with utilitarian value, from pilgrimage locations. Here we suggest that Ramos Polychromes served a similar role as objects

 

Paquimé’s appeal 123 with both symbolic and utilitarian value that were taken by pilgrims back to their home communities. Finally, Paquimé possessed the largest concentration of ocean shell, copper items, serpentine stone, and stone beads including turquoise from throughout the region, and indeed the entire Southwest (Bradley 1996; Lekson 2000:  284–​5; Vargas 2001; T.  VanPool et  al. 2008; Rakita and Cruz 2015). These items are found only rarely in Casas Grandes sites outside of Paquimé (Whalen and Minnis 2009), but are often found in ritual contexts and even stockpiled in contexts that seem to reflect simple storage at Paquimé (Krug 2018). Given their paucity at other sites, the Paquimé elites were either unwilling or unable to distribute them back out across the landscape (T. VanPool et  al. 2005). For example, over a ton of ocean shell was found at Paquimé, with most of it coming from two adjacent store rooms that contained an estimated 3.7  million individual shells (Di Peso et al. 1974, 6: 405; Whalen 2013). We suggest elsewhere (T. VanPool et al. 2005) that many of these items were brought to Paquimé by pilgrims as offerings, and could not be subsequently redistributed to other settlements, because of their status as ritual gifts. Such offerings included exotic items such as West Mexican copper (40  kg) and ocean shell, which necessarily were carried to Paquimé over a distance of at least 1,000 km. Furthermore, 52 Salado bowls (which are characteristic of a neighboring culture from south/​central Arizona and western New Mexico) were simply placed in the same storage area (Room 18-​8) that containing the aforementioned shell, instead of being used by Paquimé’s inhabitants or being given to other communities (Lekson 2000:  283–​5; note that other Salado bowls were found in various contexts throughout Paquimé, indicating that there was no prohibition against their use). Bringing offerings to pilgrimage locations is consistent with the various Southwestern ethnographic examples of pilgrimage presented above (e.g., Zuni offering prayersticks as part of their pilgrimage to the Sacred Lake [Stevenson 1904: 154]). Ultimately, we acknowledge that artifacts and features such as ocean shell, platform mounds and ballcourts likely had additional uses beyond pilgrimages, but we suggest that they are indicative of pilgrimages just the same. Creating a cognitive understanding of Medio period prehistory is necessarily an interpretative process (see introduction of this volume). While  one  might be able to establish that people from elsewhere repeatedly came to a specific location, identifying this movement as a pilgrimage instead of trade, tourism, and so forth inherently requires the cognitive extrapolation of the motives underlying past behavior. Such interpretations can be evaluated using ‘inference to the best explanation’, a framework in which interpretations are evaluated relative to their fit to the empirical data (Kelley and Hanen 1988: 276–​86, 360–​8; Fogelin 2007). Strong explanations account for the available data, are based on reasonable premises, have good fit with existing accepted hypotheses, and are internally consistent. In our case, we suggest that the presence of a pilgrimage system

124  Todd L. VanPool and Christine S. VanPool focused on Paquimé accounts for: (1) the feasting behavior evident there (the agave roasting pits), (2) the ceremonial and elaborate nature of Paquimé’s architecture, (3) the distribution of Ramos Polychrome, and (4) the atalayas system. Furthermore, it fits many ethnographic and archaeological examples of pilgrimage both in the Southwest and across the world. Pilgrimage to Paquimé therefore fits Fogelin’s (2007:  618) criteria of “highly successful explanations”, and provides us with an avenue to explore further how Paquimé’s elites managed to make their settlement the religious (and consequently economic/​political) center of the Medio period culture.

Making it a place worth visiting Pilgrimage locations are often unusual, even unique, places on the landscape (e.g., the Zuni Sacred Lake), but there is no obvious significance to Paquimé’s location, at least that we can see archaeologically. Cerro de Moctezuma, the previously mentioned hill upon which the large atalaya is built, is certainly distinctive, although other hills are present throughout the Casas Grandes region. Ceremonial features were built on top of Cerro de Moctezuma, including El Pueblito, which was both the only masonry Medio period habitation structure and the only substantial Medio period habitation built on a hill in the Casas Grandes region. We agree with Pitezel (2011: 211–​12) that El Pueblito was a “ceremonial precinct” and that Paquimé and Cerro de Moctezuma reflect “unique elements of the Medio period landscape” that worked parallel with each other within the pilgrimage system. Di Peso et al. (1974, 4: 227) even report an angled window at Paquimé that allowed direct observation of Cerro de Moctezuma from within the settlement, and a series of trails link the two locations (Pitezel 2007). As such, the importance of Paquimé may be derived at least in part from the prominence of Cerro de Moctezuma, whether their linked roles developed in tandem (that is, both became important ritual locations at the same time and more-​or-​less through the same process) or Paquimé’s importance was at least in part a result of the pre-​existing importance of Cerro de Moctezuma as a hilltop ritual location. What is certain is that Paquimé, which is at an ideal location to build a large site and create an irrigation system (Doolittle 1993), was occupied before it became one of the most elaborate Southwestern ceremonial centers, and underwent a series of remodeling events to become larger and more elaborate with the construction of additional and thicker walls, and ceremonial architecture including the mounds and ball courts (Wilcox 1999). Paquimé consequently appears to be a ‘manufactured’ pilgrimage location transformed by elites through time in ways that drew pilgrims there, as opposed to being a location that already had some significance before a settlement was ever built. To create a pilgrimage center, the elites would have needed to: (1) make coming to the site special, at least during the pilgrimage, even as people were moving to and from Paquimé for other reasons, (2) increase the vitality of Paquimé so that it became a special place on the landscape with a unique

 

Paquimé’s appeal 125 importance that exceeded other settlements, and (3)  elicit emotional and physiological responses (e.g., awe, reverence) from the pilgrims. Some aspects of this process are fairly easy to identify. For example, the use of atalayas to summon pilgrims would have made the movement to the site special as pilgrims were perhaps guided by smoke during the day and light during the night. Some Paquimé walls were strategically built on a terrace edge causing approaching visitors to see them on a heightened landform, giving the illusion of even greater height and monumentality (Whalen et al. 2010). The large quantities of roasted agave and other food (likely including alcohol) provided during the feasts would have also made the pilgrimage trips special and helped create the appropriate emotional/​ physiological response. The performance of elaborate public rituals suggested above likewise increased the vitality of the site and helped create the emotional impact that was necessary for a planned pilgrimage. According to Waller (2017) and Rakita (2009), this ceremonial activity would have likely included the manipulation of human remains with rituals focused on the three large ollas at the public Mound of the Offerings, and at a private shaft-​tomb burial (Burial 44-​13) that included two high-​status males. At least five lower-​status sub-​adult males and females who were defleshed were placed haphazardly above these burials, and were manipulated after initial burial as part of public ‘spectacle’. As outlined by Waller (2017), performative violence has profound impacts on participants and viewers and is a way of creating and transforming relationships between the living and the dead (see also Whitehead 2004). Furthermore, Paquimé’s overbuilt architecture (Whalen and Minnis 2001) made the entire site into an imposing stage for overdressed and imposing religious leaders who led the ceremonies (C. VanPool 2003, 2009; Rakita 2009; Whalen et  al. 2010). They were likely adorned with feather headdresses and sashes made of colorful scarlet and military macaw feathers and body/​face decorations made using at least six colors of pigment that Di Peso (1974: 482) found in “crayons” used as makeup to adorn the bodies of the religious leaders (see also C. VanPool et al. 2017). The impact of these behaviors would have been magnified by the elaborate wall murals and paving and the abundant water in reservoirs and canals throughout the site that the early Spanish mentioned. Paquimé certainly would have been a mystical place during these festivities, and would have offered a sensory experience unlike anywhere else in the Medio period world. However, there are additional, less obvious examples that we believe were even more significant to establishing Paquimé as a pilgrimage center. Nearly any community could throw a great party with the right planning. Certainly other communities could have created ceremonial mounds and elaborate ballcourts, and in at least two cases, they did. Joyce Well, for example, has an elaborate ballcourt, albeit not as elaborate as Paquimé’s (Skibo and Walker 2002: 107–​19), and Site 242 has thick adobe walls and a somewhat elaborate ballcourt with an adjoining platform mound (Whalen and Minnis 2001: 663). Yet Paquimé’s elites were uniquely successful in creating their site as the religious and political center of the region, far surpassing any

126  Todd L. VanPool and Christine S. VanPool other competing elites on the landscape. We suggest that this in part reflects their success in transforming their settlement into a living entity in its own right, and the metaphorical home of deities central to Medio period religion. The core of our argument here rests on the concept of animism, which holds that nonhuman objects have a spiritual essence that gives them the ability to affect the world, including humans (Viveiros de Castro 1998; Harvey 2006; Alberti and Bray 2009). Animated objects can include nonhuman animals and plants, but also clouds, rivers, mountains, unique topographic features, and even rocks and clay. Archaeologists have come to realize we can gain great insight into the cognitive structures of past people if we seek to understand their basic ontological framework and use it to understand the archaeological record (Alberti and Bray 2009; Hill 2011). This is a hermeneutical process in which the archaeologist uses the archaeological record, ethnographic information, cross-​cultural comparisons, and other evidence to understand a culture’s underlying ontology, then uses that ontology to understand the archaeological record, and then uses the improved knowledge to further refine the understanding of the ontology. Worldwide, not every culture maintains an animistic worldview, but it is ubiquitous among ethnographically studied Southwestern groups (and indeed among North American Native religions), and considerable evidence indicates it has a deep history in the region’s archaeological past (Mills and Ferguson 2008; Walker 2008). The Medio period Casas Grandes culture in particular reflects a strong animistic tradition (Walker and McGahee 2006; C. VanPool and Newsome 2012; Whalen 2013). One of the central components of Southwestern animism is the manufacture of new nonhuman beings by humans (C. VanPool and T. VanPool 2012: 96–​7). For example, ethnographers as early as Cushing (1886) note that pots are considered as newly made living beings, produced through the combined effort of humans and nonhuman agents such as clay, fire, and so forth. This view is likewise reflected in the traditional prayer Zuni women sing when dedicating prayersticks (Bunzel 1992: 485): We made our plume wands into living beings. With the flesh of our mother, Clay Woman, Four times clothing our plumes wands with flesh, We made them into living beings. Holding them fast, We made them our representatives in prayers. Bunzel (1992: 490) also reports that black pots, along with obsidian knives and arrow points, and olivella rattles were considered ‘society members’. Kivas and other structures are likewise considered living entities, and are brought to life via various artifacts and rituals that include elaborate ritual enactments and even forms of stage magic created using hidden chambers, clever illusions, and disguised voices (Ellis 1952). The upshot is that within

 

Paquimé’s appeal 127 an animistic framework, artifacts, geographic features, buildings, and entire sites are viewed as living agents that must be honored and that affect the humans encountering them. Elsewhere, we and other researchers have argued that several features helped make Paquimé an animated being. We do not recap these arguments, but briefly list them here with references for those interested in more detail. They include:  (1) the previously mentioned ocean shell that Whalen (2013) argued helped transform Paquimé into a living water city; (2)  a deep walk-​in well that was associated with ritual offerings and paraphernalia (Di Peso et al. 1974, 4: 377–​81; Walker and McGahee 2006; C.  VanPool and T.  VanPool 2012); (3)  a Playas red jar placed at the bottom of the main water reservoir at Paquimé that was filled with shell, turquoise, and a bison bone, and was adorned with a shell necklace around its neck; (4) a support post in a large interior room (Room 21-​8) in Unit 8 (which also contains the walk-​in well) associated with a likely child sacrifice and turquoise pendants (T. VanPool and C. VanPool 2016); and (5) the Mound of the Serpent, which is a 113 m long sinuous mound with a raised platform for its head (T. VanPool and C. VanPool 2016). Each case reflects an animated being that is focused on water ritual and is directly or indirectly linked to the horned serpent. This linkage is obvious for the Mound of the Serpent, but is reflected in the other cases too. For example, child sacrifices such as that associated with the support post in Unit 8 are tied to the horned serpent deity in ethnographically documented Puebloan traditions (T. VanPool and C. VanPool 2016: 327–​ 8). Turquoise is also associate with water and the horned serpent, which is a supernatural entity that controls underground water, but also herds clouds, or moves across land to create arroyos (Parsons 1939:  184; Dutton 1963: 49; Bunzel 1992: 515; Schaafsma 2001). Creating the post as an active agent that could interact with the horned serpent would be particularly significant in the context of a central support timber, given that the horned serpent is associated with earthquakes, which are comparatively common in the Casas Grandes region (Doser and Rodriguez 1993). The horned serpent is also one of the primary deities reflected in Ramos Polychrome, the ceramic type we suggested was distributed as part of the pilgrimage. Following Di Peso (1974: 548–​9), the horned serpent appears to be the patron deity of Paquimé and was central to pilgrimages to the site.

Discussion and conclusions While there are other large sites in the Casas Grandes region and indeed throughout the Southwest, no contemporaneous settlement can match the elaborate ritual structure and animating features evident at Paquimé. The elites and commoners living there worked hard over a period of time most likely lasting generations to gather the objects and to build the features that would make Paquimé unique in terms of the relational attributes

128  Todd L. VanPool and Christine S. VanPool underlying a pilgrimage location. Analysis of burials from Paquimé indicate that most people living at Paquimé had similar mortality patterns and a comparable level of nutritional stress relative to other Southwestern peoples, but that at least some (elite) individuals had considerably better nutrition than typical (Waller 2017). This improved health, as well as the economic wealth evident in some burials, illustrates that the Paquimé elites benefited from the economic and religious system that both created and was reinforced by the pilgrimages. Further, elites (or at least those with elite aspirations) from across the region would have been drawn to participate in the pilgrimage as a means of both reinforcing their social position and as a means of competing with rivals. However, as is the case for religious pilgrimages through West Mexico and the North American Southwest, commoners would have engage in important economic activities during the pilgrimages that would have included trading goods and services, courting potential marriage partners, and renewing their relationships with the deities, practices, and elites that structured their lives (Wells and Nelson 2007). From hilltop fires, to feasts of sweet roasted agave, to rituals involving the bones of dead ancestors, to the stockpiling of literally a ton of ocean shell carried by foot from over 1,000 km away, the Paquimé elites and their followers created an animated site without parallel. Movement to the site would be uniquely exciting and awe inspiring, even for those who previously visited Paquimé for other reasons. The vitality of the materials was unique in its scope (encompassing literally the entire site with its massive walls and elaborate wall murals) and showmanship (even including manipulated human skeletons). These same features had profound emotional and physiological effects as the pilgrims’ senses were overwhelmed with alcohol, sweet roasted agave, shaman-​priests in colorful ritual garb (including macaw feathers), noise from noise makers and shell trumpets Di Peso recovered from the site, and the sights and sounds associated with the public ceremonial spaces. The effort of the Paquimé elites transformed a site that was initially one of several large settlements in the region into a center place that was the focus of interaction between the living and the dead and interaction with important deities, most notably the paramount horned serpent who was tied to water, the single most significant resource in the harsh Southwestern environment. In doing so, these ambitious elites transformed their city into a ‘Water City’ in control of necessary relationships that provided water throughout the region and, in turn, elevated the elites’ authority across the region as pilgrims traveled to the city.

Notes Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri. 1 2 Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri.

 

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132  Todd L. VanPool and Christine S. VanPool Riley, C.L. 2005. Becoming Aztlan:  Mesoamerican influences in the Greater Southwest (A.D. 1200–​1500). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Schaafsma, P. 2001. Quetzalcoatl and the horned and feathered serpent of the Southwest. In V.M. Fields and Z. Zamudio-​Taylor (eds), Aztlan: art from a mythic homeland. Albuquerque:  Los Angeles Museum of Art and University of New Mexico Press, pp. 138–​49. Schultes, R.E. and Hoffman, A. 1992. Plants of the Gods: their sacred, healing and hallucinogenic powers. Rochester, NY: Healing Arts Press. Searcy, M.T. 2010. Symbols and sociopolitical organization:  Mesoamerican iconography in the US Southwest/​Northwest Mexico. Norman:  University of Oklahoma. Skibo, J.M. and Walker, W.H. 2002. Ball courts and ritual performance. In J. Skibo and W. Walker (eds), The Joyce Well site: on the frontier of the Casas Grandes world. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, pp. 107–​28. Skousen, B.J. 2016. Pilgrimage and the construction of Cahokia:  a view from the Emerald Site. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-​Champaign. Stevenson, M.C.E. 1904. Zuni Indians:  their mythology, esoteric fraternities, and ceremonies. In U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology. Twenty-​Third Annual Report 1901–​1902. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, pp. 1–​634. Swanson, S. 2003. Documenting prehistoric communication networks: a case study in the Paquimé polity. American Antiquity 68: 753–​67. Tedlock, B. 1983. Zuni sacred theater. American Indian Quarterly 7 (3): 93–​110. Titiev, M. 1971 [1944]. Old Oraibi: a study of the Hopi Indians of the Third Mesa. New York: Krause Reprint. Topi, J., VanPool, C.S., Waller, K.D. and VanPool, T.L. 2018. The economy of specialized ceramic craft production in the Casas Grandes region. Latin American Antiquity 29: 122–​42. Turner, V. and Turner, E. 1978. Image and pilgrimage in Christian culture. New York: Columbia University Press. Underhill, R.M. 1946. Papago Indian religion. New York: Columbia University Press. VanPool, C.S. 2003. The symbolism of Casas Grandes. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. VanPool, C.S. 2009. The signs of the sacred:  identifying shamans using archaeological evidence. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 28: 177–​90. VanPool, C.S. and Newsome, E. 2012. The spirit in the material: a case study of animism in the American Southwest. American Antiquity 77: 243–​62. VanPool, C.S. and VanPool, T.L. 2002. Dichotomy and duality:  the structure of Casas Grandes art. In J. Stuhr (ed.), Talking birds, plumed serpents, and painted women: the ceramics of Casas Grandes. Tucson: Tucson Museum of Art, pp. 71–​5. VanPool, C.S. and VanPool, T.L. 2012. Breath and being:  contextualizing object persons at Paquimé, Chihuahua, Mexico. In K. Rountree, C. Morris and A.A.D. Peatfield (eds), Archaeology of spiritualities. New York: Springer, pp. 107–​29. VanPool, C.S. and VanPool, T.L. 2015. Religion and cosmology in the Casas Grandes world. In P.E. Minnis and M.E. Whalen (eds), Ancient Paquimé and the Casas Grandes world. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pp. 83–​102. VanPool, C.S., VanPool, T.L. and Downs, L.W. 2017. Dressing the person: clothing and identity in the Casas Grandes world. American Antiquity 82: 262–​87.

 

Paquimé’s appeal 133 VanPool, T.L. and VanPool, C.S. 2016. Animating architecture and the assembly of an elite city: birth and dedication of nonhuman persons at Paquimé, Chihuahua, Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Research 72: 311–​36. VanPool, T.L., VanPool, C.S. and Leonard, R.D. 2005. The Casas Grandes core and periphery. In M. Thompson, J. Jurgena, and L. Jackson (eds), Mogollon archaeology:  proceedings of the 13th Jornada Mogollon conference. El Paso:  El Paso Museum of Archaeology, pp. 25–​36. VanPool, T.L., VanPool, C.S., Rakita, G.F.M. and Leonard, R.D. 2008. Birds, bells, and shells: the long reach of the Aztatlán trading tradition. In G. Nielsen-​Grimm and P. Stavast (eds), Touching the past:  ritual, religion, and trade of Casas Grandes. Provo, UT: Museum of Peoples and Cultures, Brigham Young University, pp.  5–​14. Vargas, V.D. 2001. Mesoamerican copper bells in the pre-​Hispanic Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico. In V.M. Fields and V. Zamudio-​Taylor (eds), The road to Aztlan: art from a mythic homeland. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, pp. 196–​211. Viveiros de Castro, E. 1998. Cosmological deixis and Amerindian perspectivism. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4: 469–​88. Walker, W.H. 2008. Practice and nonhuman social actors: the afterlife of witches and dogs in the American Southwest. In B.J. Mills and W.H. Walker (eds), Memory work: archaeologies of material practice. Santa Fe: School of Advanced Research, pp. 137–​57. Walker, W.H. and McGahee, G. 2006. Animated waters: ritual technology at Casas Grandes, Chihuahua. In L.J. Lucero and B.W. Fash (eds), Precolumbian water management:  ideology, ritual, and power. Tucson:  University of Arizona Press, pp. 195–​210. Waller, K.D. 2017. Bioarchaeological analyses of paleodemography and violence at Paquimé, Chihuahua, Mexico. PhD dissertation, University of Missouri. Wells, E.C. and Nelson, B.A. 2007. Ritual pilgrimage and material transfers in Prehispanic Northwest Mexico. In E.C. Wells and K.L. Davis-​ Salazar (eds), Mesoamerican ritual economy:  archaeological and ethnographical perspectives. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, pp. 137–​66. Whalen, M.E. 2013. Wealth, status, ritual, and marine shell at Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico. American Antiquity 78: 624–​39. Whalen, M.E., MacWilliams, A.C. and Pitezel, T. 2010. Reconsidering the size and structure of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico. American Antiquity 75: 527–​50. Whalen, M.E. and Minnis, P.E. 1996. Ball courts and political centralization in the Casas Grandes region. American Antiquity 61: 732–​46. Whalen, M.E. and Minnis, P.E. 2001. Architecture and authority in the Casas Grandes Area, Chihuahua. American Antiquity 66: 651–​68. Whalen, M.E. and Minnis, P.E. 2009. The neighbors of Casas Grandes: excavating Medio Period communities of Northwest Chihuahua, Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Whalen, M.E. and Minnis, P.E. 2012. Ceramics and polity in the Casas Grandes area, Chihuahua, Mexico. American Antiquity 77: 403–​23. Whitehead, N.L. 2004. On the poetics of violence. In N.L. Whitehead (ed.), Violence. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, pp. 55–​77.

134  Todd L. VanPool and Christine S. VanPool Whitley, D.S. 2001. Science and the sacred: interpretive theory in US rock art research. In K. Helskog (ed.), Theoretical perspectives in rock art research. Oslo: Instuttet for Kulturforskning, pp. 124–​51. Whitley, D.S. 2011. Rock art, religion, and ritual. In T. Insoll (ed.), Oxford handbook of the archaeology of ritual and religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 307–​26. Wilcox, D.R. 1999. A preliminary graph-​theoretical analysis of access relationships at Casas Grandes. In C.F. Schaafsma and C.L. Riley (eds), The Casas Grandes world. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, pp. 93–​204. Woosley, A.I. and Olinger, B. 1993. The Casas Grandes ceramic tradition: production and interregional exchange of Ramos Polychrome. In A.I. Woosley and J.C. Ravesloot (eds), Culture and contact:  Charles C.  Di Peso’s Gran Chichimeca. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pp. 105–​31.

 

6 N  tshekane and the Central Cattle Pattern Reconstructing settlement history Thomas N. Huffman1 and Gavin Whitelaw2

Cognitive archaeologists study the ideals, values, and beliefs that constitute a society’s worldview. We use the principles of cultural anthropology to focus on such things as material symbols and the use of space. Because artifacts, as a way to learn about the human past, are things to be explained, not the explanation, cognitive archaeology is no different from other theoretically informed research: we explain artifacts by ideas derived from theory. In this case study, we use theoretical principles about the organization of space to reconstruct the settlement history of a complex Early Iron Age site in South Africa. Two principles are particularly relevant. First, to create order, human societies divide their physical environment into discrete locations where only a limited range of culturally accepted activities take place. Secondly, these spatial locations have social significance and social consequences because they provide the physical backdrop for social behavior, and they can help to shape it because the relationship is recursive. With these principles, spatial models have helped to clarify three worldviews that structured Iron Age life in central and southern Africa: the Street Pattern for matrilineal ‘big men’ societies (Huffman 1989: 101–​12); the elite Zimbabwe Pattern for class-​based societies (Huffman 1996), and the Central Cattle Pattern for patrilineal ranked societies (Huffman 1982). Most archaeologists in southern Africa accept the Central Cattle Pattern as a valid model for the spatial and social organization of African settlements during the Late Iron Age. For the Early Iron Age, large-​scale excavations at Broederstroom (Mason 1981, 1986:  129–​ 210; Huffman 1993), KwaGandaganda (Whitelaw 1994), and Ndondondwane (Maggs 1984; Loubser 1993; Greenfield and Van Schalkwyk 2003) produced compelling evidence for its applicability in the first millennium. The large central space with multiple cattle kraals at KwaGandaganda appears to represent a chief’s settlement, while the cluster of separate homesteads at Broederstroom were probably united under a headman. Despite the evidence from these two settlements, however, some researchers still doubt the full application of the model before A D 1000. They question whether any meaningful statement can be made about ancient worldviews when excavations are limited. We argue instead that ancient worldviews cannot be derived from any excavated

136  Thomas N. Huffman and Gavin Whitelaw data, no matter their extent. Rather, we apply various models to see which alternative best fits excavated and other spatial data. To demonstrate its utility, we apply the Central Cattle Pattern to the multicomponent site of Ntshekane (Fig. 6.1). We begin with a brief discussion of the model and its archaeological manifestation.

Central Cattle Pattern The Central Cattle Pattern is a normative model about the ideal relationships between spatial features in a homestead and the associated social organization (see Kuper 1982 and Huffman 2001 for theoretical and ethnographic details). In southern Africa, this pattern was exclusive to ranked-​based societies that had a patrilineal ideology about procreation, a preference for cattle as bridewealth, male hereditary leadership, and a belief in the positive role of ancestors in daily life. These interrelated concepts were expressed in a gendered spatial organization. The center of the settlement—​the domain of men—​ encompassed cattle kraals (corrals, byres) where men and other important people were buried, as well as sunken grain pits for long-​term storage, a public smithing area (smelting took place outside the settlement), and a court where men resolved disputes and made political decisions. Residue from court activities, such as ash from the court fire, animal bones, and broken pottery from the consumption of beer, formed a court midden. The outer residential zone—​the domain of women—​incorporated the households of individual wives with their house, kitchen, and private grainbins, as well as pits for the short-​term storage of female-​associated crops (such as ground beans), middens of household rubbish, and the graves of women and children. This outer residential zone also incorporated small-​stock enclosures. In some communities, sheep/​goat enclosures were (and still are) located at the back of this zone, while in others they were placed at the front (e.g., Junod 1962: 1: 312–​13; Krige 1962: 42–​3). In one sense, then, the Central Cattle Pattern incorporated ‘male’ and ‘female’ middens, pits, and kraals. For the Ntshekane project, the location and content of the different pits were particularly important. In general, ‘male’ pits used for long-​term storage were usually deep (1 m or more) and lined with cattle dung to prevent insect infestation. Villagers usually dug ‘male’ pits in the cattle kraal so that they would be hidden from enemies and protected by the male ancestors buried there. To avoid disturbance, graves and pits were placed in different parts of the kraal. At the eleventh-​century homestead of Kgaswe in Botswana (Denbow 1986), for example, the dead were buried next to the back fence, while the storage pit was placed in the center. ‘Female’ pits for short-​term storage, in contrast, were usually dug in the grainbin area. Among Northern Shona, these pits were usually shallow and loosely sealed so that root crops stored inside could sprout with the first rains (McEdward Murimbika, pers comm. 2006). Many such pits were found in the twelfth-​ century Leopard’s Kopje site 2229AA14C in the Limpopo Valley (Huffman

 

Figure 6.1 Southern Africa showing location of Ntshekane and other sites mentioned in text

138  Thomas N. Huffman and Gavin Whitelaw 2017). Here, however, villagers placed the central pits in the calf kraal rather than the main cattle kraal. In both locations, empty pits were usually filled with stones, midden deposit, and other material after the produce was removed. They then become useful time capsules for archaeologists. We use the distribution of these two kinds of pits as a primary means of reconstructing Ntshekane.

Ntshekane Description Ntshekane is a multicomponent Early Iron Age site first excavated by Tim Maggs (Maggs and Michael 1976). Located near Muden, it straddles the old farms Nietgedocht and Geluk Stadt, but is now inside communal lands. The site is important to Early Iron Age studies because Maggs and Michael first described Ntshekane pottery from here and because it is where some characteristic Early Iron Age features were first recorded in KwaZulu-​Natal. The Early Iron Age in this region dates from about AD 440 to 1060 and incorporates four ceramics facies (see Huffman 2007 for descriptions). Mzonjani of the URE WE tradition (A D 440–​570) derives from Silver Leaves further north, which in turn is related to Kwale in East Africa. These three facies represent the southward spread of agriculturists from East Africa into the eastern parts of the subcontinent. Somewhat later, agriculturists of the K A LU N DU tradition spread into southern Africa from the northwest. In KwaZulu-​Natal, they are represented by a stylistic continuum of three successive facies named after the sites where the ceramics were first described:  Msuluzi (A D 640–​800), Ndondondwane (AD 800–​ 950), and Ntshekane (A D 950–​1060). By convention, the facies name applies to both the occupation phase and to the people who made and used the pots. Ntshekane pottery was found eroding out of numerous pits exposed by severe gully and sheet erosion (Fig.  6.2). In 1973, Maggs excavated and described several pit features as well as midden remnants and daga (burnt mud-​plaster) concentrations. Erosion has continued since then, destroying most of Maggs’s features but exposing new ones. In addition to our project, the Human Sciences Department of the KwaZulu-​Natal Museum has begun rescue operations before the site disappears further. Method We visited Ntshekane in 2009, then in 2011, and again in 2015 when mapping started in earnest. We returned from 2016 to 2018 to check details and continue the museum project. We mapped features with a total station, using survey points as feature numbers, and identified the pottery as we progressed. Later, we excavated several burials and pits to check contents. For the pits, the presence of cattle dung is particularly important. As a result

 

Ntshekane and the Central Cattle Pattern 139

Figure 6.2 View of Ntshekane, August 2011. Photo:  Justine Wintjes. Courtesy of KwaZulu-​Natal Museum

of phytoliths analyses at Broederstroom (Huffman 1993, 2010), we are now confident in our visual identifications. To determine cultural affinity, we created plans of each time period (Ntshekane, Ndondondwane, and Msuluzi) based on pottery in individual features. Pits of the same period lined with or otherwise containing dung identified a cattle kraal (Table 6.1), while smithing areas, middens, and grainbins constrained the size of kraals and marked individual homesteads. We then added the features recorded by Maggs. These additions were not straightforward, however, because of different mapping procedures:  Maggs had aerial photographs purposefully taken on which he marked features mapped with a plane table. Unfortunately, his original datum no longer exists, and the edges of erosion gullies have changed. To relocate his features, we overlaid his aerial photography onto present-​day Google Earth images. Results Ntshekane phase We begin with the upper Ntshekane phase and then turn to older occupations. Most features belonged to the upper occupation. Pits, middens, forge areas, and daga marked at least four Ntshekane kraals. Five more have eroded away, and a burial/​midden complex may have been associated with another (Fig. 6.3).

Table 6.1 Ntshekane:  storage pits and other features associated with central cattle kraals Point/​Pit No.

Kraal context

Ntshekane phase 16 1 17 1

Dung

Other cattle

X

horn core

18 19

1 1

26 28

1 1

X X

29 12

1? 2

X

13 84 53 58

2 2 3 3

70 71 72 75 dung patch 93 65 66 96 98 99 23 R 105 V O P I B39 N

Bottomless Lower Other pot grindstones

Blackburn glass beads teeth, toe tooth, foot

X

X

hyrax mandible

horn core

glass beads glass beads glass beads child burial

3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 5 6 6 6 7 7 8 10

X X X

tooth

X X

X X

X X

X

Ndondondwane phase 30 A 33 A X +15 cm 102 A X 44 B1 X +40 cm 45? B1 74 B1

burial Blackburn glass beads dogs

X X X

X X

forge base Pta-​1057 Pta-​1058 female burial Blackburn

late Nd

 

Ntshekane and the Central Cattle Pattern 141 Table 6.1  (Cont.) Point/​Pit No.

Kraal context

76 79 80 82 46

B1 B1 B1 B1 B2

47 50 51 52 54 55 F92 5 15 W

B2 B2 B2 B2 B2 B2 ? C C C

Msuluzi phase 77 1 B1 1 B 1

Dung

X X

X

Other cattle

Bottomless Lower Other pot grindstones duiker skull late Nd

toe

X

late Nd sheep/​goat

X

X

late Nd

X X

late Nd

X X

Kraal Nt 1 enclosed five pits, one with dung, while burnt grainbin daga and middens mark the residential zone. A burial (B29) of a young woman, 15–​24 years old at death (Owens 2018) and covered with a red stone, could belong to this zone, but the individual requires dating. The second kraal (Nt 2) had three pits (one with dung) on the outer edge near a slag scatter that marks a smithing and midden area. The third kraal (Nt 3), near datum peg C, had six pits on the outer edge, while three scattered forge bases mark a men’s area, and two middens denote the residential zone. The burial of a young child (B75) of 2–​3  years (Owens 2018) was eroding out of an abandoned Msuluzi pit near this kraal edge. Although the pit is older, the burial may well belong to the upper occupation. A stone heap with a few broken lower grindstones may have also been associated. The fourth kraal (Nt 4) had at least four pits on the outer edge, three with dung (on opposite sides). A patch of hard dung (pt 96) may be the remnants of a flat-​bottomed pit. A scatter of small slag and a burnt daga concentration framed the kraal. Remnants of these four kraals still existed at the beginning of our project. The location of Nt 5, now gone, is based on the location of a forge base (pt 23)  and grainbin daga. The reconstructed location may not be accurate, but there was nevertheless another kraal somewhere in this zone. A sixth kraal, now also gone, can be identified by an arc of burnt daga and

 

Ntshekane and the Central Cattle Pattern 143 Besides dung, several pits contained other evidence for domestic cattle: Pit 17 and Pit 58 each had a horn core; Pit 28 teeth and a toe bone; Pit 65 a tooth; and Pit 12 teeth and a foot bone. Pit 53 had a hyrax mandible, while Middens 9 and 85 both yielded cattle teeth. Some middens were still 25–​30 cm thick, for example, Midden 9 (about 60 cm below present surface level). Pit 12 and Pit 66, it is worth noting, contained bottomless pots. Bottomless pots were also found in Maggs’s Pits O and P. In addition to normal residue, some pits also contained lower grindstones. These grindstones bore the typical elliptical groove that was paired with a facetted upper stone (Maggs and Michael 1976: 730). The lower stones occurred in pits in the residential zones of Nt 1, Nt 6, and Nt 8 as well as in central pits, such as Pits 12, 65, and 95. In all cases, the grindstones were broken. Somewhat surprisingly, Pit 19 near datum peg B yielded Blackburn pottery (Davies 1971; Robey 1980), representing some of the first Nguni-​speaking people in southern Africa. Various data suggest Nguni speakers spread south from the Interlacustrine area in East Africa to reach southern Africa in the mid-​eleventh century (Huffman 1989: 173–​8, 2004: 80–​4; Hammond-​Tooke 2004). One Ntshekane vessel was also in the pit. Furthermore, Blackburn pottery was mixed with Ntshekane in Pit 12 on the edge of kraal Nt 2. Both pits also yielded early glass beads, as did other contemporaneous features. More Blackburn pottery came from Maggs’s Feature N. This assignment is a departure from Maggs original interpretation. Maggs thought this pottery was like that in his Feature W, now known to be late Ndondondwane. With the excavations of Moor Park settlements (Whitelaw 2004), we have a better understanding of Late Iron Age pottery. The surface treatment of sherds in Pit N conforms to Blackburn and not to Early Iron Age facies. Ntshekane pottery, however, lay on the surface of the pit; and so, this feature is similar to our Pit 19: a Blackburn pit in an otherwise Ntshekane occupation. The pit remnant most likely contained dung (grayish-​yellow fill) and was therefore inside a cattle kraal. This kraal stood somewhere between Nt 7 and Nt 8. This makes a tenth kraal and the sixth in a central cluster. In all, the surviving evidence indicates there were probably 10 kraals: six no longer exist. The distribution of daga concentrations and middens show that Nt 1, Nt 5 (now gone), and Nt 6 (now gone) were separate homesteads. On the other hand, Nt 2, Nt 3, Nt 4, Nt 7, Nt 8 and perhaps Nt 9 and Nt 10 appear to have formed a single center. Perhaps they were not contemporaneous, but the probability remains that some were part of a single settlement. Our reconstruction of this upper phase establishes a notable pattern which can be used to interpret older occupations. In Homestead Nt 4, for example, dung-​lined ‘male’ storage pits on opposite sides show that the central cattle kraal was about 25 m in diameter. Middens and burnt granaries in Homestead Nt 1 arced around a similar-​sized kraal. Moreover, in Nt 1 and Nt 3 central kraals incorporated storage pits around the edge. We use this pattern of ‘male’ pits to identify central kraals in older occupations that were not framed by burnt daga structures.

 

Ntshekane and the Central Cattle Pattern 145

Figure 6.5 Carolyn Thorp next to Pit 44 in the Ndondondwane phase kraal Nd B1 as it was in September 2009. Note bottomless pot and stone near the top and dung fill at the bottom. Photo:  Thomas N.  Huffman. Courtesy of University of the Witwatersrand

filled most of the bottom 40 cm. Furthermore, this pit contained two pots; at least one had its base removed. Eight more pits had bottomless pots: Pits 5, 15, 33, 46, 50, 54, 66, and 74. Maggs’s Pit W also yielded a bottomless pot as well as a glass bead (Maggs and Michael 1976: 734, 740). In addition, Pit 33 contained at least 15 cm of dung in the bottom; Pit 46 contained a cow toe; and Pit 79 a duiker skull. The surviving evidence indicates there were at least four kraals. The isolated pit F92 shows there was at least one more. On present evidence, it is not possible to determine if there was one large central area, or separate homesteads. If Nd B1 and B2 were contemporaneous, they belonged to the same center. Msuluzi phase The earliest pottery on site belongs to the Msuluzi facies. Maggs recorded this pottery in two pits (B and near B1) in his area B (Fig. 6.6). Our Pit 77 was another in the same area (reaching 1.5 m in depth below an Ntshekane midden). Pit 77 contained a bottomless pot, as did the 1973 pit near B1. The pit used for Burial 75 also belongs to this occupation. If these pits were part of the same homestead, they were located on the edge of a cattle kraal. In addition to storage pits, Msuluzi middens were exposed at our datum pegs

 

Ntshekane and the Central Cattle Pattern 147 historic times, such capitals commonly supported some 100 to 150 adults (Huffman 1986). The Ntshekane phase was particularly clear: besides the central cluster, burnt grainbins, middens, and forges encircled two cattle kraals, constraining their location and size. Their size, about 25 m in diameter, was about the same as kraals at KwaGandaganda, another capital (Whitelaw 1994, 1994–​95). For other phases, the two pit locations inherent in the spatial pattern helped to define male centers versus female residential zones. Indeed, central ‘male’ pits were reliable indicators of cattle kraals. Their location on the outer edges, however, is a new pattern: it is the reverse of the pattern at Kgaswe in Botswana (Denbow 1986). Since Kgaswe is a Toutswe facies site in a different ceramic tradition (U R EW E ), the differences may be cultural rather than idiosyncratic. The glass beads at Ntshekane also make sense in terms of a capital. Overall, these beads are rare in the Early Iron Age of KwaZulu-​Natal, with one from the Maggs excavation at Ntshekane (Maggs and Michael 1976), one from KwaGandaganda (Whitelaw 1994), and one from a pit in the coastal belt north of Durban. The 52 new beads from Ntshekane thus substantially increases the total. Given the desire of chiefs to control access to resources and their redistribution, chiefs would have wanted to control the interior portion of the East Coast trade. Glass beads were one of the imported items, while ivory was both a chiefly material and an export. This is why ivory fragments occur in other chief’s settlements, such as KwaGandaganda, Ndondondwane, and Wosi (Whitelaw 1994–​95: 46–​7; Coutu et al. 2016). The Blackburn pottery in the Ntshekane phase is also explicable in terms of a capital. Throughout southern Africa, marriage alliances with other polities characterized chiefdoms. The marriage of a chief’s daughter, for example, cemented political alliances, encouraged trade and other forms of interaction, and discouraged aggression. Some Blackburn women most likely lived at Ntshekane as a result of these alliances. With regard to contemporaneity, it is significant that Blackburn pots in Pit 12 were treated in the same way as Early Iron Age vessels. The pit locations and overall pattern provides a backdrop to interpret the burials. Ideally, people were buried in places with which they were associated in life (Huffman and Murimbika 2003). Men, for instance, were normally buried in the ‘male’ cattle kraal. Women, in contrast, were buried at the back of their individual households, between their house and grainbins. Burial B29 associated with Nt 1 and B39 near the Ntshekane midden conform to this ideal. As another location, miscarriages, stillbirths, and newborns should be buried under the house (symbolizing the womb) where they were born, since they never got beyond the womb in life. Children who had experienced life were buried in the courtyard of their household where they played. Burial B75, although placed in an older pit, should probably be understood in this way. Villagers may well have recognized the older pit because its loose fill could have caused a surface depression, a common feature in historic sites.

148  Thomas N. Huffman and Gavin Whitelaw Another object of interest occurred in several storage pits. As elsewhere (e.g., Maggs 1980; Maggs and Ward 1984), some pits contained bottomless pots:  they occurred in every phase. Using Sotho ethnography as a guide, Whitelaw (1993, 1994–​ 95) showed that these pots and associated pit deposits most likely derived from female puberty rites. These ritual residues were probably buried to nullify their polluting qualities and to prevent witches from using them against the girl and her family. Indeed, the ritual may have been the first step in avoiding the supernatural danger of fertility and pregnancy that begins with puberty (Huffman 2012). This new locational pattern leads us to reconsider data from KwaGandaganda, where the pits containing bottomless pots were located in the residential areas (Whitelaw 1994, 1994–​95). At the time of excavation, Whitelaw thought that these pits were excavated specifically for burying ritual residues, and that their residential location reflected a ‘chiefly’ arrangement in that features associated with individual families were restricted to household areas. In the Central Cattle Pattern, however, ‘male’ and ‘female’ pits served different functions irrespective of their later contents. Since kraal edges were not extensively investigated at KwaGandaganda, we think it likely that both locations were used there for underground storage. The results from Ntshekane and KwaGandaganda provide support for the spatial interpretation of Lebalelo, an Early Iron Age settlement near Steelpoort (Huffman and Schoeman 2011). A pipe trench excavated for a rural water project exposed several pits in a 60 m long transect. Several were filled with cattle dung, and were therefore ‘male’, and one contained a bottomless pot that belonged to the Mzonjani facies. Following the Central Cattle Pattern, the spacing of ‘male’ pits denoted at least three central kraals. Without extensive excavations, however, it is unknown whether the kraals belonged to one large center, as at KwaGandaganda, or separate homesteads, as at Broederstroom, or a mixture, as at Ntshekane. Nevertheless, the Central Cattle Pattern still made sense of the limited data. The widespread distribution of Early Iron Age sites with the Central Cattle Pattern—​such as Broederstroom, KwaGandaganda, Ndondondwane, Lebalelo, and Ntshekane—​make it inconceivable that another worldview existed among related people speaking Eastern Bantu with a similar material culture. The simple presence of bottomless pots in many facies shows that these people shared essentially the same symbolic system, whatever it was. This reasonable conclusion highlights the futility of attempts to identify worldview from faunal remains. Because sheep/​goat out-​number large stock in most Early Iron Age faunal analyses, it does not follow that the Central Cattle Pattern did not apply and that Early Iron Age communities were not patrilineal (e.g., Badenhorst 2008; Huffman 2010). The multiple kraals at Ntshekane show that cattle bone numbers are not a reliable guide to herd size. In any case, numbers are not deductively linked to worldview, or economy for that matter: numbers are therefore not a guide to cultural significance. The spatial and social links provided by the model between

 

Ntshekane and the Central Cattle Pattern 149 kraals, men’s areas, houses, middens, grainbins, and storage pits are a better guide. These features form a nexus of gendered and status relationships that can only be understood from a cautious use of relevant ethnography. The successful application of the Central Cattle Pattern at Early Iron Age settlements means that patrilineality, male hereditary leadership, bridewealth in cattle, and a positive attitude towards the ancestors were enduring cultural principles.

Acknowledgments We thank Carolyn Thorp, Bronwen van Doornum, Mudzunga Munzhedzi, Livhuwani Mulaudzi, Phumulani Madonda, Muzi Msimanga, Dimakatso Tlhoaele, Stephanie Slabbert, Janet Grant, and Lawrence Owens and his students for their help in the field and laboratory. Wendy Voorvelt prepared the figures. Ntshekane was investigated under Permit 0012/​ 05 issued by Amafa aKwaZulu-​ Natali, the KwaZulu-​ Natal heritage agency. The research was supported by the KwaZulu-​Natal Museum, the South African National Research Foundation, and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Our interpretations do not necessarily reflect the opinions of these sponsors in any way.

Notes 1 School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; [email protected]. 2 KwaZulu-​Natal Museum, Private Bag 9070, Pietermaritzburg, 3200 South Africa, and School of Social Sciences, University of KwaZulu-​Natal, Private Bag X54001, Durban, 4000 South Africa; [email protected].

References Badenhorst, S. 2008. Subsistence change among farming communities in southern Africa during the last two millennia: a search for potential causes. In S. Badenhorst, P. Mitchell, & J.C. Driver (eds), Animals and People:  archaeological papers in honour of Ina Plug. Oxford: BAR Series 1849, pp. 152–​68. Coutu, A.N., Whitelaw, G., Le Roux, P. and Sealy, J. 2016. Earliest evidence for the ivory trade in southern Africa: isotopic and ZooMS analysis of seventh–​tenth century AD ivory from KwaZulu-​Natal. African Archaeological Review 33: 411–​35. Davies, O. 1971. Excavations at Blackburn. South African Archaeological Bulletin 37: 34–​43. Denbow, J.R. 1986. A new look at the later prehistory of the Kalahari. Journal of African History 27: 3–​29. Greenfield, H.J. and Van Schalkwyk, L. 2003. Intra-​settlement social and economic organization of Early Iron Age farming communities in southern Africa: a view from Ndondondwane. Azania 38: 121–​37. Hammond-​Tooke, W.D. 2004. Southern Bantu origins:  light from kinship terminology. Southern African Humanities 16: 71–​8.

150  Thomas N. Huffman and Gavin Whitelaw Huffman, T.N. 1982. Archaeology and ethnohistory of the African Iron Age. Annual Review of Anthropology 11: 133–​50. Huffman, T.N. 1986. Archaeological evidence and conventional explanations of Southern Bantu settlement patterns. Africa 56 (3): 280–​98. Huffman, T.N. 1989. Iron Age Migrations: the ceramic sequence in southern Zambia. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Press. Huffman, T.N. 1993. Broederstroom and the Central Cattle Pattern. South African Journal of Science 89: 220–​6. Huffman, T.N. 1996. Snakes and Crocodiles:  power and symbolism in ancient Zimbabwe. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Huffman, T.N. 2001. The Central Cattle Pattern and interpreting the past. Southern African Humanities 13: 19–​35. Huffman, T.N. 2004. The archaeology of the Nguni past. Southern African Humanities 16: 79–​111. Huffman, T.N. 2007. Handbook to the Iron Age:  the archaeology of pre-​colonial farming societies in southern Africa. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-​Natal  Press. Huffman, T.N. 2010. Debating the Central Cattle Pattern:  a reply to Badenhorst. South African Archaeological Bulletin 65: 164–​74. Huffman, T.N. 2012. Ritual space in pre-​colonial farming societies in southern Africa. Journal of Ethnoarchaeology 5 (4): 119–​46. Huffman, T.N. 2017. Origins of Mapungubwe project: test excavations at Den Staat 14B and 14C. Southern African Humanities 30: 185–​94. Huffman, T.N. and Murimbika, M. 2003. Shona ethnography and Iron Age burials. Journal of African Archaeology 1 (2): 237–​46. Huffman T.N. and Schoeman, M.H. 2011. Lebalelo:  Early Iron Age pits near Burgersfort. South African Archaeological Bulletin 66: 161–​6. Junod, H. 1962 (1927). The life of a South African tribe. 2 volumes. 2nd edition; reprint, 1966. New York: University Books Inc. Krige, E.J. 1962 (1936). The social system of the Zulus. 4th edition. Pietermaritzburg: Shuter & Shooter. Kuper, A. 1982. Wives for Cattle:  Bridewealth and marriage in Southern Africa. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Loubser, J.H.N. 1993. Ndondondwane: the significance of features and finds from a ninth-​century site on the lower Thukela River, Natal. Natal Museum Journal of Humanities 5: 109–​51. Maggs, T. 1980. Msuluzi Confluence: a seventh century Early Iron Age site on the Tugela River. Annals of the Natal Museum 24 (1): 111–​45. Maggs, T. 1984. Ndondondwane: a preliminary report on an Early Iron Age site on the lower Tugela River. Annals of the Natal Museum 26 (1): 71–​93. Maggs, T.M. and Michael, M.A. 1976. Ntshekane:  an Early Iron Age site in the Tugela Basin, Natal. Annals of the Natal Museum 22 (3): 705–​40. Maggs, T.M. and Ward, V. 1984. Early Iron Age sites in the Muden area of Natal. Annals of the Natal Museum 26 (2): 105–​40. Mason, R.J. 1981. Early Iron Age settlement at Broederstroom 24/​73 Transvaal, South Africa. South African Journal of Science 77: 401–​16. Mason, R.J. 1986. Origins of black people of Johannesburg and the southern western central Transvaal, AD 350–​1880 (Occasional Paper 16). Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Archaeological Research Unit.

 

Ntshekane and the Central Cattle Pattern 151 Owens, L. 2018. Interim report on the human skeletal remains recovered at Ntshekane, Tugela Basin, during the 2015 and 2017 excavation seasons. Report on file in the KwaZulu-​Natal Museum. Robey, T. 1980. Mpambanyoni: a Late Iron Age site on the Natal south coast. Annals of the Natal Museum 24 (1): 147–​64. Ward, V. and Maggs, T. 1988. The slipped disc: a guide to the identification of shell disc-​beads. Annals of the Natal Museum 29 (2): 407–​16. Whitelaw, G. 1993. Customs and settlement patterns in the first millennium AD: evidence from Nanda, an Early Iron Age site in the Mngeni Valley, Natal. Natal Museum Journal of Humanities 5: 47–​81. Whitelaw, G. 1994. KwaGandaganda:  settlement patterns in the Natal Early Iron Age. Natal Museum Journal of Humanities 6: 1–​64. Whitelaw, G. 1994–​95. Towards an Early Iron Age worldview:  some ideas from KwaZulu-​Natal. Azania 29–​30: 37–​50. Whitelaw, G. 2004. Iron Age hilltop sites of the early to mid-​second millennium AD in KwaZulu-​Natal, South Africa. In K. Sanogo, T. Togola, D. Keïta & M. N’Daou, eds, Proceedings of the 11th congress of the PanAfrican Association for Prehistory and Related Studies, Bamako, February 2001. Bamako:  Soro Print Colour, pp. 38–​51.

7 H  omesteads, pots, and marriage in southeast southern Africa Cognitive models and the dynamic past Gavin Whitelaw1 Ethnographically derived interpretations are common in southern African archaeology. In some cases they rely on direct historical links between archaeological phenomena and living people. This use of ethnography is largely uncontroversial, although the interpretations it yields can be. Other studies match isolated traits from the ethnographic record to archaeological remains, sometimes ranging widely for source material. These studies have limited success—​some are hardly interpretative, because they do not consider anthropological context. A third approach is strongly anthropological. Here ethnographies are source material for models that are applied to archaeological data. Because this approach treats culture as a system of interrelated symbols, values, social relations, and material creations, the successful application of a model in one arena (e.g., homestead design or ritual practice) can have implications in others (e.g., descent ideology, marriage alliances, or perceptions of ancestors). Consequently, archaeological interpretation can extend beyond the material to related social and ideological considerations. For this reason, anthropological archaeology is also ‘cognitive’. Despite its success, cognitive archaeology remains controversial nearly four decades after its introduction to southern African archaeology. Detractors argue that cognitive models produce a past devoid of social dynamism. Their critique has two components. First, they say that the functionalist character of many ethnographic sources results in archaeological interpretation that is “in some respects anti-​historical” (Wright 2010: 231; also Lane 1994–​ 95:  57; Bonner et  al. 2008:  10–​ 12). In their view, the problem is exacerbated by a brand of apartheid-​ age anthropology that promoted the idea of primordial tribal identities (for which, see Hammond-​ Tooke 1997: Chapter 6). But many other anthropologists did study social change, notably the consequences of the racialized South African economy (Hammond-​Tooke 1997: Chapters 3, 7, 8; Kuper 1997: 69–​74). Whatever the character of the ethnographic record—​it can scarcely be one thing—​it does not necessarily make cognitive interpretation ahistorical. Any theoretically knowledgeable scholar can organize ethnographic data in new ways. Cognitive interpretation, moreover, does not rely on a narrow application of the direct historical approach. No single ethnography is complete,

 

Homesteads, pots, and marriage 153 and all contain errors and distortions, and incorporate material altered and created through contact with colonial and capitalist forces. The solution for model-​ builders lies in critical comparison with other ethnographies of the same or closely related people (e.g., Huffman 1982; Kuper 1982; Evers 1984; Taylor 1984), of more distantly related people (e.g., Huffman and Murimbika 2003), and beyond (e.g., de Maret 2005; Hall 2015), to identify data that cover omissions and suggest alternative scenarios. In a sense, model-​ building resembles the ‘tacking’ and ‘cabling’ that Wylie (2002:  Chapter  11) advocates, and models are hypotheses about the past that must be assessed against archaeological data in the same recursive process to develop—​ideally—​‘compelling’ interpretations (see also Huffman 2012:  120–​4). Cognitive models, therefore, do not project any particular essentialized ‘tribal culture’ into the past. But this interpretative process gives rise to the critics’ second concern, which relates to the nature of models and, for some, the use of a methodology associated with science in a discipline focused on people (e.g., Shepherd 2003; Bonner et  al. 2008:  11; Fredriksen 2015; Fredriksen and Chirikure 2015; Hamilton and Wright 2017:  15). I  see things differently. The application of models to data is basic interpretative practice, evident in all circumstances from trivial to profound.2 Archaeology cannot be different and there is nothing inherent in the methodology that creates a static past or elides humanity. Much rests on the nature of models and the interpretation that follows their application. Structuralist models such as the Central Cattle Pattern, a model of homestead layout that is central to my topic, are criticized for an inability to explain change, and for reifying structure and so muting human agency, especially any that opposed dominant interests (e.g., Hall 1998: 235–​6). True, such models are more descriptive than explanatory (Huffman 1990: 10), but they provide an organizational template for archaeological data and a context for interpretation. Identification and explanation of change and agency are then the archaeologist’s tasks, and can be achieved through a critical understanding of the relevant archaeological, ethnographic, and historical records. In what follows, I show that cognitive models can contribute to a socially dynamic past. My interpretative inspiration came initially from experiences in the Department of Archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand, where I registered as a first-​year student in 1982. In that same year Tom Huffman published an article drawing on Adam Kuper’s (1980) structuralist analysis of the Southern Bantu homestead, while David Lewis-​Williams provided a Marxist influence in ‘The economic and social context of southern San rock art’. These two theoretical frameworks dominated the department throughout my early studies, as illustrated by the postgraduate theses of lecturers Lyn Wadley (1986, published 1987) and Mike Evers (1988), and students Jannie Loubser (1989, published 1991) and Colin Campbell (1987). The theoretical lessons were significantly reinforced by the violent political environment of 1980s South Africa, both at university in Johannesburg

154  Gavin Whitelaw and in Natal from 1986, where I spent two years in the field. At the Natal Museum, archaeologists Tim Maggs and Aron Mazel, and University of Natal historian John Wright, were influential in their attention to details in the historical, ethnographic and archaeological records. All three challenged my tendency to generalize, while Tim in particular instilled in me an even greater appreciation for the symbolic ramifications of material culture, and perhaps a more skeptical eye. My thinking also benefits from many conversations over the years with first-​language Zulu speakers, most notably Ntombi Mkhize and, more recently, Muzi Msimanga and Phumulani Madonda, who are knowledgeable about culture and interested in its application and manipulation. I was delighted, too, to discover Jeff Guy’s Marxist analysis of early agriculturist societies (1987), and then, even better, to spend time with him after he returned to South Africa in 1992. These people influenced my understanding of the southern African Iron Age. The Iron Age here results from the spread of Bantu-​ speaking, iron-​ producing agriculturists from West-​Central Africa into the savanna regions of East and southern Africa. The expansion began some 3,000–​2,500 years ago and reached southern Africa early in the first millennium AD . Archaeologists divide the subsequent sequence south of the uPhongolo River in two at A D 1060, based on changes in material culture and site distributions (Figs 7.1, 7.2). Settlement pattern studies nevertheless show that Early and Late Iron Age people maintained fundamentally similar worldviews, whatever detailed differences existed. It is a remarkable finding because the Late Iron Age was initiated by the arrival of agriculturists who stemmed from communities in the Great Lakes area in eastern Africa. It suggests that the common worldview has considerable antiquity, preceding a split that gave rise to separate Early and Late Iron Age communities. But what of the differences? To structure my interpretation of these I provide an outline of the cultural sequence, followed by a set of sociocultural principles drawn from the ethnography of southern African Bantu speakers. Thereafter, I  apply these principles to the archaeological record.

The cultural sequence The settlement of Silver Leaves agriculturists in the fourth century AD marks the beginning of the Iron Age in South Africa. In the fifth century some of their descendants spread along the east coast to reach some 60 km south of Natal Bay (Fig. 7.1). Here the sites contain Mzonjani pottery (Fig. 7.3), which derives from the earlier Silver Leaves style.3 Later, in the seventh century, agriculturists of the KA L UNDU T RA D I T I ON settled south of the uPhongolo in low-​lying valleys and the adjacent coastal belt. They introduced a ceramic style called Msuluzi (Fig. 7.3). Production of Mzonjani ceased at this time, but rare vessels from Msuluzi contexts preserve aspects of the Mzonjani style, suggesting that Msuluzi communities incorporated whatever Mzonjani people lived in the vicinity. Msuluzi evolved into Ndondondwane by the end

 

Figure 7.1 Sites and landscape features south of the uPhongolo River and east of the Drakensberg. Hatched line separates grasslands from coastal bush and valley bushveld. Deeply incised river valleys allow lowland wooded vegetation to penetrate the interior and create resource-​rich ecotones. Early Iron Age agriculturists favored the lowland wooded country and settled at least as far south as East London (Maggs 1980: 6–​10; Nogwaza 1994). Province codes:  GT  =  Gauteng, MP  =  Mpumalanga, FS  =  Free State, KZN  =  KwaZulu-​Natal, EC  =  Eastern Cape. See Figure  7.9 for details of the Estcourt area

156  Gavin Whitelaw

Figure 7.2 Iron Age sequence based on ceramic style. Ondini is an appropriate name for the modern Zulu style, which is evident from pots recovered from the 1870s Zulu capital, Ondini (Armstrong et al. 2008: 533)

of the eighth century, which in turn gave rise to Ntshekane around the mid-​ tenth century (Fig. 7.3) (Maggs 1980, 1989, 1994–​95). In the eleventh century a new ceramic style, Blackburn, appeared south of the uPhongolo (Figs 7.2, 7.4) (Maggs 1980: 11). Recent fieldwork shows that it is partly contemporaneous with Ntshekane (Huffman and Whitelaw, this volume), but its distinctive style structure cannot be generated from Ntshekane. Instead, Blackburn represents the spread of Nguni speakers into southern Africa. Like Silver Leaves and Mzonjani, it is a U R EW E TR AD ITIO N style, although its origins probably lie in the Great Lakes area rather than nearer the East African coast where the antecedents of Silver Leaves occur (Huffman 1989:  173–​8, 2004; Hammond-​Tooke 2004). Blackburn generated Moor Park in the fourteenth century and then Nqabeni in the north in the late seventeenth century (Fig.  7.4). The well-​known modern Zulu ceramic style (which I call Ondini) emerged within the Zulu kingdom after 1850 (Jolles 2005). The Ntshekane/​Blackburn interface conventionally separates the Early and Late Iron Ages (Fig.  7.2). The differences between the Blackburn sequence and the KA L UN DU T RA D I T I O N are particularly accentuated in the Moor Park phase, to the extent that we can view it as the polar opposite of

 

Figure 7.3 Early Iron Age pots. Pots 1–​3: Mzonjani; pots 4–​11: Msuluzi; pots 12–​ 15:  Ndondondwane; pots 16–​17:  Ntshekane. Pots not to scale. Pot 10 has graphite burnish on the rim and plain burnish on the shoulder and body. Pot 15 has red burnish. Drawings by Gavin Whitelaw, with digital editing by Justine Wintjes

Figure 7.4 Late Iron Age pots. Pots 1–​4:  Blackburn; pots 5–​12:  Moor Park; pots 13–​18:  Nqabeni. Pots not to scale. Pot 13 (brewing vessel, imbiza) height = 62 cm. Pots 2, 4, 11, 14 and 17 have red burnish. Pots 17, 18 decorated with fingernail impressions. Pots 8–​10 from Davies (1974); pots 13, 14, 17 from Maggs (1982); pots 15, 16, 18 from Hall and Maggs (1979). Drawings by Gavin Whitelaw and others, with digital editing by Justine Wintjes.

 

Homesteads, pots, and marriage 159 the Kalundu phases. A comparison between the two therefore establishes a useful baseline from which to examine other, less extreme variations within the Iron Age sequence. I  turn now to the principles which structure the comparison.

Economy and cosmology Archaeological evidence shows that both Kalundu and Moor Park settlement sites have a Central Cattle Pattern layout (Whitelaw 1994, 2004; Huffman 2004:  89–​97). The Central Cattle Pattern is an anthropological model that depicts homestead organization in terms of three principal oppositions:  center-​male/​sides-​female; right-​senior/​left-​junior; and front-​ public/​ back-​ private. These oppositions translate on the ground into a homestead with households for wives arranged by rank about a cattle pen (or pens) and men’s court (Kuper 1980; Huffman 1982, 2001) (Fig.  7.5). Homestead layout might emphasize one opposition more than others in line with socially significant conventions. Societies where homestead fission is the norm, for example, might stress household ranking through right and left (Kuper 1980: 10–​11). The oppositions operate at both the homestead and household level, such that the organization within each wife’s house mirrors (at a smaller scale) that of the whole homestead. As is now well known, the Central Cattle Pattern is a product of Eastern Bantu speakers who maintained four interrelated norms:  (1) a patrilineal ideology, (2)  male hereditary leadership, (3)  a preference for bridewealth in cattle, and (4)  generally positive beliefs about the role of ancestors in daily life (Kuper 1980, 1982; Huffman 1982, 2001). Ceramic sequences

Figure 7.5 The Central Cattle Pattern

160  Gavin Whitelaw show that both Kalundu and Moor Park communities spoke Eastern Bantu languages. It follows that they also maintained the four interrelated norms. It should already be clear that the Central Cattle Pattern incorporates the notion of status and power distributed unevenly across various social categories. The model thus directs our attention to a social dynamic that was the principal historical motor in Iron Age societies. In brief, Central Cattle Pattern societies were based on the “continuous acquisition, creation, control, and appropriation” of human productive and reproductive capacity (Guy 1987:  22). Men used cattle to acquire rights over women:  through the exchange of cattle for wives, men gained access to female productive and reproductive capacity. The husband allocated fields to his wives, each of whom worked primarily to support her household (Krige 1962:  47).4 The offspring of each marriage labored too—​daughters in the field and sons with the herd—​and in time daughters could be exchanged for cattle, making more marriages possible, for brothers and for the father himself. Through marriage, then, a man acquired the capacity to survive and expand socially into the future. Through marriage a man acquired success and status, measured in his accumulated productive and reproductive capacity, measured in the creative capacity of women and children. For Guy (1987: 24), the “social cleavage” separating married men from women and children (including unmarried adults) was “so deep that it can be usefully called one of class”. Although Guy’s position is controversial (Hammond-​Tooke 1993: 69), I find it instructive for what it reveals in the ethnographic data. Significantly, homesteads created through polygamous marriage were and are complex, heterogeneous entities. Each contained multiple semi-​independent households, each with a connection to the mother’s natal home (Fig. 7.5). Each household strove to secure its own future, an ambition that could set it against other households within the homestead, and against the desires of the homestead head. This structural competitiveness created lines of weakness along which a homestead could fracture and so threaten the homestead head’s security, in part by challenging or complicating the ideology of inheritance and patriliny (Hammond-​Tooke 1993: 175, 178; Kuper 1993; Ngubane 1977: 90–​3). The relative significance given to affinal relationships further influenced structural tensions within the homestead. On the one hand, the relationship between a homestead head and his father-​in-​law emphasized patriarchal control over the homestead. On the other, the relationship between a wife and her cattle-​linked brother emphasized relations independent from patriarchal control (Kuper 1993: 484; Whitelaw 2013: 209). The struggles of the various roleplayers for social success generated a dynamic tension between households, between households and homestead head, between homestead heads, and ultimately between chiefdoms, each led by the most senior of the homestead heads. This tension, drawn fundamentally in the creation and maintenance of homesteads, drove Iron Age history-​making (Guy 1987: 26–​9). As if to illustrate this point, Kuper (1993)

 

Homesteads, pots, and marriage 161 shows that homestead structure served as a model for political organization in the Zulu kingdom and other polities of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From an ideological perspective, these circumstances established the potential for pollution dangers to flourish. Pollution inheres ‘naturally’ in classificatory ambiguity and so acts as “a power by which the structure [of ideas] is expected to protect itself” (Douglas 2002: 140). Pollution beliefs were an integral component of economic structure prior to the spread of colonization (Hammond-​Tooke 1981; Whitelaw 2013). As a supposedly natural force, they sanctioned social relations, making them seem inevitable and proper, giving them the blessing of the universe. They were a key weapon in the control that men exerted over their wives, children and followers, or rather, over their accumulated productive and reproductive capacity. Today many people still maintain pollution beliefs (e.g., Ngubane 1977). The character of pollution varies with the nature of marriage. Non-​kin marriage generates pollution as a kind of internal contamination, which typically requires purging with enemas, induced vomiting, and the like. In this form, pollution represents an anxiety about the threat posed to agnatic security by an intimate relationship with a wife who is, cosmologically speaking, a stranger. Pollution beliefs nevertheless seem weakly developed in communities that de-​emphasize relations between wives and their natal households and, by doing so, emphasize patriarchal control within the homestead (Hammond-​Tooke 1981: 13; 1993: 179–​80; also Douglas 2002: 176). Pollution beliefs intensify and become more complex as relations between wives and their cattle-​linked siblings increase in significance. These relations can challenge the authority of homestead heads, hence the appeal for support to a more complex, more developed ‘force of nature’. Some societies have an additional convention to manage relationships. Inhlonipho (respect) is a primarily Nguni convention of formalized speech and behavior by which people avoid improper reference to or contact with others. It is most obvious in affinal relationships and bears down most heavily on wives because they live in their husbands’ homesteads. Inhlonipho probably developed as a strategy to manage the cosmological dangers associated with stranger-​wives (Herbert 1990). Huffman (2004:  81) suggests that it shares an origin with respect conventions maintained in Bantu-​speaking communities of Interlacustrine East Africa. If so, then an ancestral form of the practice must have existed in Blackburn communities. These management strategies have consequences for material culture and deposition practices. Pottery is a case in point. A widespread homology between pots and people means that pots can be used to convey socially significant messages (David et al. 1988: 365–​6). Communication can result from active manipulation of vessels within the household, as in the case of Karanga husbands and wives in Zimbabwe. Here a couple might convey sentiments such as love, sexual contentment, or disrespect for each other by the way in which they handle certain household pots. The practice

162  Gavin Whitelaw demonstrates the use of pots in a key area of negotiation, between household and homestead head. A woman, people say, can use her pots to strengthen her marriage, or to punish her husband (Aschwanden 1982: 199–​201). Pots also provide a medium for a more passive but probably more profound form of communication, one that triggers symbolic associations deep within the psyche of viewers and users “every day at mealtimes” (David et al. 1988: 379; also Hammond-​Tooke 1989: 14–​15). This communication is often, though not solely, achieved through decoration. Consequently, pots used in socially complex situations are commonly more decorated than others. In rural Zulu communities today, for example, textured decoration (incision, impression and appliqué) is restricted to vessels used for serving and drinking beer, an activity that typically includes an assortment of people (Armstrong et al. 2008: 516–​20, 526). The motifs overwhelmingly relate categories of people to aspects of reproduction. By marking out these concepts of gender, age and status, pot decoration complements and reinforces behavioral codes for socially complex events such as beer and meat feasts. It acts against ambiguity and uncertainty in human interaction and, in doing so, is closely associated with pollution beliefs. In a sense, decoration materializes these beliefs. Significantly, the Zulu study shows that pottery decoration is directed primarily at people who are potential or actual partners in marriage (Armstrong et al. 2008: 544). Analysis of the symbolic dimensions of pottery in other contexts suggests that Zulu and Karanga practice together represent a once widespread role for pots (e.g., Braithwaite 1982; Welbourne 1984; David et al. 1988; Evers 1988; Hall 1998: 249–​55). In the past, and to some extent still today, decorated pots were central ‘communicators’ at events at which men celebrated, negotiated and secured the success of their homesteads. In this role, pots bound the uncertainties and tensions of the present to ideas of an enduring past and a predictable, hopeful future.

The Kalundu Tradition phases Kalundu Tradition sites typically occur on deep arable soils close to rivers where grazing was sweet  all year round and the surrounding bushveld provided fuel for domestic and industrial use (Fig. 7.6). These valley-​bottom locations were often reused repeatedly by sequences of homesteads or, in some cases, used continuously by single settlements, such that they preserve residues of two or three phases (Maggs and Ward 1984:  137; Huffman and Whitelaw, this volume). Continuous long-​term occupation of single settlements was probably a feature only of the settlements of chiefs (e.g., Whitelaw 1994), though it was not true of all chief’s sites. The sites commonly comprise a wide range of features and deposits, including pits, middens, and the remains of cattle pens and mud-​plastered granaries and floors (Fig. 7.7). Ceramics from all three Kalundu phases are richly decorated with incision, sometimes complemented with ochre (red) or graphite (silver-​grey) or plain

 

Homesteads, pots, and marriage 163

Figure 7.6 The uMngeni River some 25 km inland of Natal Bay, a typical location for Kalundu sites. The patch of bush in the river bend marks the site KwaGandaganda. The surrounding bush was cleared prior to the flooding of the valley by Inanda Dam. Photo: Gavin Whitelaw. Courtesy of KwaZulu-​Natal Museum

burnish (Fig. 7.3). Almost all pots are decorated. Decoration on bowls usually occurs only on some of the restricted forms. I argued elsewhere that Kalundu communities, at least in southeast southern Africa, had a preference for non-​kin marriage (Whitelaw 2013). Briefly, the dismantling and burial of furnace components after smelting, and the burial in pits of residues associated with rituals of girls’ pubescence, suggest that people treated pollution through purging. That is, the removal of polluted materials from the everyday world through burial was akin to the expulsion of pollution from the body through enemas and induced vomiting. As a strategy for treating pollution, purging is consistent with more restricted marriage preferences; that is, with more strictly exogamous marriages. Ordinary disposal patterns provide support. On KwaGandaganda, scatters of artifacts and occasional small shallow middens lay close to granaries and storage pits that probably marked the back courtyards of individual households (Whitelaw 1994: 50). Other larger and deeper middens lay adjacent to cattle pens and men’s courts in the center of the settlement. The contents included the debris from men’s work in the central courts (e.g., ironworking, ivory carving), but also items that were more likely associated

Figure 7.7 Interpretation of KwaGandaganda in the ninth and tenth centuries AD . Cattle pen 7 probably slightly predates the others. After Whitelaw (1994: 50)

 

Homesteads, pots, and marriage 165 with household contexts, such as fragments of female figurines, brown mussel shells, and the bones of riverine fish. Material thus moved from households to the center, probably both deliberately (in the case of figurine fragments) and incidentally (in the case of small bones and shells). The central middens apparently accumulated rapidly. It seems likely that the regular, probably daily, deposition of ash from household hearths contributed to their construction. Other household debris, such as broken pots and most food waste, was discarded in or behind the back courtyard (Whitelaw 2013). This communal treatment of hearth ash versus the individual handling of other household rubbish is consistent with a disposal practice that binds households within the homestead together, symbolically countering the lines of weakness that distinguish them (Whitelaw 2013: 213–​15). It is a practice still maintained in some Zulu-​speaking communities (Raum 1973: 146, 153; Mack et al. 1991: 124), and evident in the archaeology of other Nguni communities (Maggs 1982: 84–​5, 1988: 425; Maggs et al. 1986: 459), though the spatial details differ from the Kalundu pattern. The practice seems to relate specifically to a concern for homestead unity in the challenging face of non-​kin marriage (see Raum 1973: 146; Mack et al. 1991: 124). Moreover, in the Kalundu case it suggests an emphasis in homestead layout on the center-​male/​sides-​female opposition, which in this context stresses the contrast between agnates and wives (see Kuper 1980: 8). This reading of the data provides something of a synchronic slice through Kalundu society (though recognizing, of course, that deposits result from repeated practice). By contrast, the characteristic sequences of homesteads on the same locale point to chronological depth. Because fears about pollution dangers can discourage people from living on the settlement remains of strangers (Ngubane 1977: 18–​20, 24–​9), homestead sequences were most likely constructed mainly (but not necessarily solely) by successive generations within agnatic clusters. They indicate a Kalundu emphasis on and concern for agnatic integrity through time. The same is true for the long-​term occupation at sites such as KwaGandaganda (Whitelaw 1994), although here political choices probably further encouraged settlement stability. Ceramic female figurines similarly stress a desire for agnatic continuity, as well as indicating structural limits to the degree of control a man exerts over his wives. Ethnographic data suggest that mothers made the figurines for their young daughters. A  daughter’s figurine then served as a didactic device and instrument of transformation on the occasion of her pubescence and, later, her marriage. The figurines materialized the relationship between young women and their fathers, and explicitly signified the limits of responsibility and authority allocated to fathers and husbands (Wood 2002). These ideas can be expressed verbally. In modern Pedi communities, for example, a relative of a bride warns the groom: “the head is ours, the feet are yours” (Mönnig 1967: 334). The ‘head’ here stands for the bride’s ancestral heritage, while ‘feet’ represent her reproductive body and the means by which

166  Gavin Whitelaw she moves it to the groom’s home. The choice of feet as the symbol is of interest because it emphasizes the uncertainty of a man’s control over his wife. Through her feet, she retains the capacity to leave her husband. Wives, of course, were acquired in exchange for cattle, and the preference for valley-​bottom settlement locations has implications for the nature of the exchange. Although nutritious pasture was available in the valleys throughout the year, its ability to support heavy grazing without relief was limited. Agriculturists might have exploited the upland grasslands during spring and early summer (Maggs and Ward 1984:  133–​5), but strontium isotope and harvest-​profile analyses on cattle remains from sites in the lower uThukela valley suggest that transhumance, if practiced, was not universal (Arnold et al. 2013). Kalundu food production instead emphasized cultivation rather than pastoralism (in contrast to their relative economic significance). Fields and gardens were likely established adjacent to settlements, a point reinforced by the identification of sorghum-​stalk casts in archaeological deposits (Maggs and Ward 1984: 135–​6; Fowler et al. 2000; Greenfield et al. 2005). This emphasis is significant because, in southern Africa, bridewealth in societies that emphasize cultivation is typically high in relation to average livestock holdings, and conversely low in societies that stress pastoral production (Kuper 1982: 157–​ 8, 1987:  113). If this relationship held for Kalundu agriculturists, then Kalundu bridewealth was high whatever the size of the herds. The major implication of a high bridewealth is that marriages of most men depended on the receipt of bridewealth from a sister’s marriage. Significant numbers (whatever these were) of beasts probably moved in bridewealth exchanges from one homestead to another, and then on to others. Some of the uThukela cattle sampled for strontium, for instance, derived from beyond the immediate vicinity of the sites from which their remains came, and two had a distinctly non-​local birth signature (Arnold et al. 2013: 140). We can expect that these exchanges placed men in debt to their sisters, a debt which they probably discharged (in the case of non-​kin marriage) by providing sisters with a co-​wife, typically a younger sister or a daughter (Kuper 1982: 159).5 Such exchanges bind homesteads into networks of relationships, but also create structural tension. Indeed, the failure of a marriage several homesteads distant can have severe implications down the line as exchanges are reversed through claims on now-​ gone bridewealth cattle. As Kuper (1982: 112) notes for the Tsonga, “the binding and enduring nature of the debts signal the existence of a durable series of marriage relations, integrally connected with each other and burned into the consciousness of the actors”. Similarly, I suggest, the enduring tension of these exchanges was inscribed onto the surfaces of pots. If decorative symbolism was truly aimed primarily at potential and actual partners in marriage, then the richly decorated K A LU N DU ceramics suggest a considerable structural anxiety about marriage relations. The anxiety derived, first, from the cosmological danger inherent in non-​kin marriage, and, secondly, from the challenging consequences of a

 

Homesteads, pots, and marriage 167 high bridewealth. The nature of Kalundu marriage posed structural uncertainty and danger to agnatic security. Summary The evidence suggests that Kalundu agriculturists maintained an ideology of patrilineal descent, coupled with a concern for homestead unity and a desire for agnatic continuity. They practiced non-​kin marriage, but a high exchange value for women, relative to average cattle holdings, resulted in extensive lateral networks of marital exchange and relationships between cattle-​linked siblings that presented a structural challenge to the authority of homestead heads (husbands especially, in this context, but the interests of a wife and her cattle-​linked brother potentially also opposed those of their father). There were, in effect, two opposing forces: one vertical (descent) and the other horizontal (marriage). The tension between them contributed significantly to the making of the rich Kalundu material culture.

The Moor Park phase In KwaZulu-​Natal, the Moor Park facies developed from Blackburn by AD 1300 (Figs 7.1, 7.2). Further south, similar pottery occurs in rock shelters on the Mpondoland coast (Schofield 1938, 1948:  49, 151), as well as in shelters inland in deposits dating to the fifteenth century (Hall 1986: 45). Although from hunter-​gatherer contexts, these sherds extend Moor Park into the Eastern Cape, where ceramics still retained Moor Park-​like decorative elements in the early 1900s (Schofield 1948: 185; Lawton 1967: 34–​9; Shaw and Van Warmelo 1974: 137, plate 20). The distribution of Moor Park sites indicates that, for the first time, some agriculturists settled in the higher altitude interior grasslands. They constructed stonewalled settlements on top of steep-​sided hills or spurs (Fig. 7.8). This unusual settlement location points directly to a concern for defense, which in turn suggests a time of social crisis (cf. Maggs 1976: 30; Denbow 1984: 31). It seems significant that the Moor Park phase coincides with the Little Ice Age of 1300–​1800, when annual maximum temperatures were more depressed than at any other time in the past 3,000  years (Holmgren, Karlén et al. 1999; Tyson et al. 2000; Holmgren, Tyson et al. 2001).6 These cooler and generally drier conditions began abruptly after a 400-​year period of generally warmer and wetter conditions. They probably affected agricultural production adversely and, in combination with the abrupt change from a warmer climate, possibly triggered the onset of a disturbed social environment. It is possible that conflict over scarce resources encouraged people to leave the lowlands and seek new country in the upland grasslands. Dates from three excavated Moor Park hilltop sites associate them firmly with the initial years of the Little Ice Age (Table 7.1). A fourth site, iGujwana, dates to the sixteenth century. It suggests pulses of tension

Figure 7.8 The hilltop location of Ntomdadlana: view from southeast. Photo: Gavin Whitelaw. Courtesy of KwaZulu-​Natal Museum

Table 7.1 Radiocarbon dates from Moor Park sites. Dates calibrated on Calib Rev 7.0.4 (Stuiver and Reimer 1993) with SHCal13 (Hogg et al. 2013), rounded down (start of range) and up (end of range) to the nearest 10 Site

Lab. number

Date bp

Pta-​849

0750±50

Pta-​850 Pta-​853

0660±50 0600±50

Sewula Gorge

Pta-​8370

0710±50

Ntomdadlana

Pta-​8372 Pta-​8697

0660±50 0630±50

iGujwana

Pta-​8101

0390±50

Pta-​8335

0360±50

Moor Park

1-​σ calibration

Material

Reference

charcoal

Davies (1974)

ad

1260–​1320, 1350–​1390 1300–​1400 1320–​1350, 1380–​1430 1280–​1320, 1350–​1390 1300–​1400 1310–​1360, 1380–​1410 1460–​1520, 1540–​1630 1500–​1600, 1610–​1640

charcoal charcoal charcoal charcoal bone

Whitelaw (2004)

wood: hut-​ Whitelaw pole stub (2004) charcoal

 

Homesteads, pots, and marriage 169 rather than continuous strife during the long Moor Park phase. These pulses perhaps related to alternating warming and cooling episodes. Several sites occur in the Estcourt area of KwaZulu-​ Natal, not far from where the Moor Park name site is situated in a grassland environment (Davies 1974) (Figs 7.1, 7.9). Four other sites—​ Sewula Gorge, Ntomdadlana, iGujwana and Selbourne—​are in thornveld (Fig. 7.8). Up to 60% of this thornveld represents a woody invasion of grassland during the past 150 years (Edwards 1967: 124; David Green pers. comm. 1998) and probably results from measures to control fires that would otherwise knock back young trees annually. These fires were extensive and a constant feature of the dry winter months, as an account written in August 1864 indicates (Life at Natal 1972: 61–​3): the grass has all been burnt off [between Pinetown and Pietermaritzburg], and as far as the eye can see, the face of the land is scorched and blackened. … Ever since our arrival [in Natal] we have noticed the western sky lighted up by the glow of some distant fire, but as the hills near Durban are bush-​clad, the conflagration itself is invisible. Not so here. Maritzburg is embedded in hills, and down their sides the flames stretch, circle, and intertwine in magnificent confusion. … towards the end of winter the grass gets so long and dry that any chance spark may devastate miles of country. Grassland was surely the original situation of all four sites; certainly, the early use of stone for building walls in this region is in itself strongly suggestive of a grassland environment.7 If the defensive, hilltop locations served to isolate settlements from the surrounding world, then the same end was perhaps achieved by separating settlements in space (Fig. 7.9). Moor Park sites display no sense of homestead clusters, no sense of neighborhood such as we see with seventeenth-​ and eighteenth-​ century sites in the upper uThukela Basin (e.g., Maggs et al. 1986: 465–​73). Site size varies. On Selbourne, a sparse but extensive spread of material suggests a settlement perhaps comparable to Moor Park (Fig.  7.10). These sites probably represent settlements organized around larger agnatic clusters, but including followers. iGujwana and Ntomdadlana are medium-​sized sites, while little Sewula Gorge was probably occupied by a man with only two or three wives. People, it seems, were concentrated tightly in small groups. Other aspects of their archaeology similarly suggest a ‘defensive mindset’. iGujwana, for instance, lies at the northern end of a triangular spur above the uMtshezi Valley (Fig. 7.10). The approach to the site on the spur is on relatively level ground, but the slope either side drops off steeply to the valley floor. The main part of the site is cut off from the spur by a substantial stone wall that turns at the slopes either side to run somewhat roughly towards the back of the site. This arrangement of perimeter walling is characteristic

170  Gavin Whitelaw

Figure 7.9 Hilltop sites recorded around Estcourt. Site 2929BB5 is probably a Moor Park site, 2929BB16 is possibly one, but 2929BB50 is probably not. Drawing by Justine Wintjes

of Moor Park sites. The entrance through the wall is awkwardly situated. It required that visitors descend a slope to enter the settlement at a point below and somewhat isolated from most structures within. From here, visitors would have most probably climbed a steeply rising slope to level terrain some 4–​5 m above the entrance, where the men’s court enclosure stood (Fig. 7.10). This difficult entrance is reminiscent of Moor Park itself (Fig. 7.11). Here Davies’s ‘citadel’ occupies the highest point of the hilltop and is separated from the rest of the site with walling. The citadel—​the first part of the settlement built (Davies 1974: 293) and probably the site of its principal residence—​ contains a Terrace C that resembles the court enclosure at iGujwana, as well as many other enclosures, terraces and platforms, some of which supported huts. Of the entrance to the citadel, Davies (1974: 308) writes: there would be no easy access from it. The easiest way, across E, would have been blocked by a structure, while to the south the slope is very rough and rocky. There may have been a narrow path along 11a, turning at right angles at 10d and up to F and the higher part of the citadel. A tortuous entrance of this sort would be easy to defend.

 

Figure 7.10 iGujwana, showing location at end of spur, walling, court, hut platforms and entrance. Contours in meters above sea level

Figure 7.11 The Moor Park name site. The citadel is the enclosed section on the higher ground to the left. Terrace C is the heavily walled structure at its northern end. One approaches the site from the southwest. The citadel reaches an altitude of 1452 m above sea level. Contours at 5 m intervals. Map from Davies (1974: 290–​1), courtesy of KwaZulu-​Natal Museum

 

Homesteads, pots, and marriage 173 For both Moor Park and iGujwana, entry must have been intimidating and surely demanded that visitors concentrate on the nature of homestead authority that would shortly become manifest at the court. Something like the Moor Park citadel exists at the contemporaneous Ntomdadlana, where hut platforms are arranged around a knoll situated towards the northern point of the hill (Fig. 7.12). A wall on the southern slopes of the knoll separates these huts from large open compartments and other huts situated towards the south and front of the settlement. Again the wall seems to have given some inhabitants special emphasis over others. Ntomdadlana clearly illustrates a layout preference: the front-​public/​back-​ private opposition was emphasized (see Kuper 1980:  13, 20; Huffman 2004:  89). One might argue that this emphasis responds to the peculiar, often narrow hilltop locations, but the ‘citadel’ walls at Ntomdadlana and Moor Park suggest that this layout principle, however it arose, was embedded in the sociocultural psyche of Moor Park communities. Among other things, the clear spatial separation of front and back offered protection for the ancestors from inadvertent (pollution) and malevolent (witchcraft) dangers associated with the public front. The court area at iGujwana yielded 2,155 sherds, which are generally thinner and come from more finely made vessels than sherds associated with hut floors. They are thus what one would expect of vessels used in a public forum. However, only 3.5% have any surface enhancement in the form of textured decoration and/​or ochre (red) or black burnish. The enhancement is concentrated on sherds that preserve some part of the vessel lip, occurring on 22.9% of these. In most cases, textured decoration consists only of lip notching or lip impressions. Of the remaining non-​lip sherds, only 2.2% display any surface enhancement. Generally, many Moor Park vessels are poorly executed, with rough surfaces and wobbly lips, meaning that it is often not easy to gauge sherd orientation. This assemblage contrasts sharply with the one from eighteenth-​century Mgoduyanuka in the upper uThukela Basin, where a third of the 4,736 sherds display surface enhancement (Maggs 1982: 101). The decorative impoverishment of Moor Park assemblages is surely significant, though its full import will become clearer only following comparison with preceding and subsequent assemblages within the Blackburn sequence. At this stage I suggest that the ceramics indicate a de-​emphasis of relations between husbands and their wives’ natal homesteads: that is, the isolation that is evident from the site locations extends to the ceramics. Moreover, if decoration is materialized pollution, then Moor Park assemblages represent pollution beliefs of commensurate simplicity. Such simplicity is expected of societies in which men wield considerable control over their wives and children (Douglas 2002: 176; also see Hammond-​Tooke 1993: 179–​80). It is of course possible that pottery was not the chosen vehicle for decorative messaging, and that for this purpose Moor Park people used gourds and baskets, which are now lost to us. As Jolles (2005: 109–​10) observes,

(a)

(b)

Figure 7.12 Ntomdadlana. (a) View to northeast over knoll. Photo:  Gavin Whitelaw. Courtesy of KwaZulu-​Natal Museum. (b)  Front/​ back layout, with sectioned-off households around the knoll. The knoll reaches an altitude of nearly 1227 m above sea level. Contours at 0.5 m intervals

 

Homesteads, pots, and marriage 175 baskets and gourds seem to have been the primary vessels used for beer in the KwaZulu-​Natal region prior to 1850, with ceramic mainly used for the large brewing vessels that are always undecorated (e.g., Fig. 7.4.13). As a counter I note that gourd vessels and beer baskets were closely identified with men in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Men made the finely woven baskets used for food and drink (e.g., Krige 1962: 207; Bryant 1967: 402; Champion 1967: 55), and the modern use of small shallow baskets called izimbenge (sing. imbenge) as covers for pots of beer reserved for men seems a continuation of this association (Armstrong et al. 2008: 524).8 The identification of gourds with men probably derives from their use as amasi (sour milk) vessels—​both man and vessel contain the vitalizing substance of life, semen-​amasi (see Raum 1973:  357). This relationship is so strong that missionary George Champion wrote on 28 January 1836 that gourds “are considered for being equal to a cow” (Champion 1967: 44).9 Indeed, a man’s ownership of an amasi gourd is related to his ownership of cattle and the gourd is destroyed on his death. By contrast, the amasi gourds “of Wis [wives] and Chn [children] are not destroyed, since Chn (also Wis?) do not own cattle” (Raum 1973: 356). Thus, the use of baskets and gourds rather than pots might also, like the limited decoration, suggest a de-​emphasis of relationships with in-​laws and a contrasting emphasis on the authority of the homestead head and his senior agnates. Following Hammond-​Tooke (2000), we can expect that this competitive social environment and isolationist mindset resulted in a discriminatory differentiation between insiders and outsiders. The Moor Park evidence suggests that the scale at which this distinction operated was small: insiders consisted of no more than agnatic clusters. Respect institutions such as inhlonipho would probably have intensified in such circumstances. Further, the agnate-​ versus-​other distinction possibly accounts for the emphasis on lip decoration in the Moor Park ceramic style. It is reasonable to see lip decoration as indicating a concern about orifices (David et al. 1988: 370). We can accept, too, the metaphorical relationship between pots and people (David et  al. 1988: 365–​6), and a similar relationship between the human body and the agnatic cluster (Hammond-​Tooke 1981: 14, 21; Douglas 2002: Chapter 7). It follows that some pots in some contexts conceivably represented the agnatic cluster—​the Zulu umancishana and umgodi wenyoka are modern examples (Jolles 2005:  108; Armstrong et  al. 2008:  543). Embellishment of the orifices of pots, then, possibly reflected and drew attention to the uncertainties inherent in marriage, which opened ‘orifices’ in agnatic clusters through which stranger-​wives entered. Some gourd vessels might well have carried the same symbolic import, because roughly contemporaneous gourd-​vessel sherds are similarly decorated with lip notching. The use today of izimbenge baskets as pot covers perhaps provides a modern analogue to lip notching.10

176  Gavin Whitelaw Summary Moor Park agriculturists maintained an ideology of patrilineal descent and lived in small communities based on agnatic clusters. A  defensive, isolationist mindset probably resulted in intensified differentiation of insiders from outsiders. The focus on defense as a key factor in site selection meant a reduced consideration of the needs of cultivation, and consequently a reduced consideration of the productive role of women. Following Kuper (1982: 157–​8), I would expect a reduced exchange value for women. The sparse Moor Park pottery decoration suggests a de-​emphasis on relations between husband and in-​laws, and a consequent simplicity in pollution beliefs. This in turn implies that the authority of the homestead head and his senior agnates was emphasized, probably partly through intensified ‘respect’ institutions (e.g., inhlonipho). An alternative possibility, that inhlonipho originated in the Moor Park context, is less likely, because it exists in societies outside the Moor Park historical lineage. Research on this point is worthwhile.

Implications for politics Because relationships at the homestead level—​ within and between homesteads—​shaped the character of chiefdoms (e.g., Guy 1987:  28–​9; Kuper 1993), I  briefly consider the nature of politics in my hypothesized societies. In both, inheritance and a man’s accumulated human resources (wives, children and followers) determined status. The two commonly went together, but at times one or the other provided the basis for political challenge. Accumulation of people was typically founded on the accumulation of wives. Each marriage potentially enhanced productivity within the homestead and possibilities for alliance creation and descent. But there was a risk too, especially where stakes were high, of conflict between households, even to the extent of influencing succession and encouraging usurpation. In my hypothesized Kalundu society, varying interests within the natal homes of a man’s wives added further unpredictability. These circumstances necessitated the kind of materialized and performance-​heavy reinforcement of leadership that is evident in the hollow ceramic head-​sculptures found on some Kalundu sites (e.g., Inskeep and Maggs 1975; Loubser 1993; Hall 2015). Further, I suggest these circumstances generated a culture of negotiation in Kalundu politics, negotiation that was a product of social structure, not political expedience. By contrast, the Moor Park circumstances generated a culture of independence. These two political cultures were not universal positions, but rather emphases within society. Political challenges in Kalundu societies came in part from a desire for agnatic (i.e. segmentary) success, while agnatic success in Moor Park societies depended upon marriage alliances. It nevertheless seems likely that these different political cultures would, if given the right conditions, produce different kinds of

 

Homesteads, pots, and marriage 177 polities, and that the stresses of production would differ. I suspect that my hypothesized Kalundu society would more easily develop into large chieftaincies than my Moor Park society. There is no denial of chiefly agency here, only recognition that a society’s history guides “a rational assessment of the strategies open to” chiefs (Kuper 1997: 77).11 These are matters for future research.

Conclusion The comparison between the Kalundu phases and Moor Park demonstrates the power and utility of cognitive models in archaeological interpretation. A static, ahistorical past is not an inevitable consequence of cognitive archaeology, nor are interpretative sources created in an exploitative capitalist world a fatal hindrance. My hypothesized Kalundu society, for instance, has no modern parallel, while in Moor Park we can perhaps see the seeds of cultural features recorded in ethnographies. These ‘constructs’ emerge from a relationship between models and archaeological data, a process that can reveal absences in ethnographies and even subtle shifts in worldview generated in the modern world. That is, archaeological interpretation shines a different light on the ethnographic source. My approach combines Marxist and structuralist models that are, perhaps surprisingly for some, entirely complementary. They serve two key purposes. First, they reveal the fundamental schisms and tensions that existed in early agriculturist societies in southern Africa, and thus the history-​making capacity of those people. Identification of the site of this capacity is critical. Like much archaeological work, mine deals with small-​scale phenomena rather than state formation or the emergence of kingdoms. To populate these small-​ scale archaeological phenomena with people, to bring them alive, I believe we must organize our data around the fundamental divisions in society, around the economic relations and principles on which societies were founded. This is where the force that animates daily life originates, and where we should seek the source of radical change. Secondly, the combination of Marxist and structuralist models reveals with considerable clarity just how cosmology is engaged with economy. Without this perspective, the symbolic systems recorded in ethnographies, while fascinating, can appear somewhat disconnected from the lives of the people who held them. They are not, of course. Properly applied they give meaning to the detritus of human history.

Acknowledgments I am grateful to Tom Huffman, Carolyn Thorp, David Lewis-​Williams, Ghilraen Laue, Aron Mazel, Adam Kuper, Larry Owens, Tim Maggs, Geoff Blundell and Lyn Wadley for discussion and comments on earlier drafts, and Tim Maggs and the KwaZulu-​Natal Museum for permission to use

178  Gavin Whitelaw images making up Figures 7.3, 7.4, 7.6–​7.8, 7.11, and 7.12. Justine Wintjes prepared Figure 7.9 and provided digital assistance with Figures 7.3 and 7.4. David Whitley and Jannie Loubser made recommendations that resulted in improvements in revision. Financial support for this work came from the KwaZulu-​Natal Museum (Pietermaritzburg, South Africa), the South African Human Sciences Research Council Centre for Science Development (award 15/​ 1/​ 3/​ 17/​ 0042) and the South African National Research Foundation (grant 90995). None of them necessarily supports my interpretations.

Notes 1 KwaZulu-​ Natal Museum, Private Bag 9070, Pietermaritzburg, 3200 South Africa, and School of Social Sciences, University of KwaZulu-​Natal, Private Bag X54001, Durban, 4000 South Africa; [email protected]. 2 For example, two critics of anthropological archaeology who are “hesitant about models in general” (Hamilton and Wright 2017: 15) construct (in the same article) two models of political differentiation in eighteenth-​and nineteenth-​century polities, one for aggressively expanding polities, the other for defensive polities. The first model serves to support key elements of their interpretation of political differentiation in the emerging Zulu kingdom (e.g., Hamilton and Wright 1990). They do not refer to their two constructs as ‘models’, but instead argue for “the existence of similar patterns in the material across” six case studies (Hamilton and Wright 2017: 7). Application of their models to the Zulu kingdom is implied rather than explicit in the 2017 article. 3 I follow Huffman (2007: 117–​19) in using italics and small capitals to refer to ceramic entities. The same terms appear in roman type when applied to sites or people. 4 Land was in the first place allocated by chiefs to married men, or by district heads on behalf of chiefs (e.g., Ngubane 1977: 18). 5 Such co-​wives joined the houses of their elder sisters (or aunts) and bore children for that sister (or aunt). They enhanced the productive and reproductive capacity of the household. 6 Holmgren, Lee-​Thorp et  al. (2003:  2323) date the Little Ice Age from 1500 to 1800. But see Huffman (2008:  2046) for an earlier start in the 1300s, as proposed by Holmgren, Karlén et al. (1999) and Tyson et al. (2000). 7 The woody invasion probably started in the 1300s with Moor Park agricultural activities, but was likely balanced by wood use in densely populated areas and fire. Colonial fire-​control measures after 1860 then contributed significantly to reducing grasslands. 8 I am uncertain, but I suspect izimbenge ideally cover the mouths of pots of beer reserved for married men. 9 At the time Champion was in the coastal belt just north of the uThukela. He was returning to Port Natal from the Zulu capital, uMgungundlovu. 10 A comparison with Kalundu assemblages is worthwhile. Lip notching does occur (e.g., Fig. 3.7), but it is rare. Vessel rims, however, are emphasized throughout the sequence. Incised decoration on everted rims is prominent early on. Later, rims are emphasized mainly through profile, sometimes enhanced with ochre

 

Homesteads, pots, and marriage 179 or graphite burnish. We might consider whether Kalundu rims were analogous to Moor Park lips in what they represented, and, if so, what the choice of a different profile element (rim versus lip) might indicate about marriage in the two societies. 11 The political culture I  recognize differs considerably from the ill-​ conceived appeal to cultural tradition that some conventional explanations of nineteenth-​ century politics in southern Africa depend upon, and which Kuper (1995: 11–​ 12) sets aside.

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Homesteads, pots, and marriage 181 Herbert, R.K. 1990. Hlonipha and the ambiguous woman. Anthropos 85: 455–​73. Hogg, A.G., Hua, Q., Blackwell, P.G., Niu, M., Buck, C.E., Guilderson, T.P., Heaton, T.J., Palmer, J.G., Reimer, P.J., Reimer, R.W., Turney, C.S.M. and Zimmerman, R.H. 2013. SHCal13 southern hemisphere calibration, 0–​50,000  years cal BP. Radiocarbon 55 (4): 1889–​903. Holmgren, K., Karlén, W., Lauritzen, S.E., Lee-​Thorp, J.A., Partridge, T.C., Piketh, S., Repinski, P., Stevenson, C., Svanered, O. and Tyson, P.D. 1999. A 3000-​year high-​resolution stalagmite-​based record of palaeoclimate for northeastern South Africa. Holocene 9 (3): 295–​309. Holmgren, K., Lee-​Thorp, J.A., Cooper, G.R., Lundblad, K., Partridge, T.C., Scott, L., Sithaldeen, R., Talma, A.S., Tyson, P.D. 2003. Persistent millennial-​scale climatic variability over the past 25,000  years in southern Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews 22: 2311–​26. Holmgren, K., Tyson, P.D., Moberg, A. and Svanered, O. 2001. A preliminary 3000-​ year regional temperature reconstruction for South Africa. South African Journal of Science 97: 49–​51. Huffman, T.N. 1982. Archaeology and ethnohistory of the African Iron Age. Annual Review of Anthropology 11: 133–​50. Huffman, T.N. 1989. Ceramics, settlements and Late Iron Age migrations. African Archaeological Review 7: 155–​82. Huffman, T.N. 1990. Broederstroom and the origins of cattle-​keeping in southern Africa. African Studies 49 (2): 1–​12. Huffman, T.N. 2001. The Central Cattle Pattern and interpreting the past. Southern African Humanities 13: 19–​35. Huffman, T.N. 2004. The archaeology of the Nguni past. Southern African Humanities 16: 79–​111. Huffman, T.N. 2007. Handbook to the Iron Age:  the archaeology of pre-​ colonial farming communities in southern Africa. Scottsville:  University of KwaZulu-​Natal  Press. Huffman, T.N. 2008. Climate change during the Iron Age in the Shashe-​Limpopo basin, southern Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 2032–​47. Huffman, T.N. 2012. Ritual space in pre-​colonial farming societies in southern Africa. Ethnoarchaeology 4 (2): 119–​46. Huffman, T.N. and Murimbika, M. 2003. Shona ethnography and Iron Age burials. Journal of African Archaeology 1 (2): 237–​46. Inskeep, R.R. and Maggs, T. 1975. Unique art objects in the Iron Age of the Transvaal, South Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin 30: 114–​38. Jolles, F. 2005. The origins of the twentieth century Zulu beer vessel styles. Southern African Humanities 17: 101–​51. Krige, E.J. 1962 (1936). The social system of the Zulus. 4th edition. Pietermaritzburg: Shuter & Shooter. Kuper, A. 1980. Symbolic dimensions of the Southern Bantu homestead. Africa 50 (1): 8–​23. Kuper, A. 1982. Wives for cattle:  bridewealth and marriage in southern Africa. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Kuper, A. 1987. South Africa and the anthropologist. London:  Routledge & Kegan Paul. Kuper, A. 1993. The ‘house’ and Zulu political structure in the nineteenth century. Journal of African History 34: 469–​87.

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Homesteads, pots, and marriage 183 Schofield, J.F. 1948. Primitive pottery:  an introduction to South African ceramics, prehistoric and protohistoric. Handbook Series 3.  Cape Town:  South African Archaeological Society. Shaw, E.M. and Van Warmelo, N.J. 1974. The material culture of the Cape Nguni, Part 2: Technology. Annals of the South African Museum 58 (2): 103–​214. Shepherd, N. 2003. State of the discipline:  science, culture and identity in South African archaeology, 1870–​ 2003. Journal of Southern African Studies 29 (4): 823–​44. Stuiver, M. and Reimer, P.J. 1993. Extended 14C data base and revised Calib 3.0 14C age calibration program. Radiocarbon 35: 215–​30. Taylor, M.O.V. 1984. Southern Transvaal stone walled sites—​a spatial consideration. In M. Hall, G. Avery, D.M. Avery, M.L. Wilson and A.J.B. Humphreys (eds), Frontiers: southern African archaeology today. Cambridge monographs in African archaeology 10. Oxford: BAR, pp. 248–​51. Tyson, P.D., Karlén, W., Holmgren, K. and Heiss, G.A. 2000. The Little Ice Age and medieval warming in South Africa. South African Journal of Science 96: 121–​6. Wadley, L. 1987. Later Stone Age hunters and gatherers of the southern Transvaal:  social and ecological interpretation. Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 15. BAR International Series 380. Oxford: BAR. Welbourne, A. 1984. Endo ceramics and power strategies. In D. Miller and C. Tilley (eds), Ideology, power, and prehistory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  17–​24. Whitelaw, G. 1994. KwaGandaganda:  settlement patterns in the Natal Early Iron Age. Natal Museum Journal of Humanities 6: 1–​64. Whitelaw, G. 2004. Iron Age hilltop sites of the early to mid-​second millennium AD in KwaZulu-​Natal, South Africa. In K. Sanogo, T. Togola, D. Keïta and M. N’Daou (eds), Proceedings of the 11th Congress of the PanAfrican Association for Prehistory and Related Studies, Bamako, February 2001. Bamako: Soro Print Colour, pp. 38–​51. Whitelaw, G. 2013. Pollution concepts and marriage for the southern African Iron Age. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 23 (2): 203–​25. Wood, M. 2002. Poupée de fertilité: an interview revisited. In J.A. van Schalkwyk and E.O.M. Hanisch (eds), Sculptured in clay: Iron Age figurines from Schroda, Limpopo Province, South Africa. Pretoria: National Cultural History Museum, pp.  81–​93. Wright, J. 2010. Putting Bokoni on the historian’s map. African Studies 69 (2): 229–​233. Wylie, A. 2002. Thinking from things:  essays in the philosophy of archaeology. Berkeley: University of California Press.

8 A  cognitive approach to the ordering of the world Some case studies from the Sotho-​ and Tswana-​speaking people of South Africa Johan van Schalkwyk1 [For Malinowski] … the past has no explanatory value, [but], when it does appear in discourse as a subject matter it has to be explained in terms of the present. (Bloch 1977: 278)

Working in a museum as a cultural anthropologist-​cum-​archaeologist, I have always been intrigued by the disconnectedness between what I learnt from research participants on the production and use of a wide range of ‘traditional’ artifacts, and what one reads in reports on similar items recovered archaeologically. I understand that there has to be some neutral or common ‘language’ that would make possible the comparison of similar or dissimilar sites and objects, but the failure to take archaeological explanation one step further, to follow up on what artifacts meant to the people who produced them, effectively de-​populates the archaeological site, so to speak. Exceptions do occur. David Lewis-​Williams (1982) used ethnographic information to shed light on the role and function of San rock art; Janette Deacon (1992) worked on the significance of San arrows; Iron Age archaeologists Tim Maggs (1976), Mike Evers (1988), Jannie Loubser (1991), Tom Huffman (2007) and Gavin Whitelaw (2015) all used ethnographic information extensively to shed light on the worldview of southern African Iron Age societies. For other more specific themes, examples of the use of ethnographic information include Küsel (1979) on metallurgy, Morton and Hitchcock (2014) on hunting, and Whitelaw (2009) on fishing. But concerns also exist—​see, for example, Hall (1984) and Lane (1994–​95), who caution on the use and abuse of ethnographic information. For most cultural anthropologists, cultural behavior can and should be studied and categorized only according to the insider’s view, the actor’s definition of human events. It follows that the unit of conceptualization—​in anthropological theories—​should be ‘discovered’ by analyzing the cognitive processes of the people studied (also referred to as the ‘emic’ approach). This

 

Cognitive approach to ordering the world 185 approach can be contrasted with the ‘etic’ approach, which can be equated with the Western scientific mode of creating classification systems ‘imposed’ from cross-​cultural classifications of behavior (Frake 1962; Sturtevant 1964; Pelto and Pelto 1978). The emic approach rose to prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and led to what was varyingly referred to as ‘ethnoscience’, ‘folk science’, or ‘the New Ethnography’ (Sturtevant 1964: 99). It also spilled over into archaeology, where it became known as ‘cognitive archaeology’, and even ‘living archaeology’ (Gould 1980). In its main, it strives to reveal, through a study of cultural and linguistic expression, the manner in which societies have come to conceive of their own world, and it involves techniques designed to expose the working of particular cultural taxonomies. Leaving aside the quagmire of theoretical approaches such as Marxism, structuralism, post-​processualism and various critiques of ‘ethnoscience’, or whichever label is preferred, what follows is simply an exploratory look at the manner in which groups of people establish understanding of their world and thereby create order for themselves. I do this based largely on my experiences over many years of studying mostly Sotho-​and Tswana-​speaking communities in southern Africa, as well as in curating and researching a vast collection of ‘traditional’ southern African artifacts housed at the Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History in Pretoria. The term Sotho is generally used to refer to the group of people living on the central plateau region of the northern parts of South Africa and in Botswana. They differ from Nguni speakers with regards to the language they speak as well as in social organization. Sotho speakers can broadly be divided into different groupings, each of which can again be subdivided into smaller units (Van Schalkwyk 2001): • •

•

•

Southern Sotho, located in Lesotho and the eastern Free State of South Africa; Western Sotho, or Tswana, located in Botswana, and the Northern Cape and North West provinces of South Africa, and comprising groups such as the Fokeng, Hurutshe, Kgatla, Kwena, Ngwato, Ngwaketse and Rolong; Northern Sotho, located mostly in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces of South Africa. The central section of the Northern Sotho includes the Pedi and related groups such as the Roka, Tau, Kwena and Koni. The northern groups consist of the Mathabathe, Mphahlele and Dikgale, with the Hananwa, Koni and Tlokwa even further to the north; The Eastern Sotho include the Kgaga, Phalaborwa, Sekororo, Tlhabine and Lovedu, all of which were influenced to various degrees by Venda-​ speakers. Smaller groupings such as the Pai, Pulana and Kutswe are located below the escarpment in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa.

186  Johan van Schalkwyk

Folk taxonomy The quest to bring conceptual order to the world, it seems, is one of the basic tenets of life (Hammond-​Tooke 1981; Atran 1990). Without the necessary order, chaos would reign. To attain that, everything has to be understood and placed in its correct hierarchical position, irrespective of its origins. Past interpretations and understandings of the world were largely formed and informed by religious viewpoints and myths. In Western Europe, during the age of exploration, roughly from the sixteenth century onwards, large bodies of information, artifacts and specimens accumulated by European scholars and laymen alike challenged existing notions of the self and others. Efforts to understand this material eventually gave rise to the science of taxonomy, which initially was decidedly unsystematic. It was only when Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist, working in the eighteenth century, produced a series of scholarly works that revolutionized the field of taxonomy, that it became the scientific discipline that today forms the basis for organizing human knowledge (Smith 2017).2 Taxonomies can be described as classes of phenomena arranged by those criteria that show the relationships of the things included. Simply put, is ‘B’ a kind of ‘A’? Classification begins with a general concept, which is then subdivided into more precise categories and terms, which are again segregated. This process is repeated until no further subdivisions are possible. With each separation the levels become more explicit and the differences between groups of items more miniscule. According to Louwrens (2001: 149), five major natural groupings are distinguishable in folk-​taxonomies:  (i) Unique beginner (e.g., ‘plant’); (ii) Life form (e.g., ‘tree’, ‘shrub’, ‘grass’); (iii) Generic (e.g., ‘Fig’); (iv) Specific (e.g., ‘Rock-​fig’); (v) Varietal (e.g., ‘Red-​leaved rock fig’). The first level, called the unique beginner, is the all-​inclusive general category. Successive distinctions are then made by judging items in terms of similarity and dissimilarity so as to form additional categories. But, importantly, the main evidence for the existence of a category is the fact that it is named (Sturtevant 1964: 106), underlining one of the basic functions of taxonomy.

The animal world One area in which it seems that there is a universal attempt to bring conceptual order is in the classification of animals. Animal classification is a potentially important area for understanding symbolic codes or systems, for as Hammond-​Tooke (1981:  131) notes, Lévi-​Strauss has shown that ‘Species are chosen not as good to eat but as good to think’. In other words, they can be used to symbolize certain abstract concepts through perceived resemblances and differences that are deemed appropriate in figuring the idea to be expressed. The rhinoceros provides an excellent southern African example (Table 8.1), as reflected in its appropriation as a leadership referent in chiefly praise poems, … [and] the use of rhino figurines as didactic tools during

 

Cognitive approach to ordering the world 187 Table 8.1 Rhino names adapted from Boeyens and Van der Ryst (2014: 32) Generic term Tshukudu (white or black rhinoceros) Black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis)

White rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum)

• bodile (small, short-​horned) • kenenyane (short-​horned) • kgetlwa (large very long-​horned, with horns of almost equal length) • makgala/​makgale (black rhino bull) • thema/​theme

• mogofu/​mogobu (large, long-​horned) • kobaoba (large, very long long-​horned)

initiation (Boeyens and Van der Ryst 2014:  21). … The cultural significance of the rhino is borne out by Tswana nomenclature and folk taxonomy. Besides the generic term tshukudu, Tswana speakers had no fewer than five different names for the black rhino and two for the white rhino. These names were coined mainly to distinguish between variants of each species on the basis of horn and body size. (Boeyens and Van der Ryst 2014: 49) In southern Africa, the conceptual ordering of animals is commonplace. Authors such as Van Zyl (1952), Quin (1959), Mönnig (1967) and Hammond-​Tooke (1981) have demonstrated these systems amongst Tswana and Northern Sotho speakers. For the other language groups, although it is alluded to in some ethnographies, for example, Junod (1927, Tsonga), Bigalke (1966, Cape Nguni) and Bryant (1967, Zulu), comprehensive descriptions are not available. Animals are subdivided into the following categories (I use Sepedi terminology): • • • • •

diruiwa—​domestic animals, such as cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens diphoofolo—​walking creatures, constituting amphibians, mammals and reptiles dinonyana—​flying creatures, includes all birds digagabi—​crawling creatures, includes all snakes dihlapi—​swimming creatures, includes all fish

Insects, many of which are eaten, are collectively known as manyeunyeu3 and are classified as: • • • •

diboko—​caterpillars dikhunkwane—​beetles ditšiê—​locusts and grasshoppers ditšhošwane—​ants and termites

188  Johan van Schalkwyk These categories are not clear-​cut and there are exceptions that can only be comprehended from a culturally appropriate background. For example, animals that do not fit neatly into the primary categories of the classification system tend to be singled out for special rituals. A notable example is the pangolin (kgaga), a land-​dwelling animal which goes out at night, but has scales like a fish. They are viewed as ‘crown game’ and, upon killing one, that person must immediately report it to the chief, who can lay claim to the dead animal. Meat and other body-​parts of ‘ambiguous’ animals are used in rituals and medicines, including those related to rainmaking. Sotho-​Tswana speakers make a distinction between animals of the home—​ domesticated animals (diphoofolo tša gae)—​and animals of the veld—​wild animals (diphoofolo tša naga). Further levels of classification that follow from this distinction separate the edible and non-​edible. With regard to domestic animals, a distinction is also made between animals that are herded (cattle, goats, sheep), and so fall within the male domain, and animals that are not herded (pigs, fowls), which fall within the female domain (Fig. 8.1). As is the case with the rhino, cattle, which play a highly significant role, are still further classified. The Sotho and Tswana have extensive terminology based largely on color and color combinations for describing cattle, including

Figure 8.1 Appropriating the other, asserting the self: wearing female beadwork and cattle horns as dance costume (Hananwa: Northern Sotho). Photograph by Johan van Schalkwyk

 

Cognitive approach to ordering the world 189 names for differences in build and, in particular, for the various shapes of horns (Mönnig 1967: 169). The same color term is usually used for male and female animals except that in the case of females the diminutive is used by adding a suffix -​ana. For example, red is khunou (male) and khunwana (female), and white is tshweu (male) and tshwana (female) (Van Zyl 1952). A similar system of color identification, probably even more complex, exists amongst Nguni speakers (Soga 1932; Poland et  al. 2003). (Also see Louwrens and Taljard (2008) for a linguistic explanation on the origin of cattle in southern Africa based on the terminology used for describing skin-​color patterns.)

The plant world As with animals, the world of plants is also ordered—​in a way that runs almost parallel to the animal world. The use of wild and domesticated plants is well-​documented in South Africa (e.g., Van Zyl 1952; Quin 1959; Fox and Norwood Young 1982; Van Wyk and Gericke 2007; Van Wyk et al. 2009). Unfortunately, most works list only the vernacular name and its use, but do not explain the indigenous system of ordering of the plants (Louwrens (1996, 1999), and Moteetee and Van Wyk (2006) provide exceptions). Again, the first level of classification separates plants of the veld from plants of the home. A second level distinguishes edible plants from those used for other purposes, such as medicine. Although the variety of edible wild plants outnumbers domesticated food plants, their total contribution to the diet is much lower. Medicinal plants, on the other hand, are almost all classified as plants from the veld; few, if any, are cultivated (Fig. 8.2). As with cattle, where skin-​color patterns are used to distinguish between different cattle, in the plant world other levels of categorization also occur. Moteetee and Van Wyk (2006), working in Lesotho, showed how plants are classified into different categories on the basis of their characteristics, size, habitat and taste. A few examples are presented here: • • • •

Names based on the characteristics of the plant, e.g., Empodium plicatum > leihlo-​la-​khomo, ‘eye of the cow’, so named because its flower resembles an eye of a cow; Names based on the size of the plant, e.g., Mentha aquatica > koena-​e-​ nvenyane, ‘the small crocodile’; Names based on the habitat of the plant, e.g., Eulophia hians > mametsana-​a-​manyenyane, ‘mother of little water’, because the plants are found in wet places; Names based on the taste of the plant, e.g., Oxalis species > bolila, ‘the sour plant’, because the leaves are extremely sour.

On a linguistic level, one finds that further distinctions are possible. Louwrens (2001) shows that Northern Sotho and Tswana plant names for shrubs have a strong tendency for some or other form of repetition or reduplication in

190  Johan van Schalkwyk

Figure 8.2 Traditional healer’s shop selling plant remedies, downtown Pretoria, South Africa. Photograph by Johan van Schalkwyk

their sound pattern—​mosêlêsêlê (Dichrostachys cinerea), for instance. By contrast, this phenomenon is hardly ever encountered in the case of trees, for example, morula (Sclerocarya birrea). This phenomenon of reduplication, it is argued, is employed cognitively to differentiate between the life forms (see earlier) ‘shrub’ and ‘tree’ according to their most obvious difference, namely ‘multi-​stemmedness’ versus ‘single stemmedness’. Although further research is required, it is quite possible that the principle of reduplication is also used for other categories, in the case of insects (manyeunyeu; see earlier), especially of the swarming kind.

The world of artifacts As with the world of living organisms, the social-​cultural world (inclusive also of domesticated plants and animals) also has to be ordered. As we are

 

Cognitive approach to ordering the world 191 here largely dealing with archaeology, that is, the material remains of the intangible aspects of life, I focus on artifacts and their role in society. This is a topic that runs very deep in cultural anthropology, art history, and even archaeology. Hodder (1982), Reynolds (1984), Appadurai (1986), Pearce (1986), Pfaffenberger (1988), Gell (1996, 1998), Tilley et al. (2006), and Rubio (2016), to name but a few, all consider it from various angles. According to Rubio (2016:  60), the problem with many approaches to material culture is that objects are viewed to be self-​evident. Yet, they are anything but that. Following Gell (1998), who sees artifacts as endowed with a distinct kind of ‘material’ agency, we should look at what they do rather than focusing on what they stand for. And what artifacts do is mediate in a complex world of relationships, because “artefacts [are] residues of complex intentionalities” (Gell 1996: 37). But, very importantly, Gell emphasizes that artifacts can only be understood “within the framework of relevant ethnography”. In order to illustrate this point, within the framework of classifying and ordering of the lived-​in world, I  look at two categories of artifacts:  first, pottery, which has been in use in southern Africa for nearly two millennia, and secondly, a domesticated, but exotic plant that has assumed an important role in ritual and religious life—​tobacco. Pottery In no other discipline has the classification of a category of artifacts become so prominent as is the case with pottery in archaeology. As pottery is virtually indestructible, archaeologists use decorations on pottery vessels to distinguish between different groups of people, and even periods in time. This latter distinction is based on the phenomenon that cultural behavior is patterned behavior, so that people with shared backgrounds draw on a common set of decorative motifs for a wide range of objects (Huffman 1980, 2007; Evers 1988). In southern African archaeology, it has become standard practice to analyze pottery according to a procedure developed by Tom Huffman (1980) based on the above approach. In this procedure, multidimensional types are formed by using three independent variables: the layout of the decoration, decorative motifs, and the sectional profile of the vessel. It is an extremely useful procedure and is applied locally by archaeologists to distinguish various cultural groupings, especially those dating to the African Iron Age. However, in this approach, the functional types as well as undecorated vessels are usually disregarded. In contrast, people recognize different categories of ceramic vessels based largely on function (see Huffman 1972 for a description of functional types as distinguished by the Shona of Zimbabwe). At a first level of classification, people separate vessels used in public from those that are used privately. This distinction is to a large extent visually evident as the former group is usually decorated, whereas the latter group has very little decoration.

192  Johan van Schalkwyk At a lower level of classification, most Sotho speakers distinguish around eight to ten functional types, whereas the Venda identify up to eighteen different types (Van der Lith 1960). However, linguistically, these functional types are clustered into three, sometimes four, different classes. Pottery, in Sepedi, is collectively referred to as dipitša, which is the term also employed for cooking pots. Vessels for the presentation of food or beer are known as moeta/​motšega, followed by an indication of the type of food or beer (difference in size are indicated by applying the diminutive so, moetana/​ motšegana). The last category is vessels such as wash bowls (lehlapelo), or bowls for food (thiswana). The significance of this classification and its importance in the construction and maintenance of social order can be explained by a closer analysis of the decorations employed on the pottery vessels. As noted, it is mostly vessels that are used in public space that are extensively decorated, and information for understanding this involves a look at the linguistic basis underlying the making and use of pottery. Looking at it linguistically, again drawing on the Sotho-​and Tswana-​ speaking world, it becomes clear that pots can be seen as a metaphor for life, from earth/​clay shaped by women into a container/​house, or the womb, to a woman preparing food in pots to nurture her family, to eventual death and burial, when the pot is broken, signaling the end of the life of that individual. This is expressed, for example, in Sepedi in the following terminology:  the word bopa means ‘to create, mold, or form’, ‘the physical features of the world’, ‘the universe’, but, depending on the noun class in which it is used, can also refer to ‘clay’ (mmopa), the ‘potter’ (mmopi), the ‘act of working with clay’ (mmopo), and the ‘womb’ (popi) (Van Schalkwyk 2016).4 In this conceptual realm pottery can thus be seen to serve as a metaphor for people or life, and different decorative motifs are often linked to elements of the human body, its decoration as well as clothing, all of which have a role in the creation and manipulation of social meaning, especially in the context of maintaining or asserting of political power, chief versus commoners, as well as social power, between male and female, young and old (Shennan 2000). Pottery is such an important artifact that it is actually used in each of the various stages through which a person goes in his or her life (Van Schalkwyk 2016). For Turner (2012: 486), the surface of the body, as the common frontier of society, the society self, and the psycho-​biological individual; becomes the symbolic stage upon which the drama of socialization is enacted, and bodily adornment (in all its culturally multifarious forms, from body-​painting to clothing and from feather head-​dresses to cosmetics) becomes the language through which it is expressed.

 

Cognitive approach to ordering the world 193

Figure 8.3 Decorating a beer pot, expressing cultural symbols (Langa:  Northern Ndebele). Photograph by Kees van der Waal

In pottery, this is expressed in how the physical attributes of a pot are described—​the head (lip), the neck, the body. Even the surface of the vessel with its decorations can be equated with a person’s skin, or the garments worn by an individual, and, in the case of pots, women specifically. The colors, white, black and red, are used to cover a person’s body during various rituals of transition, expressing their state of ritual danger; the incisions on pots are likened to tattooing, and the applique decorations to cicatrization, or bodily scarification; and combinations of all of these can be interpreted as elements of clothing and other personal decorations (Van Schalkwyk 2002) (Fig. 8.3). In Sepedi, colored decorations mostly found on beer vessels are simply referred to as mabitsi, which is also the name given to the very colorful group of Mylabris beetles, commonly called blister beetles or, in South Africa, CMR beetles.5 Interestingly, these beetles are said to be used in the treatment of a certain illness (khutla) that usually arises when some form of sexual transgression takes place between men and women (Van Schalkwyk 2016). Taking this theme forward, the Pedi refer to the parallel grooves below the lip of a beer vessel as mahlaka, that is, the reeds that are used to screen off different areas of the household, thus separating private from public

194  Johan van Schalkwyk space. It is important to remember that some types of pots are for private use only, whereas others are for public use, and it is therefore significant that beer vessels—​which are for public use—​are decorated in this manner. But, the term mahlaka can also refer to scars made on the body. In the old days (and to some extent still today), parallel cuts were made on the upper legs of girls during initiation. The logic behind this action and the names of these scars are kept as a secret of the koma (initiation school), and not shared with uninitiated people, least of all men. However, scars on the body are also referred to as letlôkô, which is the same term that is used to describe the decorations on the front apron (thetho) worn by married women. The correlation between the scarring of an initiated girl, indicating that she is ready for marriage, and the decorated apron worn by married women is obvious (Van Schalkwyk 2016). The triangular black decorations on the shoulder of vessels are known as peolane, which is a reference to the tail of a swallow (Cecropis sp.). It also refers to the ntepa or rear apron worn by girls and married women. Not only is the ntepa cut in the form of a swallow’s tail, but, for married women, it is also colored black with motšhidi, burned sourplum seeds. This latter medicine is also used to treat a widow, whose whole body is colored black. As recently widowed women are seen to be in a state of ritual impurity, it is believed that this medicine has purifying properties that will assist them in overcoming this state. Furthermore, the tips of the widow’s ntepa would be cut off to further indicate her status as widow (Pauw 1990: 79). The decorations on pottery, in the case of the Pedi, therefore, not only emphasize but also serve to regulate relationships between people, especially men and women. It is only beer pots that are decorated in this manner, as their use is the one place where interaction between male and female takes place and is where all manner of transgressions can happen.6 Therefore, by handling the pot while drinking beer, people are subconsciously reminded of the various codes of behavior that are operating to maintain social order. Other vessels such as food bowls, although also decorated, do not have this particular type of decoration as they operate in a more private and therefore a more intimate role. This contrasts sharply with wash bowls (lehlapelo), which, in the Sotho world are used mainly by men, and have decorations similar to that of beer pots. This ordering of social life or interaction goes down to an even deeper level, for example, at specific events where it further serves to establish order, as illustrated by the manner in which beer is consumed during a funeral, where beer is shared out in a very deliberate manner. Although similar-​ looking pots are used across the various contexts, beer that has been brewed for a funeral is shared in the following manner: •

Family members and in-​laws of the deceased receive pots of beer known as tima molato (extinguish the problem), implying that problems that might have arisen amongst them are solved;

 

Cognitive approach to ordering the world 195 •

•

The men who dug the grave drink beer known as bjalwa bja diphiri (beer of the hyenas) outside the homestead. These men are regarded as ritually impure and have to keep their distance from the others until they have been cleansed. Even the pots used for presenting this beer are washed outside the homestead before they are returned to storage with the others; Opportunistic visitors who join the event, perhaps while out searching for their donkeys (ditonki), drink pots of beer called bjalwa bja banyaki ba ditonki (beer of the donkey seekers).

Tobacco I now turn to the second example, plants, which not only undergo transformation in their preparation for consumption, but also in the roles played in the ordering of life. An excellent example is snuff (motšoko/​fola). Tobacco is of foreign origin, but, once accepted into society, it took on a dominant place in structures employed to bring about order in those very societies. Cultivated by women and then ground by them into snuff, usually in a special clay bowl with an abraded surface, it effectively becomes the property of males, irrespective of whether it was produced in the field or in the garden at home. This appropriation is a reflection of the structure of patrilineal societies with an emphasis on male domination in all aspects of life: snuff becomes central in all rituals and ceremonies where the most senior male in the extended family functions as the social, political and religious leader and officiates at all proceedings. Snuff (motšoko) is usually kept in a container known as thekgo or motsokwana, the latter word which is in the diminutive and is also used to refer to the genitalia of small boys. Interestingly, a large proportion of Sotho-​Tswana snuff boxes have a strongly phallic appearance, a feature generally not exhibited by Nguni snuff boxes (Fig. 8.4). When still young, a boy goes about naked in the courtyard. The old women might jokingly grab at his genitalia and make as if they are taking snuff, and then mimic sneezing, after which they would praise the boy as ‘having strong snuff’. This might then be followed by a discussion of who he should marry when he is older. The discussion on a boy’s mate for marriage at such an early stage is of cardinal importance as there is the expectation that a young man should marry a cousin, preferably a cross-​cousin (mother’s brother’s daughter or father’s sister’s daughter), but alternatively, on rare occasions, a parallel cousin (father’s brother’s daughter). This, of course, does not only impact on the young boy and girl, but on the agnatic group as whole, due to the transferal of bridewealth (bogadi), usually in the form of cattle. This ‘prescriptive’ system of bridewealth was expressed in the strong link created between a brother and a sister, as the marriage goods that were obtained from the sister’s marriage were used to obtain a wife for her brother (see Kuper 1982; Hammond-​Tooke 1993). Therefore, livestock (that is cattle, sheep and goats) is never the concern of one household alone, and nearly every household is in this way linked to other households through

196  Johan van Schalkwyk

Figure 8.4 Male dominance expressed in social context:  snuff containers (Tau:  Central Sotho). From the collections of the Ditsong Museum of Cultural History, South Africa. Photograph by Johan van Schalkwyk

long-​term, ongoing bridewealth debts and credits (Ferguson 1985: 657–​8). As Comaroff & Comaroff (1990: 204) state, “beasts built social identities, individual and collective, and they gave men the basis to engage as actors in the public arena”. The next time snuff is actively used in the life of the boy is when it is taken as a present for his potential future parents-​in-​law to initiate marriage negotiations. Snuff is used to facilitate meetings throughout the extensive negotiations on the number of cattle to be transferred, and on the identity of the contributor’s from the boy’s side of the family. Of course, all through life, people who want access to the ancestors offer snuff at the family shrine in the courtyard, or at a particular ancestor’s grave. Finally, after death, a person’s descendants use snuff to access his or her ancestral form.

Discussion I have tried to show how linguistics and ethnographic information can contribute to the formation of an insider or cognitive viewpoint that assists us in understanding the world as it is constructed and ordered by others. In southern Africa, this conceptual ordering as described here is, for some, still in everyday use and the knowledge is generally conveyed orally (e.g., Siko 2016). Such an approach in interpretation draws descendant communities into an active role in the production of archaeological pasts. In South Africa, much archaeology was, and to some extent still is, produced within an environment that lacks any input from indigenous

 

Cognitive approach to ordering the world 197 societies. Ethnography suffered a similar fate, being purely descriptive in nature, in most cases ignoring the interrelationship of language and culture. This, according to Saville-​Troike (1986:  249), has to do with the inertia of established disciplines and the difficulties in transcending disciplinary boundaries. The problem lies in the difference between a particular social system or institution as presented by the anthropologist/​archaeologist for analytical or comparative purposes, and the ‘same’ system or institution as is seen by the members of the society themselves. Small-​scale societies do not generate theoretical models that can be made to fit into overarching theoretical approaches. Rather, they speak to local environments, natural and social-​cultural. In the words of Hammond-​Tooke (1993: 217), “Each culture is perceived as a perfectly valid ‘design for living’ which suits its bearers perfectly”. If we can transcend that boundary, through the application of ethnography and linguistics, and gain insight into their cognitive processes, it would help to create a better understanding of their present, and past. Animals and plants are now not just part of the daily diet, relegated to statistical expressions in lists of minimum number of individuals or as part of seasonal activities. Rather, they become signifiers of the complex world of social, verbal and ideational interactions in the life of a group of people. Similarly, artifacts, in their manifold manifestations, play an active role in mediating in a complex world of relationships that plays out on a daily basis to structure and bring order and understanding to people’s lives.

Acknowledgments This chapter is based in part on my MA dissertation, as well as later ongoing research, some of which were presented in earlier papers (Van Schalkwyk 1985, 2010, 2016). I would like to thank two long-​standing associates at the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of South Africa, for their constructive comments on draft versions of this paper.

Notes 1 Formerly, Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History, Pretoria; jvschalkwyk@ mweb.co.za. 2 However, it is acknowledged that the process of methodically classifying into ordered categories—​ effectively taxonomy—​ has been a fundamental part of science since antiquity. 3 For more on this term, see the explanation of the concept ‘reduplication’ later in this chapter. 4 Refer to Ziervogel and Mokgokong (1975) for a discussion of the various noun classes and their structure. 5 For their resemblance to the uniforms of the Cape Mounted Riflemen, the name of two successive regiments of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The CMR adopted the beetle as its insignia.

198  Johan van Schalkwyk 6 Although separation between men and women takes place during events where beer is consumed, it is not as strictly adhered to as amongst the Zulu, where, for example, wives were not allowed to attend a beer-​drink without their husbands.

References Appadurai, A. (ed.) 1986. The social life of things: commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Atran, S. 1990. Cognitive foundations of natural history. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Bigalke, E.H. 1966. Notes on the place of domestic and indigenous animals in Cape Nguni life. Annals of the Cape Provincial Museums 6 (1): 1–​16. Bloch, M. 1977. The past and the present in the present. Man (NS) 12: 278–​92. Boeyens, J.C.A. and Van der Ryst, M.M. 2014. The cultural and symbolic significance of the African rhinoceros: a review of the traditional beliefs, perceptions and practices of agropastoralist societies in southern Africa. South African Humanities 26: 21–​55. Bryant, A.T. 1967. The Zulu people. Pietermaritzburg: Shuter & Shooter. Comaroff, J.L. and Comaroff, J. 1990. Goodly beasts, beastly goods: cattle and commodities in a South African context. American Ethnologist 17 (2): 195–​216. Deacon, J. 1992. Arrows as agents of belief amongst the /​Xam Bushmen. Cape Town: South African Museum. Evers, T.M. 1988. The recognition of groups in the Iron Age of South Africa. PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand. Ferguson, J. 1985. The Bovine Mystique:  power, property and livestock in rural Lesotho. Man (N.S.) 20: 647–​74. Fox, F.W. & Norwood Young, M.E. 1982. Food from the veld: edible wild plants of southern Africa. Johannesburg: Delta Books. Frake, C.O. 1962. The ethnographic study of cognitive systems. In T. Gladwin and W.C. Sturtevant (eds), Anthropology and human behaviour. Washington, DC: Anthropological Society of Washington, pp. 72–​85. Gell, A. 1996. Vogel’s net:  traps as artworks and artworks as traps. Journal of Material Culture 1 (1): 15–​38. Gell, A. 1998. Art and agency: an anthropological theory. Oxford: Claredon Press. Gould, R.A. 1980. Living archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hall, M. 1984. The myth of the Zulu homestead:  archaeology and ethnography. Africa 54: 65–​79. Hammond-​Tooke, W.D. 1981. Boundaries and belief:  the structure of a Sotho worldview. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Hammond-​Tooke,W.D. 1993. The roots of black South Africa. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers. Hodder, I. 1982. Symbols in action. London: Cambridge University Press. Huffman, T.N. 1972. Shona pottery from Pumula Township, Bulawayo, Rhodesia. South African Archaeological Bulletin 27: 66–​81. Huffman, T.N. 1980. Ceramics, classification and Iron Age entities. African Studies 39 (2): 123–​74. Huffman, T.N. 1986. Cognitive studies of the Iron Age in southern Africa. World Archaeology 18 (1): 84–​95.

 

Cognitive approach to ordering the world 199 Huffman, T.N. 2007. Handbook to the Iron Age:  the archaeology of pre-​ colonial farming communities in southern Africa. Scottsville:  University of KwaZulu-​Natal  Press. Junod, H.A. 1927. The life of a South African tribe. Vol. II. London: MacMillan. Kuper, A. 1982. Wives for cattle:  bridewealth and marriage in southern Africa. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Küsel, U.S. 1979. ‘n Argeologiese studies van vroeë ystersmelting in Transvaal. M.A. dissertation, University of Pretoria. Lane, P. 1994–​95. The use and abuse of ethnography in the study of the southern African Iron Age. Azania 29–​30: 51–​64. Lewis-​Williams, J.D. 1982. The economic and social context of southern San rock art. Current Anthropology 23 (4): 429–​49. Loubser, J.H.N. 1991. The ethnoarchaeology of Venda-​speakers in southern Africa. Navorsinge van die Nasionale Museum, Bloemfontein 7 (8): 145–​464. Louwrens, L.J. 1996. Noord-​Sotho planttaksonomie: ‘n etnobiologiese perspektief. South African Journal of Linguistics Supplement 30: 53–​61. Louwrens, L.J. 1999. An ethnobiological investigation into Northern Sotho plant names. In R. Finlayson (ed.), African mosaic:  Festschrift for J.A. Louw. Pretoria: Unisa Press, pp. 285–​310. Louwrens, L.J. 2001. Reduplication in Sotho plant names and the cognitive salience of life forms. South African Journal of Ethnology 24 (4): 146–​60. Louwrens, L.J. & Taljard, E. 2008. Cattle colour terminology in South Africa. Anthropology Southern Africa 31 (3 & 4): 95–​102. Maggs, T. 1976. Iron Age communities of the southern Highveld. Pietermaritzburg: Natal Museum. Mönnig, H.O. 1967. The Pedi. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik. Morton, F. and Hitchcock, R. 2014. Tswana hunting:  continuities and changes in the Transvaal and Kalahari after 1600. South African Historical Journal 66 (3): 418–​39. Moteetee, A. and Van Wyk, B-​E. 2006. Sesotho names for exotic and indigenous edible plants in southern Africa. Bothalia 36 (1): 25–​32. Pauw, B.A. 1990. Widows and ritual danger in Sotho and Tswana communities. African Studies 49 (2): 75–​99. Pearce, S.M. 1986. Objects as signs and symbols. Museums Journal 86 (3): 131–​5. Pelto, P.J. and Pelto, G.H. 1978. Anthropological research: the structure of inquiry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pfaffenberger, B. 1988. Fetishised objects and humanised nature: towards an anthropology of technology. Man (NS) 23 (2): 236–​52. Poland, M., Hammond-​Tooke, [W.]D. and Voigt, L. 2003. The abundant herds:  a celebration of the cattle of the Zulu people. Vlaeberg: Fernwood. Quin, P.J. 1959. Foods and feeding habits of the Pedi. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Reynolds, B. 1984. Material culture:  a system of communication. Margaret Shaw Lecture I. Cape Town: South African Museum. Rubio, F.D. 2016. On the discrepancy between objects and things:  an ecological approach. Journal of Material Culture 21 (1): 59–​86. Saville-​ Troike M. 1986. The ethnography of communication. New  York:  Basil Blackwell.

200  Johan van Schalkwyk Shennan, S. 2000. Population, culture history, and the dynamics of culture change. Current Anthropology 41 (5): 811–​35. Siko, M.N. 2016. The use of the Athrixia phylicoides plant in Tshwane: an anthropological study. M.A. dissertation, University of South Africa. Smith, D. 2017. The little book of big ideas. London: Michael O’Mara Books. Soga, J.H. 1932. The Ama-​Xosa: life and customs. Lovedale: Lovedale Press. Sturtevant, W.C. 1964. Studies in ethnoscience. American Anthropologists 66 (3): 99–​131. Tilley, C., Keane, W., Küchler, S., Rowlands, M. and Spyer, P. (eds.) 2006. Handbook of material culture. London: Sage. Turner, T.S. 2012. The social skin. Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 2 (2): 486–​ 504. (Reprint of the 1980 original). Van der Lith, A.A. 1960. Die keramiek van die Venda. MA dissertation, University of Pretoria. Van Schalkwyk, J.A. 1985. Die tegniese skeppinge van die Molepo van Thabamoopo. MA dissertation, University of Pretoria. Van Schalkwyk, J.A. 2001. Sotho. In M. Ember, C.R. Ember and I. Skoggard (eds), Encyclopedia of world cultures:  supplement. New  York:  Macmillan Reference USA, pp. 319–​23. Van Schalkwyk, J.A. 2002. Metaphors and meanings: contextualizing the Schroda clay figurines. In J.A. van Schalkwyk and E.O.M. Hanisch (eds), Sculptured in clay:  Iron Age figurines from Schroda, Limpopo Province, South Africa. Pretoria: National Cultural History Museum, pp. 69–​80. Van Schalkwyk, J.A. 2010. Naming it for what it is:  a cognitive approach to the ordering of the world. In S. Le Roux (ed.), Festschrift in honour of O.J.O. Ferreira. Gordonsbaai: Adamastor, pp. 87–​91. Van Schalkwyk, J.A. 2016. Dipitša ke Bophelo. Pretoria: Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History. Van Wyk, B-​E. and Gericke, N. 2007. People’s plants. Pretoria: Briza. Van Wyk, B-​E., Van Oudtshoorn, B. and Gericke, N. 2009. Medicinal plants of South Africa. Pretoria: Briza. Van Zyl, H.J. 1952. ‘n Volkekundige studie van die ekonomiese lewe en posisie van die Bakgatla-​bagaMosêtlha. DPhil thesis, University of Pretoria. Whitelaw, G. 2009. An Iron Age fishing tale. Southern African Humanities 21: 195–​212. Whitelaw, G. 2015. Economy and cosmology in the Iron Age of KwaZulu-​Natal. PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand. Ziervogel, D. and Mokgokong, P.C. 1975. Groot Noord-​Sotho-​Woordeboek. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik.

 

9 A  nthropomorphic pottery effigies as guardian spirits in the Lower Mississippi Valley David H. Dye1

With few exceptions recent archaeological analyses and interpretations that place emphasis on past belief systems have been lacking in the Lower Mississippi Valley, especially those embracing ethnographic and ethnohistoric perspectives. Tunican speakers, Mississippian people in the Lower Mississippi Valley between the Ohio River and the Arkansas River, crafted a wide range of ceramics reflecting cosmological beliefs and religious practice. Lower Mississippi Valley researchers base Tunican identity on archaeological, ethnohistoric, and linguistic evidence (Swanton 1911; Brain 1988; Hoffman 1995; Jeter 2002; Brain et al. 2004). Comparative analysis of whole vessels from museum holdings led William H. Holmes (1883) in the late nineteenth century to recognize the Tunican area of the Lower Mississippi Valley as a distinctive ceramic region, which he refers to as the ‘Middle Mississippi Province’. Robert Rankin (1993), employing sixteenth-​ century linguistic evidence, identifies the numerous polities as Tunican. Likewise, Mary Haas (1940) considers the Tunica language a linguistic isolate whose home resides in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Tunican speakers produced not only a virtually unique ceramic assemblage, but also a distinctive material culture that distinguishes them from their regional neighbors:  Caddoan speakers to the southwest, Central Algonquian speakers to the northeast, Dheghia Siouan speakers to the north, Iroquoian speakers to the east, Natchezan speakers to the south, and Western Muskogean speakers to the southeast. Culturally and linguistically sui generis, Tunican speakers had an ancient ancestry in the northern area of the Lower Mississippi Valley until contact with Europeans in the mid-​ seventeenth century, at which time they suffered a catastrophic population collapse, with surviving polity remnants moving downriver. In the late nineteenth century, archaeologists studying Tunican ceramics routinely raised questions concerning cosmology and ritual. They attempted to understand the meaning of Mississippian representational imagery by comparisons with images and motifs produced by prairie-​plains communities. Notable archaeologists such as William H. Holmes of the Smithsonian Institution, and Frederick W.  Putnam and Charles C.  Willoughby of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University,

202  David H. Dye interpreted Lower Mississippi Valley representational art, especially ceramic effigies and design motifs, by reference to contemporary ethnographic field work (Holmes 1883, 1885, 1886a, b, 1903; Putnam and Willoughby 1896; Willoughby 1897). Researchers during this early period in American archaeology considered further speculation as to the meaning and significance of specific ceramic forms and motifs unnecessary because the general nature of design motifs and veristic effigy forms were well-​understood. In this light, Holmes (1903: 100–​1) observed: “explanations must come from a study of the present people and usages, and among the Mississippi valley tribes there can be no doubt many direct survivals of the ancient forms”. Likewise, Willoughby (1897:  9) notes that the motifs are “mostly of symbolic origin, and were evidently closely associated with the religious beliefs and ceremonies of the people”. J.  Owen Dorsey (1884, 1885, 1894) and Alice Fletcher’s (1884, 1904) ethnographic fieldwork were important contributions to Holmes, Putnam, and Willoughby’s interpretations. These archaeologists based much of their early comparative and interpretive research on complete ceramic vessels from the northern half of the Lower Mississippi Valley. Noteworthy are the collections garnered by Edwin Curtiss of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University (Mainfort and Demb 2001; House 2003) and Wilfred P. Hall who shipped barrels and crates of complete vessels to the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences (Holmes 1886b; Griffin 1981). By the 1930s, changing attitudes and trends in American archaeology began to emphasize space and time systematics over the prior generation’s importance given to ethnohistoric accounts and ethnographic archives. As a large corpus of vessels were generally beyond the reach of routine archaeological investigations, pottery fragments began to constitute the basic unit of analysis, providing the large sample sizes necessary for statistical analysis in order to establish local and regional space-​time sequences. Lower Mississippi Valley archaeologists still eschew documentary evidence for religious beliefs, avoiding interpretations of representational imagery and motifs raised over a century before. In this chapter, I interrogate the problem of evaluating anthropomorphic imagery in the Tunican-​ speaking world of the Lower Mississippi Valley through ethnographic and ethnohistoric comparisons by evaluating the process of hypostatization in which Tunican potters materialized abstract concepts reflecting their belief systems, cosmologies, and ritual practices.

Chucalissa and Choctaws For a student starting out in archaeology, the Lower Mississippi Valley affords a wealth of opportunities with its extant museum collections and numerous Mississippian sites. I was first employed in archaeology with the C.H. Nash Museum (Chucalissa Indian Village) in Memphis, Tennessee. As

 

Anthropomorphic pottery effigies 203 an undergraduate anthropology major at Memphis State University (now University of Memphis) from 1969 to 1972, I  was responsible for analyzing artifacts, guiding tour groups, and participating in regional archaeological field investigations. For my growing intellectual curiosity, perhaps an equally influential component of my education was the daily interaction I had with the resident Choctaw who were employed as craftspeople and guides at Chucalissa. The Chucalissa story begins in 1938 when a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) crew initiated construction for the first African American state park east of the Mississippi River. The CCC workers soon discovered evidence of a major Mississippian town during their excavations for a swimming pool. New Deal officials contacted University of Tennessee archaeologist Thomas M.N. Lewis, who in turn sought out George A.  Lidberg Jr. to conduct excavations at the site in 1940 and 1941 under the supervision of Charles H. Nash (Hawley and Dye 2011). World War II brought a halt to the federal work-​relief programs in 1942, and any intention of developing the site as a state archaeological park vanished. However, in late 1954 the Tennessee Department of Conservation hired Nash to conduct additional excavations at the site with the renewed hope of creating an archaeological park, an idea proposed during Lidberg and Nash’s investigations over a decade earlier. As part of his efforts to ‘reconstruct’ a Mississippian site, Nash hired a Choctaw family from east-​central Mississippi to demonstrate native crafts and to guide school groups and visitors through the museum exhibits and reconstructed town. In 1964 Nash created a Choctaw festival, which was held each summer featuring ritual and social dances and contests such as stick-​ball games. In addition, the museum sponsored atlatl, blowgun, and bow-​and-​arrow demonstrations and offered Choctaw crafts for sale. By the time I began working at Chucalissa in 1969 a number of Choctaw people had moved to western Tennessee in response to the 1953 Federal Termination Act, which sought to assimilate Native Americans into the dominant American society, with the goal of eventually terminating government aid and protection. The museum employed two Choctaw families during the time I was a student and I spent time with them learning the language and gaining insights into traditional culture. Being from a remote area of east-​central Mississippi, the West Tennessee Choctaw are especially conservative in their beliefs and ritual practices, including herbalism, legerdemain, rainmaking, shamanic healing, and witchcraft. My association with the Choctaw revealed deeply held religious beliefs concerning spiritual power and traditional (shamanic) healers (alikchis) and witches (hopaiis). The Choctaws frequently related stories of legerdemain and shape-​shifting by conjurers, enchanters, magicians, and witches (fappo onuchi). Powerful religious practitioners known as ishtahoulos promoted supernatural definitions of power and acted as “mediators between people and supernatural forces, manipulated the weather, [and] foretold events” (O’Brien 2002:  106). The ishtahoulos utilized their skills as healers,

204  David H. Dye communicated with spiritual forces, and practiced legerdemain (Swanton 1922:  62–​3). While not considered witches, ishtahoulos enforced moral standards by exposing and ferreting out witches who caused misfortune, including physical and mental sickness. In particular, beliefs incorporated numerous animal spirits and anthropomorphic beings who could influence human affairs, including guardian birds known as bishkinik (yellow-​bellied sapsucker; Sphyrapicus varius) (Swanton 1931:  205), and an ishkitini, an agentive, malevolent, shape-​shifting, other-​than-​human-​person often identified as a supernatural owl associated with witchcraft (Swanton 1931: 198; Krech 2009: 147). With hindsight, I  now realize that components of the Choctaw belief system stem from the transformation of a past tradition of Mississippian religious sodalities based on shamanic healing and witchcraft in which animal spirits, culture heroes, deities, and transcendental beings provide health, power, and protection through appeasement, supplication, and veneration. Many elements of Choctaw religion comprise features of a cognitive and cosmological world in which the belief system, ritual practice, and spirituality were crucial components of everyday practice. From working at Chucalissa with its numerous whole vessels, and being privy to Choctaw accounts of spiritual beliefs, I  began to appreciate the close association between Mississippian ceramic representational imagery and motifs on the one hand, and contemporary Native American beliefs on the other. Thus, insights might be drawn concerning Mississippian cosmology and ritual based on the close ties between the archaeological record and ethnographic accounts.

Eastern North American guardian spirits, witches, and anthropomorphic imagery In her classic monograph on guardian spirits, Ruth Benedict (1923) notes that the guardian-​spirit complex existed throughout North America, but in southeastern North America it may be recognized only in part as a result of acculturative changes that have taken place in the years since European contact. But she observes that ethnohistoric records “establish the reality of the aboriginal trait” in the Southeast where guardian spirits were always animate beings (Benedict 1923: 16). Benedict’s observations provide encouragement for archaeologists examining the material evidence of guardian or personal spirits. In general, tutelary spirits visited their human hosts through visions, providing health, power, protection, and success to the deserving supplicant. Clothing, colors, dances, games, and songs might reflect one’s name bestowed by a guardian or tutelary spirit. Women would sing songs taught them by their tutelary spirits for health and longevity. Finally, visions comprised the structure in which people, sometimes in drug-​induced states, conjured or

 

Anthropomorphic pottery effigies 205 supplicated their guardian spirits for benevolent or malevolent purposes. Benedict (1923:  19) points out that Datura (a genus of poisonous plants in the nightshade family) was routinely employed to enhance and promote the success of the vision experience as part of the guardian-​spirit quest. An individual’s personal guardian spirit might take pity in times of need and endow the supplicant with power, skills, and wealth as a result of vision-​ seeking practices. Plains medicine societies were founded on the concept of shared guardian spirits and personal patrons, and members possessed regalia derived from or representative of the animal dream/​vision or anthropomorphic spirit, culture hero, deity, or transcendental being. Their guardian spirits possessed magical powers that could aid owners by bestowing on them protection from danger and harm. Supplicated spirits imbued the recipients with sacred power and special skills, including legerdemain, which demonstrated hierophantic powers necessary to overcome death and withstand injury and pain (Benedict 1923; Irwin 1994). Beliefs in guardian spirits typically originated through a dream or a vision, during which the tutelary issued specific instructions to the supplicant to form a ritual solidarity in which to honor the spirit. In addition, the guardian spirit might specify appropriate ritual conduct and requisite regalia, often including the acquisition of the animal spirit’s pelt. While dream or vision spirits might provide extraordinary power, protection, and superb skills to a person, they might also inflict punishment, generally sickness, for breeches of ceremonial attention or insufficient ritual honor. Through legerdemain the animal spirit might become revivified. For example, before an inquiring assemblage of Frenchmen, a Naniaba (Fish Eater polity) chief named ‘Fine Teeth’ threw himself into a fire and came out unburnt. He then produced an otter-​skin bag, which he brought to life. The revivified otter ran among the Frenchmen, then returned to Fine Teeth and assumed its previous state as a personal medicine bundle (Swanton 1918: 62–​3). Father Jacques Marquette is perhaps one of the earliest observers of the role of guardian spirits in ritual context in the Mississippi Valley. He describes the Illini calumet ceremony as he participated in it during his Mississippi Valley explorations in 1673, shortly after the collapse of the Lower Mississippi Valley Tunican populations. Marquette writes that when the location for the calumet ceremony is selected, a large mat of rushes, painted in various colors, is spread in the middle of the place, and serves as a carpet upon which to place with honor the God of the person who gives the Dance; for each has his own god, which they call their Manitou. This is a serpent, a bird, or other similar thing, of which they have dreamed while sleeping, and in which they place all their confidence for the success of their war, their fishing, and their hunting. Near this Manitou, and at its right, is placed the Calumet in honor of which the feast is given.

206  David H. Dye He continues, Afterward, all come to take their seats in a circle under the [arbor] branches; but each one, on arriving, must salute the Manitou. This he does by inhaling the smoke [from the calumet pipe], and blowing it from his mouth upon the Manitou, as if he were offering to it incense. (Marquette 1899: 131–​4) We may derive several important points from Marquette’s narrative. The honored host for whom the calumet ceremony was performed possesses a Manitou or personal guardian spirit. The ethereal guardian spirit had been materialized or revivified in durable form, perhaps through legerdemain. The participants consider the materialized image of the Manitou incarnate; not a spiritual representation or transcendent proxy. It occupies a central role in the ritual program. The host places the Manitou on a mat in an honored ritual location as an active participant, not a passive image. The guardian spirit insures the Calumet ceremony’s success by its presence and has earlier visited (i.e., adopted) the ritual host during a dream. And the participants ‘salute’ the incarnate Manitou through smoke oblation upon entering the sanctified ritual space. Marquette thus provides a succinct summary of the guardian-​spirit complex among the Illini in the late seventeenth century. The Lenape (Delaware) and Menominee of eastern North America provide important ethnographic accounts of how tutelaries may be materialized. Their hypostatization of religious belief provides a connecting link between the archaeological record and ethnographic observations. These examples represent a widespread phenomenon of anthropomorphic images serving as intermediaries between human supplicants and transcendental beings, in which the appellant pleads for health, power, and protection. While such imagery may be used for beneficial ends, they may also be the objects of charmers and witches who employ them for nefarious purposes. Thus, representational imagery may reference benevolent (healing) or malevolent (sorcery/​witchcraft) beings. The Lenape The Lenape (Delaware) are Algonquian speakers whose historic territory lay along the Atlantic Coast between the Delaware and Hudson Valleys. When the earth was created the Great Manitou assigned lesser Manitou, known as Manitowuk, to serve as guardian spirits for humans. Four Manitowuk were associated with the world’s four quarters and were responsible for the direction of the winds through dice gaming. The Manitowuk of the south is known as ‘Our Grandmother’. These cardinal-​direction spirits were integral to the Annual Ceremony, a shamanic society that dealt with disease, health, and protection. Their activities took place in a ritual structure known as

 

Anthropomorphic pottery effigies 207 the Big House or temple. Receiving a personal guardian spirit, such as a Manitowuk, through a dream or vision, lay at the core of traditional Lenape belief and worship (Harrington 1913:  227, 1921:  61). Datura was often employed to enhance the vision experience. The Manitowuk guided and helped those who prayed to them in times of hardship and trouble (Weslager 1972: 66–​8). Lenape shamans were often empowered by spiritual forces to conjure or petition the Manitowuk in situations of distress for a person’s aid or comfort (Young 2001: 90). The Lenape crafted sacred, anthropomorphic images, usually carved from wood. These ‘dolls’ possessed life or, at least, were residences of spirits. They appear to have had no separate existence beyond the wooden figure (Harrington 1913, 1921). The sacred dolls understood what was said to them, protected the owner’s health, and enjoyed offerings bestowed upon them. As sentient beings they resented being ignored or ill-​treated and could inflict adversity and illness in response to inattention. Usually women kept these dolls, which were feted at annual feasts, when they were outfitted with new clothes. The dolls were matters of personal, not public, concern, and their rituals were held in private (Harrington 1921: 45–​6). During the Doll Dance—​known as ‘when our grandmother dances’—​the guardian spirit’s charter myth was recited. In the charter myth the doll appeared to a child in a dream, and told the child that if she provided new clothing and held a dance every spring in the doll’s honor, the doll would provide the child’s family with abundant food and good health (Harrington 1921: 163–​5). The dolls were believed to have the ability to go about on their own peregrinations or as peripatetic agents (Harrington 1921:  167). If dances and feasts were not performed for the doll, then “it would be angry and destroy them by some dreadful sickness” (Harrington 1921: 171). Harrington (1921: 199) notes two types of Lenape religious sodalities or medicine societies, which are based on family-​sponsored rituals (Miller 1997). One is founded on a beneficent spirit, while the other includes the Bear, Doll, and Otter sodalities. The latter spiritual beings “must be propitiated, under pain of sickness or death” (Harrington 1921: 199). The Lenape add several points to the concept of personal guardian spirits. Of crucial importance is the recognition that these rituals were private and secretive parts of the Annual Ceremony, a shamanic institution that incorporated the sacred pole (axis mundi) to which the ‘doll’ was attached during ritual events. The ‘doll’ is associated with the cardinal directions, especially the south wind and is referred to as ‘grandmother’, a ritual term for Earth Mother, but other deities might be employed as a power source for good or evil purposes. The Doll Dance charter myth suggests the guardian spirit’s institutionalization, legitimation, and origin in which the host must achieve ritual purification. These powerful spirits demanded attention and honor and resented ill-​treatment. Datura enhanced the vision experience.

208  David H. Dye The Menominee The Menominee, also part of the widespread family of eastern North American Algonquian speakers, traditionally lived in Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. As was the case with the Lenape, dreams and visions were important for acquiring guardian spirits (Benedict 1923), which were appreciated, honored, and supplicated to provide crucial benefits. For example, the Thunderers protected boys who played lacrosse in their honor, and, in return, they served as the boys’ guardian spirits. Girls, on the other hand, were aided, guarded, and protected by the Sky Sisters, powerful medicine women who lived in celestial lodges at the cardinal directions. In some respects, Menominee Sky Sisters are comparable to the Lenape Manitowuk. Both were associated with anthropomorphic imagery, the cardinal directions, healing, and success in personal undertakings (Skinner 1913; Densmore 1932). To secure a guardian spirit one had to fast alone and quietly for several days, which Louise Spindler (1952: 594) regards as a key social ritual and an important goal of the Menominee, but one that was embraced with a sense of latescence concerning the acquisition of a tutelary. In one of the narratives that Walter Hoffman (1896) collected concerning the Menominee Mitäwin origin narratives, Fire requests help from his grandmother who had made him a medicine bag. With the aid of the sacred bundle he appealed to the Thunderers who came from all directions to grant his request. Four Thunderers arrived from the sky and “showed him how to blacken his face with ashes, fast, and dream of a ma’nido (spirit), who would be his ‘servant’ and ‘guardian’” (Weeks 2009: 171). He was given a drum for medicine and a drum for revenge against his enemies. He was then shown how to construct and perform a ‘shaking tent’ ritual, in which he would be able to see afar and find things. The acquisition of guardians from the Upper World was an especially good omen, but if the tutelaries came from the earth or Beneath World in a dream or vision, it portended evil sources of power. A guardian power might make itself diminutive in order to enter the faster’s body, to live there, and to make the suppliant powerful and strong. Guardian spirits who appeared in visions usually bestowed success in hunting or promised long life. Animals rarely appeared to the Menominee as guardians; instead, it was the moon, powerful heavenly birds, thunder birds, stars, or the sun that granted health and power. Supernatural monsters could also appear as guardians (Skinner 1913:  42–​3). For girls in particular, Sky Sisters would protect them from misfortune, especially sickness, and would bestow health to the dreamer (Spindler and Spindler 1984). The sacred Sky Sisters, as personal guardian spirits, had an important influence over the destinies of girls and women. To honor the Sky Sisters, girls were obliged to play at least one sacred dice game each year. If one should neglect to play the game, and so disrespect the Sky Sisters, then the price was catastrophe and misfortune.

 

Anthropomorphic pottery effigies 209 When a person was sick, a shaman would ascertain which malevolent agents or powers had sent the disease and the healer would conjure the Sky Sisters. Once summoned, the Sky Sisters would aid the shaman or ‘juggler’ (i.e., legerdemain practitioner) in the medicine lodge or the shaking tent in curtailing the spell of witchcraft or in mitigating the witch’s curse (Skinner 1913:  38). Shamans were often members of the Mediwiwin or Grand Medicine Lodge society (G. Spindler 1955:  42; L.  Spindler 1970, 1978: 715). Through dreams the Sky Sisters would tell a woman that if she made them happy, then the earthly sister’s troubles would vanish and her health would be restored. A charter myth for the Sky Sisters (Skinner 1913) centers on a family of girls who lived lives so pure and holy that when the time came for them to die, they were permitted to ascend into the sky and to live there forever. Four girls had their lodge in the eastern sky and four girls had their lodge in the southern sky. Sometimes, as the Sky Sisters looked down from where they lived in the sky realm, a great longing would overcome them and they would desire to return to earth to be reborn. They did so by descending to earth and entering a woman’s body to be born as a Sky Child. When the child was older, she might inform her parents of her true identity as a reincarnated Sky Sister spirit (Densmore 1932: 32). The Sky Sisters might roam about the four cardinal directions of the earth. The spirit women usually appear to women, but they might also manifest themselves to shamans and provide them with curing songs, which the shamans would use in treating the sick. The custom of fasting is prerequisite to receiving a dream of the Sky Sisters. Menominee social logic required one to ‘play out the dream’ in order to receive any promised benefits. A shaman sometimes informed a dreamer that the guardians might be angry and that they must be appeased by offering tobacco and hosting the dice game (Densmore 1932). A woman could have several names, one of which would be that of a spirit woman. If a young girl’s health was not good, she could strengthen her connection with the spirit woman by attending a performance of the dice game at which a shaman conjured the spirit women into the medicine lodge. When present the spirit women made an audible sound resembling the wind (Densmore 1932: 32–​9). They then instructed the shaman who sat within the medicine tent. From the whistling sound, women received songs from the spirit women. The sacred Sisters protected the petitioner from misfortune, especially sickness. As personal guardian spirits, they had an important influence over a girl’s or woman’s destiny. Francis Densmore (1932: 31) was told by an informant that part of the healing ceremony involved a small round stone, spotted light and dark and shaped like a woman humped over. The female effigy aided in conjuring the spirit women. Menomini shamans in their Mediwiwin medicine dance bring out dolls and through legerdemain cause them to dance (Skinner 1915: 713).

210  David H. Dye Alanson Skinner (1913: 158–​61) notes that among the Menomini a number of the older people possess small wooden figures which are carefully guarded in their sacred packs except when they are exhibited at the Mitawin meetings as proof of intimacy with the supernatural. They differ from most charms in not being made as the result of instructions in dreams. Propitiated by frequent sacrifices of tobacco they are entreated to procure for their owners every blessing from long life to abundant food and clothing. To wish for visitors, for money, for health, and merely desire them through the intermediation of the doll as the representative of the guardian spirit in whose form it is made is to secure the boon craved. Skinner (1913: 160) secured a birch-​bark drawing used in the Mediwiwin medicine lodge and private rituals and which included representations of dolls that exerted control over the “female spirit of good fortune”. On the other hand, Menominee Witch Society members destroyed their victims by shooting, stabbing, and torturing grass or wooden effigies of the intended (Skinner 1921:  70). The witch would name the intended, hold the doll up, and touch it with red medicine applied to one end of a stick, while chanting a magical formula for death. The spell was then cast by blowing the charm in the victim’s direction (Skinner 1915: 188). Witches could also shape-​ shift, assuming the form of their medicine bundle animal. To perform love charms Menominee shamans would place two dolls about three feet apart and situate powdered ‘man in the ground’ roots between them. As the roots were being pulverized, the appropriate incantations were sung, and the dolls would move toward one another (Skinner 1921:  335). Another instance of legerdemain was conducted by shamans during the Mediwiwin ritual (Skinner 1915: 333) during initiation exercises to impress candidates, and the public at large, with their power. The tricks used anthropomorphic dolls, loons, minks, or snakes, which were made to appear, protrude their heads from a basket or sacred bundle, and move about the medicine lodge. The legerdemain act made a profound impression on the audience of the uninitiated or ‘unwashed’, often resulting in sustained silence and not a small amount of fear and trepidation. Additional polities As part of an Iowa shamanistic society that performs the Buffalo Tail Dance, the bundle holder, to demonstrate their magical power through legerdemain, produces “two little dolls, three or four inches high, made of basswood, and makes them dance by reason of his magic power” (Skinner 1915: 713). The Potawatomi Good Luck bundle contains a wooden doll, which represents a ‘chief’ to whom the suppliant may appeal for desired ends. The doll may be

 

Anthropomorphic pottery effigies 211 worn about the heart as a protector and brings good fortune when appealed to with the “proper votive offerings of tobacco” (Skinner 1913: 161). The bundle was a gift from the Beneath World, but is manipulated on earth under the auspices of the sun. To work the bundle, an image of the desired object is outlined on a stick or piece of paper and then held before the doll. A stick dipped in one of two red medicines is touched to the doll and a song is chanted to achieve the desired goals. In addition to these eastern Woodland examples, two ethnographic accounts underscore the religious context of female anthropomorphic figurines from the Plains. According to Robert Lowie, the most significant element of the Crow Sun dance was a vision obtained through the magical powers of a sacred doll, to which supplication was made for aid. The central object of Crow sacred altars was the medicine doll attached to a staff. When not in use the anthropomorphic figure was stored in a venerated medicine bundle. In its charter myth the medicine doll is the materialized moon-​ woman (Lowie 1914, 1915a, b). In our last example, Kiowa sacred dolls, also stored in medicine bundles, were employed in the annual Sun Dance to obtain visions within the medicine lodge. Made from a green stone and wearing a shell gorget, the doll was tied to a staff and served as a bridge or mediator between the beseecher and the Sun power. The doll’s face, breast, and back are painted with sun and moon motifs. The Kiowa referred to the doll as “Old-​woman-​under-​ the-​ground”. During ritual events, the priest in charge, through legerdemain, could cause the medicine doll to rise from the ground, dance in sight of the people, and then sink back into the earth (Mooney 1898: 239, 1911; Scott 1911; Spier 1921).

Archaeological evidence of guardian spirits Archaeologists have neglected investigations into Mississippian ceramic vessels and their motifs as reflecting guardian spirits. One exception is David Anderson (1998:  291), who argues that Swift Creek (Middle Woodland) animal motifs and cosmological themes found on Swift Creek ceramics served as individual or lineage/​community guardian spirits. I  argue here that Lower Mississippi Valley potters crafted female effigy ceramics and applied cardinal direction motifs and anthropomorphic faces as tutelary representations, which bridged the gap between humans and their guardian spirits through the perception of effigies and motifs as agentive or animistic beings, and also between witches and their intended victims. My argument rests on archaeological data, as well as ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and iconographic evidence. Non-​ceramic statuettes, unlike the ceramic forms, were crafted from perishable materials and, based on ethnographic reports, were widespread in eastern North America. Furthermore, abstract cosmological concepts associated with guardian spirits are suggested to lie at the foundation of their representation. The process of materializing an abstract

212  David H. Dye concept, in this case a cosmological abstraction of personal guardian spirits, is known as hypostatization. Anthropomorphic ceramic effigies functioned not only as ritual wares for holding purifying liquids and concocting drug-​ infused medicines, but they were also employed as religious figurines that were considered alive and respondent to conjuration, supplication, and veneration. The remarkable stylistic uniformity seen in sixteenth-​and early seventeenth-​century ceramic figurines and cardinal-​direction motifs in the Lower Mississippi Valley, points to a basic and widespread conception of distinct spiritual beings, whether reflecting a singular deity, such as an Earth Mother, or multiple forms, such as personal tutelary spirits. It may be impossible to differentiate between singular and perhaps multiple forms of spiritual beings, but the consistent conformity and presence of directional symbolism and anthropomorphic figurines in the Lower Mississippi Valley supports their central importance to human agency and the need for divine intervention for fertility, health, power, and success as part of the human lived experience. Their popularity would be especially dominant during times of stress, including droughts, economic upsets, political and social unrest, and European contact. If any area in the Mississippian world possesses the potential corpus of ceramic effigies to define a personal guardian-​spirit concept, it would be the Lower Mississippi Valley, with its large number of ceramic effigy forms, especially bottles. We might expect that a belief in tutelary spirits would be expressed in material aspects based on the preceding ethnographic accounts: the association of effigies with cardinal direction motifs, the hypostatization of abstract concepts centering on guardian spirits, the presence of a Datura complex, religious sodalities, and ritual handling and use of anthropomorphic effigy figurines. The most obvious materialization of guardian-​spirit concepts is the ceramic effigy forms themselves, which generally represent female figurines, but may also represent male spiritual forces as transcendental beings based on male effigy forms (Holmes 1885, 1886a, b; House 2003). In the Tunican Homeland these ceramics, both female and male effigies date from approximately the mid-​ thirteenth century to the mid-​ seventeenth century, with cognate forms in the Middle Cumberland Valley. The apparent source of the belief system lies in the Midwestern prairies, where cave pictographs (Diaz-​Granados and Duncan 2015), Missouri flint clay statuary (Emerson and Hughes 2000), and petroglyphs (Diaz-​Granados and Duncan 2000) materialize and portray important female deities, some of whom may have been perceived as guardian spirits. The coherence in form and style over some 400 years of ceramic crafting in the Lower Mississippi Valley focuses our attention on the spiritual beings upon which the potters materialized their belief system. That the majority of the vessels represent mature, if not elderly women is indicated by the distended thoracic area of the vertebral column, prompting the earlier appellation of ‘hunchback’ effigies (Sharp

 

Anthropomorphic pottery effigies 213 et  al. 2011; Bryant 2014; Emerson 2015; Mueller and Fritz 2016; Sharp 2016; Pesce 2017). The ritual use of female figurine vessels is seen in their repeated use and handling. Despite their inclusion in the Tunican mortuary program, they are not mortuary ware in the sense of being crafted specifically as funerary furniture. Rather, the primary purpose is their extensive ritual use by the living. In addition to containing liquids or some other substance, they also were repeatedly handled (Fig. 9.1). That these vessels were employed in ritual use is demonstrated through use wear analysis. We may compare female effigy bottles with plain bottles from the Lower Mississippi Valley. Figure  9.2 compares effigies and plain bottles, both of which display a similar degree of basal abrasion. The figures indicate that both female effigy bottles and plain bottles were being extensively used. However, Figure 9.3 shows that female effigy bottles have much less damage to the bottle rims than plain bottles, suggesting that while they are being subjected to a great deal of handling based on basal abrasion, they are not being used to the same degree for containing liquids as plain bottles, suggesting female effigy bottles functioned as figurines that were ritually manipulated and viewed, as well as to a lesser extent bottles for holding various purifying medicines. The use of medicinal drugs involves two lines of evidence:  the effigy’s trance-​like posture and the Datura drug complex. Over the years I  have been struck by how many female effigy bottles share the same body posture with a distinctive orientation of the head. In many instances the head is tilted with the face looking slightly upwards with a ‘vacant’ expression (Fig. 9.4). I have often wondered if this stance reflected a stylized depiction of a trance state. The position also includes hands on the breasts, knees, or stomach. Such ritual body positions should alert us to the possibility that drug use often involved culturally prescribed forms of behavior and body orientation. George Lankford (2012, 2014) discusses the Datura complex in the Lower Mississippi Valley. He observes that the external features of noded jars resemble Datura seed pods and argues that these vessels stand as archaeological markers for the practice of Datura shamanism. He further suggests that the ritual application of green pigment (glauconite) is connected to Datura use. The color green is associated with the sphinx moth, a Datura pollinator, and its caterpillar form, which emits a thick green substance from its mouth when alarmed. Moreover, the Datura spirit guide is seen symbolically as both caterpillar and moth, and “mythically identified” with the caterpillar’s secretion, which in the ordinary world is represented by a green paste composed of glauconite, kaolin, and magic (Lankford 2014: 55). The application of glauconite may provide a prophylactic against the dangerous use of shamanic power. If Lankford is correct that the Datura complex exists in the Tunican-​speaking area of the Lower Mississippi Valley, and if it is associated with women’s pursuit of visions for tutelary spirits, then we should see evidence of an association of the female figures with the

Figure 9.1 (a) Red painted female effigy, hooded bottle exhibiting heavy use wear. Campbell site (23PM5), Pemiscot County, MO. Photograph by David H.  Dye. (b)  Red painted female effigy, hooded bottle exhibiting heavy use wear. Site unknown, Conway County, AR. Courtesy of the Arkansas Archeological Survey. Photograph by David H. Dye

 

Anthropomorphic pottery effigies 215 Base Abrasion - Plain Bottles

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Figure 9.2 Bottle base abrasion (zero indicates no evidence of abrasion, while 3.5 is the highest degree of abrasion)

Datura complex. One piece of such evidence is the green pigment found on a female effigy bottle from Mississippi County, Arkansas (Fig. 9.5) (Lankford 2014: 54–​5). Finally, several female effigies have cardinal direction motifs associated with them. The guilloche, while serving as a centering symbol, also acts as a directional motif. Other cardinal direction symbolism is evident for female figurine hooded bottles, suggesting their association with cardinal direction deities (Fig. 9.6). Anthropomorphic vessels are not found in uniform frequency throughout the Tunican area of the Lower Mississippi Valley, suggesting the veneration of guardian spirits may have been expressed differently throughout the region. The majority of human-​ like bottles come from northeast Arkansas and

216  David H. Dye Rim Damage - Plain Bottles

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Figure 9.3 Bottle rim damage (zero indicates no evidence of rim damage, while 3.5 is the highest degree of rim damage)

southeast Missouri in an area referred to as the Nodena phase (Morse 1989). The Hernando de Soto expedition recorded these polities as the province of Pacaha (Hudson 1998). These Tunican polities, while perhaps incorporating various dialects of the same language, based on ethnohistoric accounts, were independent political formations, engaging in exchange, intermarriage, and warfare with one another (Swanton 1911; Rankin 1993; Young and Hoffman 1993; Dye 1994; Hoffman 1995; Hudson 1998). Within the subset of regional polities, stylistic differences may be identified that reflect religious, spatial, and temporal variations. Spatial variability in particular may stem from mutually antagonistic religious sodalities, in which differences in style provide a glimpse into the disparate fields of competitive medicine societies. Alanson Skinner (1913:  158), based on his ethnographic fieldwork, noted over a hundred years ago that among the “lares and penates of

 

Figure 9.4 Trance-​like posture for female effigy, hooded bottle. Bradley site (3CT7), Crittenden County, AR. Courtesy of the Memphis Pink Palace Museum. Photograph by David H. Dye

Figure 9.5 Female effigy, hooded bottle with green pigment (glauconite?). Unknown site, Mississippi Co., AR. Photograph by Teresa Putty

218  David H. Dye

Figure 9.6 (a) Female effigy, hooded bottle with centering motif on chest. Golightly site (3CT19), Crittenden County, AR, Courtesy of the Memphis Pink Palace Museum. Photograph by David H. Dye. (b) Female hooded bottle figure with guilloche motif on left side. Upper Nodena site (3MS4), Mississippi Co., AR. Courtesy of the Arkansas Archeological Survey. Photograph by David H. Dye

most Woodland tribes, idols or images of the god of good luck have been observed”. His observations apply equally to Mississippian anthropomorphic ceramic effigies found the Lower Mississippi Valley. Archaeological evidence from the Tunican-​speaking region suggests the hypostatization of abstract concepts concerning benevolent and malevolent spiritual beings were rendered in durable form as both female and male effigy vessels. An association with cardinal directions is implied by the application of various centering devices or portals organized in balanced and symmetrical units

 

Anthropomorphic pottery effigies 219 of four motifs. Based on use-​ wear analysis, anthropomorphic ceramic effigies held liquids and were used repeatedly, perhaps in the ritual act of transforming a farrago of profane concoctions into sacred medicines as components of purification rituals. But it is equally evident that the manipulation of these anthropomorphic wares superseded a strictly functional use for liquid containment. Repeated handling suggests their use in non-​ purification ritual contexts, especially in acts of legerdemain and to cast spells associated with sorcery and witchcraft. Acquiring powerful guardian spirits through visions may have been enhanced through the use of Datura as an active ingredient of sacred medicines. The ethnographic examples considered here structure anthropomorphic statuettes or ‘dolls’ in religious institutions: the Crow and Kiowa Sun Dance, the Illini Calumet Ceremony, the Lenape shamanic Annual Ceremony, and the Menomonee Grand Medicine Society. These religious sodalities included charter myths, feasts, incantations or songs, legerdemain, offerings, and the prominent ritual placement of anthropomorphic figures. Private, family-​ restricted rituals reflect the possibility of closed and hereditary secret societies (Fortune 1932). We should keep in mind what Father Gravier had to say about the Tunica at the beginning of the eighteenth century, “they are so close-​mouthed as to all the mysteries of their religion that the missionary [Father Davion] could not discover anything about it” (Shea 1861: 134).

Conclusion I have suggested that Lower Mississippi Valley potters crafted female and male effigy ceramics to serve as figurines associated with personal guardian spirits. The process of hypostatization materialized cosmological concepts that were expressed in ceramic form. My conclusions are based on archaeological data as well as ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and iconographic evidence. While figurines were crafted from perishable materials throughout much if not all of eastern North America, in the Lower Mississippi Valley their abstract cosmological concepts were associated with the practices of the guardian-​spirit complex in ceramic forms. These lines of evidence support the supposition that a guardian-​spirit complex was resident in the Tunican homeland of the Lower Mississippi Valley; connecting the world of people with their personal guardian spirits through various iterations of religious sodalities and individual aggrandizement that emphasized shamanic healing practices, as well as sorcery and witchcraft.

Acknowledgments An earlier draft of this chapter was presented in the ‘Statues and statuettes in the Mississippian Period: bridges to other worlds’ symposium, organized by F. Kent Reilly III at the 72nd Southeastern Archaeological Conference held in Nashville in 2015. My thanks also go to Toney Aid, Rick Fitzgerald, Ruth McWhirter, and Robert Sharp for their assistance and comments, and Teresa

220  David H. Dye Putty for permission to use her photograph as Figure 9.5. I am especially appreciative of Jannie Loubser’s invitation to contribute to this volume.

Note 1 University of Alabama; University of Memphis; [email protected].

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Anthropomorphic pottery effigies 221 Fortune, R. 1932. Omaha secret societies. New York: Columbia University Press. Griffin, J. 1981. The acquisition of little known haul from the Lower Mississippi Valley. Geoscience and Man 22: 51–​5. Haas, M. 1940. Tunica. Handbook of American Indian Languages 4: 1–​143. Harrington, M. 1913. A preliminary sketch of Lenape culture. American Anthropologist 15: 208–​35. Harrington, M. 1921. Religion and ceremonies of the Lenape. Indian Notes and Monographs No. 19. New York: Heye Foundation. Hawley, M. and Dye, D. 2011. George A. Lidberg Jr. and Depression-​era archaeology in Tennessee. Southeastern Archaeology 30: 399–​412. Hoffman, M. 1995. Identification of ethnic groups contacted by the De Soto Expedition in Arkansas. In G.A. Young and M.P. Hoffman (eds), The Expedition of Hernando de Soto West of the Mississippi River, 1541–​1543. Fayetteville:  University of Arkansas Press, pp. 132–​42. Hoffman, W.J. 1896. The Menomini Indians. Extract of the 14th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Holmes, W.H. 1883. Art in shell of the ancient Americans. Extract from the 2nd Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Washington, DC:  Government Printing Office. Holmes, W.H. 1885. Origin and development of form and ornament in ceramic art. Anthropological Society of Washington, Transactions 3: 112–​14. Holmes, W.H. 1886a. Ancient pottery of the Mississippi Valley:  a study of the collection of the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences. Proceedings of the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences 4: 123–​96. Holmes, W. 1886b. Ancient pottery of the Mississippi Valley. Extract from the 4th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Washington, DC:  Smithsonian Institution and Bureau of Ethnology. Holmes, W. 1903. Aboriginal pottery of the Eastern United States. Accompanying paper in the 20th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. House, J. 2003. Gifts of the Great River: Arkansas effigy pottery from the Edwin Curtiss collection. Cambridge: Peabody Museum Press. Hudson, C. 1998. Knights of Spain, warriors of the sun: Hernando de Soto and the South’s ancient chiefdoms. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Irwin, L. 1994. The dream seekers: Native American visionary traditions of the Great Plains. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Jeter, M. 2002. From prehistory through protohistory to ethnohistory in and near the northern Lower Mississippi Valley. In R. Ethridge and C. Hudson (eds), The Transformation of the Southeastern Indians. Jackson:  University Press of Mississippi, pp. 177–​223. Krech, S. 2009. Spirits of the air: birds & American Indians in the South. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Lankford, G. 2012. Weeding out the noded. Arkansas Archeologist 50: 50–​64. Lankford, G. 2014. Following the noded trail. Arkansas Archeologist 53: 51–​68. Lowie, R.H. 1914. The Crow Sun dance. Journal of American Folklore 27: 94–​6. Lowie, R.H. 1915a. The Crow Indian Sun dance. American Museum Journal 15: 23–​5. Lowie, R.H. 1915b The Sun Dance of the Crow Indians. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 16: 1–​50.

222  David H. Dye Mainfort, R. and Demb, S. 2001. Edwin Curtiss’s archaeological explorations along the St. Francis River, northeast Arkansas, 1879–​1880. Arkansas Archeologist 41: 1–​27. Marquette, J. 1899. Voyages du P. Jacques Marquette, 1673–​1675. In R.G. Thwaites (ed.), The Jesuit relations and allied documents:  travels and explorations of the Jesuit missionaries in New France, 1610–​ 1791. Volume 59. Cleveland, OH: Burrows Bros, pp. 86–​163. Miller, J. 1997. Old religion among the Delawares: the gamwing (Big House rite). Ethnohistory 44: 115–​34. Mooney, J. 1898. Calendar history of the Kiowa Indians. Extract from the 17th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Mooney, J. 1911. Calendar history of the Kiowa Indians. Seventeenth Annual Report of Bureau of American Ethnology, part 1. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, pp. 139–​79. Morse, D. 1989. Nodena:  an account of 90  years of archeological investigations in southeast Mississippi County, Arkansas. Research Series No. 30. Fayetteville: Arkansas Archeological Survey. Mueller, N.G. and Fritz, G.J. 2016. Women as symbols and actors in the ancient Mississippi valley. In C. Claassen (ed.), Native American landscapes:  an engendered perspective. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, pp. 109–​48. O’Brien, G. 2002. Choctaws in a revolutionary age, 1750–​1830. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press. Pesce, A.K. 2017. An iconographic analysis of Mississippian kneeling effigy figures from the Central Mississippi Valley. MS thesis, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Memphis, Memphis. Putnam, F.W. and Willoughby, C.C. 1896. Symbolism in ancient American art. Proceedings of American Association for the Advancement of Science 44: 302–​22. Rankin, R. 1993. Language affiliations of some De Soto place names in Arkansas. In G.A. Young and M.P. Hoffman (eds), The expedition of Hernando de Soto west of the Mississippi, 1541–​1543: Proceedings of the De Soto Symposia 1988 and 1990. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 210–​21. Scott, H.L. 1911. Notes on the Kado, or Sun dance of the Kiowa. American Anthropologist 13: 345–​79. Sharp, R.V. 2016. Our Lady of the Cumberland: styles, distribution, and community. Paper presented at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Archeological Conference, Athens. Sharp, R.V., Knight Jr., V.J. and Lankford, G.E. 2011. Woman in the patterned shawl: female effigy vessels and figurines from the Middle Cumberland River basin. In G.E. Lankford, F.K. Reilly and J.E. Garber (eds), Visualizing the Sacred: cosmic visions, regionalism, and the art of the Mississippian world. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 177–​98. Shea, J.G. 1861. Early voyages up and down the Mississippi. Albany, NY:  John Munsell. Skinner, A. 1913. Social life and ceremonial bundles of the Menomini. Anthropological Papers Vol. 8, Part 1. New York: American Museum of Natural History. Skinner, A. 1915. Associations and ceremonies of the Menomini Indians. Anthropological Papers Vol. 13, Part 2. New York: American Museum of Natural History.

 

Anthropomorphic pottery effigies 223 Skinner, A. 1921. Material culture of the Menomini. Indian Notes and Monographs. New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. Spier, L. 1921. Notes on the Kiowa Sun dance. Anthropological Papers Vol. 16, Part 2. New York: American Museum of Natural History. Spindler, G. 1955. Sociocultural and psychological processes in Menomini acculturation. Publications in Culture and Society, No. 5.  Berkeley:  University of California Press. Spindler, L. 1952. Witchcraft in Menomini acculturation. American Anthropologist 54: 593–​602. Spindler, L. 1970. Menomini witchcraft. In D. Walker (ed.), Systems of North American witchcraft and sorcery. Anthropological Monographs No. 1. Moscow: University of Idaho, pp. 183–​218. Spindler, L. 1978. Menominee. In B.G. Trigger (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 15:  Northeast. Washington, DC:  Smithsonian Institution, pp. 708–​25. Spindler, G. and Spindler, L. 1984. Dreamers with power:  the Menominee. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. Swanton, J. 1911. Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and adjacent coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 43. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. Swanton, J. 1918. An early account of the Choctaw Indians. American Anthropological Association, Memoir Vol. 5 (2). Swanton, J. 1922. Early history of the Creek Indians and their neighbors. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 73. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. Swanton, J. 1931. Source material for the social and ceremonial life of the Choctaw Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 103. Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution. Weeks, R. 2009. Antiquity of the Midewiwin: an examination of early documents, origin stories, archaeological remains, and rock painting from the northern Woodlands of North America. PhD dissertation, Arizona State University, Tempe. Weslager, C.A. 1972. The Delaware Indians: a history. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Young, G.A. and M.P. Hoffman. 1993. The expedition of Hernando de Soto west of the Mississippi River. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press. Young, W.A. 2001. Quest for harmony:  Native American spiritual traditions. New York: Seven Bridges Press. Willoughby, C.C. 1897. An analysis of the decorations upon pottery from the Mississippi Valley. Journal of American Folklore 10 (36): 9–​20.

10 Upemba archaeology, Luba ethnography, and vice versa Pierre de Maret1

Anyone with a keen interest in Central Africa will know about the Luba. Their prestigious state ruled over a vast area in recent centuries, their outstanding works of art have attracted attention since first contact with the outside world, and they have played a major role in Democratic Republic of the Congo politics in recent decades. Initially, I  was drawn to Africa because of my grandmother who, as a sculptor, admired artwork from that continent. At university, following my passion, I studied archaeology and art history, but also, although in a different faculty, social sciences and anthropology. A  prominent figure in social anthropology at that time, Luc de Heusch, was analyzing the thought patterns of the Bantu people following the structural anthropology path opened by Claude Lévi-​Strauss. A close friend of Adam Kuper, he focused during his lectures on Luba mythology and rites, as he was completing his book entitled The Drunken King (1982). In my final years in art history and archaeology, I  co-​authored a paper on Luba art from the collection of artworks held in the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren. We were able to identify various sub-​styles and, on the basis of the documentation, locate them across the Luba area. This paper was partially published in 1973 in African Arts, and even made the cover of that issue. Meanwhile, for my MA dissertation in Social Anthropology, I  had explored the role and associated symbolism of the blacksmith in the Bantu world, under de Heusch’s supervision. I could easily have followed those lines of research but my main interest was archaeology. I  wanted to know more about West-​Central Africa, a largely terra incognita from an archaeological perspective in the early 1970s, despite the fact that it must have been from this area that the Bantu expansion started. So, I  chose to study for my MA dissertation in archaeology a collection of Iron Age pottery from the Lower Congo. After securing a fellowship for a PhD, I  spent the next two seasons surveying between Kinshasa and the Atlantic coast. Unfortunately, despite finding various sites, I was not able to locate any Early Iron Age sites relevant to the time period I was interested in. At this point, the Director of the then Institut des Musées Nationaux du Zaire (IMNZ), for whom I was working, directed me to cross

 

Upemba archaeology, Luba ethnography 225 the country and to go instead to the southeastern part of Zaire, now the D.R. Congo. Reports had reached him that the famous archaeological site of Sanga and other related cemeteries located in the heartland of Luba country were being looted by art dealers, who were very active at that time in the area (Fig. 10.1). Thanks to Nenquin’s and Hiernaux’s excavations in the late 1950s, the Sanga cemetery had become a landmark in sub-​Saharan archaeology, revealing a vast necropolis with extremely refined and abundant grave goods (Nenquin 1963; Hiernaux et  al. 1971). Three distinct pottery traditions were identified: the Kisalian, the Mulongo and the Red Slip Ware. However, it was not then possible to link the eighth to tenth century AD Kisalian to what was known of the history of the Luba polities (Nenquin 1963: 272; Hiernaux et al. 1971: 7–​8). In order to resume this research in the mid-​1970s, I built a team composed of two technicians from the IMNZ, one of whom was related to a major Luba chief, and another young researcher. At that time, the area had become quite isolated, and living and working for several months over a two-​year period with Luba villagers was as much an ethnographical as an archaeological fieldwork experience. The Luba had a fearsome reputation, after years of violence following Congo independence, and it was even said that anthropophagy was still practiced. I was quite concerned about their reaction when we started excavating skeletons in the vicinity of their compounds in Sanga village. To my relief, they considered the graves as the remains of the enemy of their ancestors, who had killed those ‘people of the lake’, or Baziba, in great numbers. For them it was evident that the Baziba were not Luba, as their funerary pottery was very distinct from their own (Childs and de Maret 1996). For this reason, my predecessors and the Luba agreed that those findings made during scientific excavations, or when digging a pit or a cesspool next to a hut, were not related to the present inhabitants. At the same time, the crew of villagers assisting us commented, discussed and interpreted our findings, as most of the unearthed grave goods were familiar to them. This kind of archaeology cum ethnography on a day-​to-​ day basis remained the case in the other villages and sites that we surveyed and excavated in the northern part of the Upemba Depression.

An exceptionally long sequence As we proceeded, it became increasingly clear that the Kisalian, the Mulongo and the Red Slip Ware were part of a continuous sequence connecting the distant past to present-​day Luba. This was confirmed later by over 50 radiocarbon dates, linking the Early Iron Age in the seventh century AD to the present, and thus bridging the gap between archaeology and ethnography (Geyh and de Maret 1982; de Maret 1985a, 1992, 1999). But, postulating continuities between past and contemporary populations and the use of ‘direct historical analogy’ to interpret the archaeological

Figure 10.1 The Luba area with the Upemba Depression in its heartland, Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the distribution of the Kisalian phase sites

 

Upemba archaeology, Luba ethnography 227 record was, and still is, controversial (Stahl 1993; Lane 2005). Therefore, at an early interpretative stage, the sequence was considered strictly as an Iron Age sequence, and no attempt was made to connect it with what was known of the Luba and the history of their famous state. Most of our knowledge derives from the excavation of over 300 graves from five of the 48 archaeological sites that have been recorded so far. Unfortunately, successive occupations of those sites have deeply disturbed the various layers, leaving only elusive traces of settlements. Based primarily on the different and very characteristic wares, but also on other grave goods and their arrangement, four successive periods (Kamilambian, Kisalian, Kabambian and modern Luba) have been determined (Table  10.1), after a scant Late Stone Age occupation. The Kamilambian started around the seventh century and its ceramic assemblage is comparable to the one from the Early Iron Age some 300 km further south in the Copperbelt (Phillipson 1972; Anciaux de Faveaux and de Maret 1984). Kamilambian remains are sparse, suggesting that population density was still low at that point. During the following century, at the beginning of the Kisalian period, things started to change. Site numbers increased gradually and their size expanded significantly, indicating a growing population density through the northern half of the Upemba Depression. The Congo River and several smaller waterways run through this 200 km long flood plain, which is dotted with lakes and marshes teeming with fish and wildlife (Fig. 10.1). In addition, annual floods make its soil much more fertile than the high altitude plateaus and mountain range that surround it. The Depression was thus very attractive and it continues to be an area of particularly high population density today, in sharp contrast with the surrounding savanna. In various parts of the world, flood plains have often played a critical role in fostering hierarchical societies and major states. Their diversified resources attract high population densities, thanks to their fertility and their wealth in wildlife. But this also requires a level of organization as collective efforts are needed to exploit resources optimally. In order to ease navigation, the Upemba inhabitants still collaborate today to open and maintain artificial channels through the reeds and papyrus, as well as throughout

Table 10.1 Archaeological sequence for the northern Upemba Depression Upemba Phase

Century ad

Luba Kabambian B Kabambian A Kisalian—​Classic Kisalian—​Ancient Kamilambian

18–​20 16–​17 14–​15 10–​13 8–​10 7

228  Pierre de Maret the waterways that join the various lakes and rivers. Collaboration on a large scale is also needed to dry the ponds in order to expose their banks and make them available for cultivation. Thus, collective action may well have been at the origin of the early political development of the area (Reefe 1981: 79). In addition, its dense network of lakes and waterways facilitates rapid movement from one location to another. It also offers an escape route from menacing parties as one can easily hide in the maze provided by the reeds and papyrus. Fish are plentiful in the lakes and rivers, and this provides not only staple food, but also generates a key surplus. We know from the first explorers who accessed the region that smoked fish was the main resource in the Depression, and that it was exported over long distances and bartered against valuable goods (Bontinck 1974: 80–​5; Reefe 1981: 93–​9; Zeebroek 2015). It is very likely that fish were the principal wealth of the region very early on, and that it was the resource used by Kisalian leaders to acquire copper for jewelry and cowries. Those valuable objects were displayed by the wealthiest people in order to reinforce and legitimize their status. At an early stage, Kisalian pottery already displayed many of its distinctive features, but with some aspects that still linked it to the previous Kabambian pottery. Iron hoes, axes, machetes and spearheads, in shapes that remained unchanged throughout the centuries, also appeared in these Ancient Kisalian graves during the eighth century (Figs  10.2c and d). In two instances, oversized, convoluted and engraved iron axes, along with nails with a conical head that must have decorated their wooden handle, were retrieved from Ancient Kisalian graves (Fig. 10.2a). These were obviously ceremonial axes, a frequent symbol of authority throughout Central Africa, and this practice was, and still is, well established for Luba leaders (Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:  70; Womersley 1975:  82; Dewey and Childs 1996). An iron anvil/​hammer in the shape of an oversized nail was found next to the skull in one of the two Ancient Kisalian graves containing ceremonial axes (Figs 10.2b and 10.3). These items are common regalia in the kingdoms of the area, and indicate that the same elaborate symbols of power were used for over 12 centuries in that part of Africa. This may well mark the start of the political process in the eighth century that culminated with the modern Luba kingdom (de Maret 1999). In the following centuries, the Kisalian expanded and flourished. The abundant grave goods of this Classic Kisalian phase testify to the degree of refinement achieved. The level of craftsmanship in iron and copper metallurgy, in pottery, as well as in bone and ivory carving is remarkable, and indicates the existence of dedicated artisans. The use of large amounts of copper for adornments as well as the presence of a few cowrie shells in some of the wealthiest women’s graves from this period suggest that the area was part of a long-​distance trade network. The graves with unusually high numbers of vessels also contained iron and copper jewelry, as well as some of the rarest objects. This suggests the existence

 

Upemba archaeology, Luba ethnography 229

Figure 10.2 Kisalian ironwear and pot. (a) Early Kisalian ceremonial iron axe, with what must have been a nail-​studded wooden handle, from grave 7, Kamilamba; (b)  Early Kisalian iron anvil from grave 7, Kamilamba; (c) Early Kisalian iron axe from grave 12, Katongo; (d) Early Kisalian iron hoe from grave 12, Katongo; (e) Classic Kisalian basket-​like ceramic pot from grave 37, Malemba-​Nkulu

of a stratified society with a wealthy minority, where females played a significant role, as some of the richest graves were those of women and young girls (Fig. 10.4). This may be indicative of matrilineal descent, but today Luba in the Upemba are patrilineal whereas Luba east of the Depression are matrilineal. Apparently, membership in this rich minority was inherited. As several of the luxurious graves belonged to children of this wealthy minority, it must have been hereditary. In at least two instances, the presence of what looked like miniaturized ceremonial axes in small children’s graves further suggests inherited status and well defined social stratification. Around the end of the thirteenth century, the Kisalian gave way to new pottery and a new funerary ritual. This marks the start of the Kabambian period in the northern part of the Upemba Depression, with less grave goods in general, and more local variation in pottery styles and burial rituals.

Figure 10.3 Grave 7, Kamilamba, displaying the ceremonial axe and the hammer/​ anvil next to the skull

Figure 10.4 Classic Kisalian adult woman grave 172, Sanga. Two miniature vessels marked (1) and (2) and a small goat metacarpal (3) were likely part of a fetus, or a stillborn, grave 172bis, whose skeleton oriented in a north-​ south position has vanished. This suggests that the woman has died in childbirth

 

Upemba archaeology, Luba ethnography 231 Typical of this period is also the appearance of cross-​shaped copper ingots as grave goods. These copper crosses had already been smelted for several centuries in the Copperbelt to the south of the Depression and were used as currency over a vast area, until colonial times (Bisson 1975; de Maret 1995; Swan 2007). Gradually, throughout the Kabambian period, the number of vessels in the tombs diminished and copper crosses became smaller and smaller, until they eventually vanished from the graves. The few vessels left as grave goods were often covered by a thick red slip and some of their shapes foresaw recent Luba pottery. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, the Luba state became a major political entity whose history can be reconstructed thanks to oral tradition and various other sources (Reefe 1981). European glass beads are the only objects found in the more recent Luba graves. Despite the changes that occurred throughout the whole sequence, the continuity of many aspects of the material culture since Early Kisalian, if not the Kamilambian, is remarkable. Not only do some of the pottery shapes endure from one period to the other, but the main pottery-​shaping techniques used today by Luba potters have been in use since the Kisalian, demonstrating an unbroken chain of knowledge transmission (Livingstone-​ Smith et al. 2006; de Maret and Livingstone-​Smith 2015). This is true for basket weaving too, as some Kisalian pots imitate baskets that are identical in every aspect to present-​day baskets (de Maret 1992: 161) (Fig. 10.2e). As we have seen, the shapes of iron implements and weapons also remained unchanged through time. Another line of evidence in support of long-​term continuity is the fact that people have continued to live in the same places over the centuries. Last, but not least, from a physical anthropological point of view, the human skeletal remains point to morphological and dietary continuity from the Early Kisalian. There is also evidence that the Luba practice of filing their incisors to a point goes back to Kisalian time as well. All this suggests a strong continuity among the Upemba inhabitants until the present-​day Luba (Hiernaux et al. 1992; Dlamini 2014). Being able to connect the ethnographic present to the archaeological past in such a way is exceptional and it offers an unusual opportunity to use the wealth of information on the ethnography and art history of Luba practices and beliefs (e.g. Colle 1910; Burton 1927, 1936, 1961; Verhulpen 1936; Theuws 1962; Nooter 1991; Neyt 1993; Petit 1993; Nooter Roberts and Roberts 1996a) to interpret archaeological residues in a more cognitively informed way. Despite the cautionary tales and the pitfalls of this approach, there are numerous instances the world over where practices and symbols are deeply rooted in the past, as for instance, the use of the cross in the western world. Let us now consider a few examples of such interpretation.

The spirits of the dead are among us The Kisalian funeral ritual was very elaborate, taking into account age, gender, social status, and probably, among other things, the circumstances

232  Pierre de Maret of death. As in other instances, one can never exclude the fact that grave goods may have been placed within the grave just to display the wealth of the deceased or his or her family, but it seems more plausible, in this case, that they were destined mainly for use by the dead in the afterworld. Based on archaeological records, their precise symbolic function and the ritual meaning of some postmortem practices remain hypothetical, but the Luba believed in an afterworld, and they were, and still are, very concerned with their interaction with the spirits of the dead who inhabit the underworld, Kalunga Nyembo. It is subdivided in two. The good dead live in the upper level where the atmosphere is pleasant, where one does not need to work, and where there is enjoyable music. From here one can see what the living are doing on earth. Those dwelling in the upper level may communicate with the living and visit them in dreams. The lower level is inhabited by the bad dead, the sorcerers, thieves or those who are resentful. They are separated definitively from their families and no one remembers them: they are gone forever (Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:  387). According to Theuws (1962: 324, my translation), The dead live on in the form of disembodied spirits. The good dead come to help the living, promoting child bearing, hunting, good harvest, bringing luck and happiness, while the bad dead come to tease or to insult the living, causing nightmares. They take the form of a beast, an evil man or a haunting specter to attack the lonely wanderer. To reach the underworld, the dead must cross the river of death in the dugout canoe of Kalonzo … Witchdoctors, diviners and sorcerers act through their ‘spirits’ and the dead. Spirits are usually defunct whose memory has faded. So, for the Luba it was essential that the deceased happily left the world of the living, so that he or she would not come back as a malevolent spirit to torment those left behind. This may well have been the main objective of all the grave goods that one finds during the Kisalian times. In excavating at Sanga, we noted that most of the Kisalian graves were oriented with the head pointing to the north, northwest or north-​east, the feet in the direction of the nearby lake. The orientation of Kisalian graves was different in another site further along the banks of the same lake, although also systematic. This was also true for other excavated sites further north, where the orientation was each time different in relation to the points of the compass. So, during Kisalian times, in each of the five excavated sites, the skeletons were oriented roughly in the same direction, but in each cemetery it was a different direction. This was indeed perplexing. If the dead were not oriented in relation to the sun’s path, one could have imagined that the head or the feet would be pointing in the direction of a single sacred or significant point in the landscape. As this was also not the case, and knowing how important waterways are for the Luba in relation

 

Upemba archaeology, Luba ethnography 233 to the funerary rituals (Theuws 1960: 163; Burton 1961: 40–​9), a possible explanation was that the feet were directed towards the Lualaba River. The Luba chief’s body was often buried next to a river or even in the riverbed (de Heusch 1972: 44), as is told in the story of Kongolo, the mythical primordial king, who changed the course of a river in order to demonstrate his power (Womersley 1975:  24–​ 7). Indeed, when considering the direction of the flow of the Lualaba River as it meanders through the Depression, the only possible explanation for the Kisalian orientation of skeletons is that the feet of the departed were pointing towards the river, and more precisely, in the direction of downstream. We know that for the Luba the trip to the underworld was long and that one had to pay the boatmen of the underworld (Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954: 388). Considering how important waterways and fishing were in Kisalian daily life, as attested by the remains of fish found in pottery, as well as the various hooks, harpoons, heads and trilobate braziers used in dugout canoes, this is hardly a surprise. On the whole, considering the care and the complexity displayed since Kisalian time for funerary rituals, the Luba concern for the well-​being of the deceased goes back a long time.

Exploring the conception of personhood Usually, children’s remains are under-​ represented in funerary contexts (Parker Pearson 2003: 103). Classic Kisalian cemeteries are highly unusual in this respect as children, even very young ones, are buried in the same way as adults with sometimes numerous and precious grave goods. The fact that the children’s premature death warranted care means that they were considered as embodied persons. Not surprisingly, the Luba newborn was carried outside the hut where he was symbolically delivered three days after his birth. This was the first stage of his life as a member of the community. “He receives a name. He comes out of the hut as if it was a grave. He has a name. An ancestor was resurrected” (Theuws 1960). The link is thus explicit between those who have died and the future generation. As we have seen, the Luba spirits of the dead could be vindictive towards the living. According to W.F. Burton (1961: 42), a British missionary who lived among the Luba in the early twentieth century: A part of the ritual at the graveside includes the approach of the nearest relative to the still-​open pit, where they beseech the spirit to go away quietly, without disturbing the living. Mourning for the dead is a most noisy and ostentatious business. Doubtless there is often much real grief, but by far the greater part of the shrieking and show are to impress the spirit with the respect that the living have for him, that he may thus be well inclined, and not bring sickness or calamity to the village. So far is this respect carried that the mourners address the spirit of even a newborn or still-​born child as ‘my father’ or ‘my mother’.

234  Pierre de Maret In several instances, stillborn or premature babies in Kisalian and Kabambian times were buried in or under a pot (Hiernaux et  al. 1971:  56; de Maret 1985a: 178). This was still the custom among the Luba, but only under very specific circumstances (Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:  643), as there is no evidence that pots had a metaphorical role in ideas about gestation and birth, like with the Thonga or the Shona (de Heusch 1980, 1982: 376–​415; Hattingh and Hall 2009).

Children, spirits and their miniature objects A significant aspect of the Classic Kisalian funerary ritual is the direct relationship between the age of the deceased and the size of the ceramic vessels. The younger the deceased, the smaller the ceramics, or at least, the smaller the mean size of pottery in the grave. Looking at the sample of 1,403 ceramic vessels from the 112 Classic Kisalian graves best preserved in the Sanga cemetery, it is the proportion between the smaller ones and the larger ones that varies the most. For the ‘newborn’, the proportion of vessels with a diameter of less than 15  cm is 69%, for the ‘juveniles’ it is 56%, while for adults it is only 32% (de Maret 2016a). These miniature vessels were produced primarily in order to be used as children’s grave goods, but were sometimes also put in adult graves. In one instance, a small trilobate brazier was recovered with a small pot  superposed (Fig.  10.5a). They had been shaped separately and then

Figure 10.5 (a) Classic Kisalian grave 156, Sanga, a small pot on a brazier from a child’s grave; (b) Classic Kisalian anthropomorphic bottle bought in Sanga

 

Upemba archaeology, Luba ethnography 235 assembled before being fired together. This object must have been a symbol of cooking while canoeing and camping on the very flammable floating islands of the Upemba Depression. This demonstrates the practice, by Kisalian communities, of providing children with a kind of ‘tea party toy set’ for their afterlife. The miniaturization of vessels is sometimes taken very far, as in the case of extremely small pots and bowls (Figs 10.6b and f) from one of the richest Classic Kisalian graves in Sanga, which contained 40 vessels and accumulated copper, iron and ivory adornments, as well as two cowrie shells from the distant Indian Ocean (Fig. 10.4). Based on these grave goods, it is likely this was a woman’s grave. In fact, in all likelihood, the two miniaturized vessels were probably part of the grave goods of a stillborn baby or a fetus whose skeleton has disintegrated and who was laid on top of the woman’s legs with a few pebbles and a small goat metacarpal, a bone similar in shape to the metapodia of goats or antelopes often found in children’s graves. It is likely that these were the remains of a woman of the rich minority who had died in childbirth and was buried with her baby, accompanied by small grave goods. Once again, this is echoed by Luba practice some eight centuries later: “If a woman dies in childbirth, they open her below the floating ribs and take away the child, to give it an independent burial beside its mother” (Burton 1961: 38). In addition to the miniaturized pots in children’s graves, there are also a few instances of tiny metal implements. For example, the skeleton of a child of less than one year was accompanied by a miniature iron axe and two small copper spearheads. In two other instances, a miniaturized ceremonial axe was found in a child’s grave, confirming the existence of some sort of hereditary elite who sought to provide the children with a status symbol for their use in the underworld. The practice of reducing the size of the objects included as children’s grave goods continued in the following Kabambian period. One of the most remarkable of the numerous Luba children’s games that have been well documented is the construction of a miniature children’s village in which they imitated adults. The older boys took the role of the father, the older girls the mother, and the smaller ones were their children. There was always a village chief and those who could not be ‘the chief’ acted as notables, with those roles often allocated according to the position of their father in the real village. Also, as in a real village, miniature huts were built for the ancestors and the spirits beside the ‘family’ hut. Adults were pleased to help their children with these games, lending vessels and even buying pots in reduced size made especially for this kind of ‘tea party’ (Centner 1963: 85–​93). So, miniature objects were very much a part of the Luba childhood, and the link with the spiritual world was also always implicit if not explicit, as many objects in relation to that world were also miniaturized. In the real village, like in the children’s village, the small houses for the spirits

236  Pierre de Maret

Figure 10.6 Regular and miniaturized Classic Kisalian vessels, Sanga: (a) Large bowl with spout and perforated ear, adult grave 172; (b)  Miniature bowl with spout and perforated ear, stillborn grave 172bis; (c) Pot from adult grave 172; (d) Small pot from a child’s grave 167; (e) Small pot form a child’s grave 167; (f) Miniature bowl from a fetus grave 172bis

of the dead built next to the hut were intended to “fix in the spirit” (Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954: 682), to remember the men of the past who act as a guardians of the living (Burton 1961:  113–​14; Becker 1992; Nooter Roberts and Roberts 1996b). Many diminutive objects, like a small bow with dummy arrows and diminutive figurines were also sculpted, such as pendants representing revered ancestors and worn in their memory or as

 

Upemba archaeology, Luba ethnography 237 amulets (Nooter Roberts and Roberts 1996c, d). For the Luba, children were the reincarnation of the ancestors, and the dead will become spirits that will be reborn as children. Miniature objects acted as a permanent reminder of this cycle of life and death. In view of this, it is likely that besides the care taken in funerary practices for children, the amount of miniature objects found as grave goods for children as well as for adults in the Kisalian period played a similar role, connecting symbolically the two worlds, in life and in death (de Maret 2016a).

Bones as fertility figures As mentioned, another intriguing feature in children’s graves is the frequent presence of goat and antelope metapodia, usually placed on the thorax or next to it. Such cylindrical bones with their knobby distal epiphysis as a head (Fig.  10.7) have naturally a human aspect, and they have been used until recently in northern, western and southern Africa as dolls (Lutten 1933: 9; Alainmat 1942: figs 9, 10; Rossie 2005: 200). However, this use has so far not been documented by ethnographic data among the Luba or in central Africa. And yet, the presence and the positioning of those bones in Kisalian children’s graves, and sometimes even in the graves of adults, suggest that they were used in the same way. But how to test this hypothesis, generated in this instance from distant ethnographic accounts? As we have seen, the head orientation of the deceased was systematic during Kisalian times and thus significant from a ritual point of view. If the metapodia in the graves were dolls, one would expect their ‘heads’ to be pointing in the same direction as the heads of the deceased.

Figure 10.7 Antelope and goat metapodia from various Classic Kisalian graves, Sanga

238  Pierre de Maret

Figure 10.8 Classic Kisalian grave 162, a newborn with five metapodia (numbered 1–​5), their knobby heads pointing in the same direction as the skull except for one lying on the arms

This was indeed the case for seventeen metapodia from seven graves (five children, two adults) in Sanga where the direction of the knobby head has been recorded, while in one instance, the bones were placed horizontally, as if they were being cradled like a baby (Fig. 10.8). The copper ring found around one ‘doll’ would then be the equivalent of the copper belt worn by the Kisalian and it would also explain why the metapodia often were slightly patinated. The likelihood that these bones were used as dolls by the Kisalian finds a further confirmation in two occasions where small anthropomorphic cylindrical ceramic bottles, about the same shape and size but with their head sculpted to represent human features (Fig. 10.5b), were found next to those metapodia. They were obviously handled in an equivalent way as a ‘figurine’, that is, a miniature human being. But this does not explain the presence of these dolls in Kisalian adult graves. If metapodia are indeed dolls, they most probably are found in female graves, as dolls are gendered objects linked to the female sex, with hardly any exceptions throughout Africa (Dagan 1990; Cameron 1996). Indeed, in Sanga, metapodia appear to be present only in female adult graves (de Maret 1985a: 181–​4) as far as one can judge. Due to

 

Upemba archaeology, Luba ethnography 239 the poor state of preservation of most of the skeletons, their sex determination was tentative but, based on grave goods, those metapodia are never found with male burials. This reinforces my interpretation that the bones were indeed dolls or figurines for Kisalian people (de Maret 2016b). But it also raises another issue—​why are there ‘dolls’ in female adult graves? There are many examples in sub-​Saharan Africa where dolls have a dual function as toys and as fertility figures (Roumeguère and Roumeguère-​ Eberhardt 1960; Segy 1972; Cameron 1996; Leibhammer and Dell 1998). This is also the case among the Luba (Centner 1963:  81–​3), and is most probably why they were placed in adult female Kisalian graves. This interpretation is consistent with the fact that the belly of one of the anthropomorphic bottles was decorated with a frieze of what appears to be copulating men and women (Hiernaux et al. 1971: 24–​5). The association of dolls with sexuality throughout the continent is obvious, as they are used to promote fertility, to induce pregnancy, and to cure barrenness. This is also consistent with the fact that they have as much an anthropomorphic as a phallic shape, in the widespread area encompassing the Luba, as well as part of eastern and southern Africa (Leibhammer and Dell 1998; de Maret 2016b). Once again, ethnographic analogies help to unravel the subtleties and ambiguities of the categories that we project in analyzing other cultures. In the case of dolls, as Cameron (1996: 11) argues: The problem is not the application of dolls to African contexts but rather a profound misunderstanding of what a doll is. Playing with dolls is serious business, and we in the United States and elsewhere in the western world probably take ours too lightly. While the average parents review those figures as relatively inconsequential objects, it is becoming increasingly clear to social scientists that they can be active in establishing value systems and constructing identities. In the ethnographic literature from Africa, dolls are often referred to a ‘fertility figures’. They could be toys used by young girls imitating their mothers caring for babies or by young women desiring children. Some figures have a range of functions that change as their owners mature (Leibhammer and Dell 1998) and some figures are used to instruct young girls in sexuality. Among the ethnographic Luba, cylindrical dolls in the last century were made from unfired clay or with banana stalks (Centner 1963:  75–​80; de Maret 1985a:  plate 30, 2 and 3). Anthropomorphic and phallic-​shaped wooden dolls or figurines were also made for twins (Cameron 1996:  82; Nooter Roberts and Roberts 1996c). When one knows the intensive sexual training and genitalia manipulation that young girls underwent as they matured (Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954: 226), one wonders if those dolls were also used as dildos. Whatever the case, the practice of making young girls play with explicit sex symbols, if not sex toys, may also trace its origin back to the Kisalian bone dolls.

240  Pierre de Maret

The blacksmith, the king and their power I have already stressed that the presence of an iron hammer/​anvil in conjunction with a parade ax, two well-​known regalia, indicates the use, since the start of the Kisalian period, of elaborate status symbols. Also for the Luba, the role of axes as prestigious emblems alludes to their symbolic role of clearing and marking the path to civilization (Fig. 10.9). In addition, the intricate engraved motif that adorned their blades, as early as the Ancient Kisalian time, refers symbolically to the scarification or ntapo, worn by women to beautify themselves, but also for erotic pleasure. Interestingly enough, ntapo is also the name of pottery decoration, as once again there is a parallel between the woman’s body and a vessel. Ethnographic information about the smith and his hammer/​anvil can be used also to explain the complex web that surrounds such symbols of power and allows us to trace a widespread ancient area where the same symbolism was used. Forging is one of the key elements of the symbolic system among many Bantu-​ speaking populations (de Maret 1980; Herbert 1993). The blacksmith frequently has a central position in various rites and myths, often emblematized by the nyundo, his hammer/​ anvil. From the Kongo kingdom in the west to the kingdoms of the Great Lakes region, a blacksmith king is generally said to be at the origin of

Figure 10.9 Luba ceremonial axe. EO. 1953.43.11, collection RMCA. Tervuren. Photo J.-​M. Vandyck, RMCA Tervuren

 

Upemba archaeology, Luba ethnography 241 both the dynasty and the knowledge of metallurgy (de Maret 1985b). For example, in Rwanda, the king, or mwami, was the supreme blacksmith of the country. Among other regalia, he owned five hammers that were transmitted from generation to generation, two of them supposedly going as far back as the founder of the dynasty (Kagame 1956). In the vast area stretching from Angola to Uganda, one finds in many enthronement rituals a crucial moment when two hammer/​anvils are hit together. Striking the anvil, as it is called, is the most important part of the enthronement ritual of the Luba king. In doing so, a dignitary says: “Whether for weapon of war or tool of peace, whether for arrows and spears or for axes and hoes, the anvil is the secret of power and progress” (Womersley 1975: 82–​3). Among the Luba, as elsewhere, this alludes to the fact that the first king was a blacksmith as well as to the need to transform an individual into a consecrated king. The idea was to toughen the king and to give him strength through a process similar to forging. For example, among the Shu, in Uganda, an official known as ‘the blacksmith of the mwami’ holds a hammer in each hand and beats them together. Another official responds by asking: ‘Who have we forged?’ and after the two hammers have been struck again, he answers by saying the name of the new mwami. (Packard 1981: 37) As Packard (ibid.) has noted: The mwami is thus compared to a piece of forged iron, and like the piece of iron, he has undergone a transition from one state to another. Moreover, like the piece of iron, the mwami is still hot, is still virtually dangerous. Sacred kingship is a kind of symbolic machinery made to optimize productive and reproductive forces, fecundity in general, by closely associating ironworking, hunting, and rainmaking (de Heusch 1982: 15). Furthermore, in this symbolic context, the hammer/​anvil’s phallic shape was also an obvious symbol of fertility. It probably evoked, among the Luba, another phallic-​shaped object that is connected to fertility—​the doll. Two of those hammer/​anvils were found next to the skull in the tomb of the mwami Cyirima Rujugira, a Rwandese king who died probably at the end of the seventeenth century but was buried much later (Van Noten 1972: fig. 8). At Ingombe Ilede in Zambia, hammer/​anvils were found in a similar position next to the skull in a late-​fifteenth-​to early-​seventeenth-​ century grave (Fagan et  al. 1969:  64–​ 78; McIntosh and Fagan 2017)). Although quite apart in time and space, it is worth noting that in all three cases (Kisalian, Ingombe Ilede and the Rwandese mwami) the hammer/​anvil was placed in the same position, against the skull with the top pointing in

242  Pierre de Maret the same direction as the skull. This suggests that their symbolic role was similar in all three cases (de Maret 1985b). Interestingly enough, in their practice of making miniature objects, the Luba also had miniature anvils that played a significant role. Called kinyundo, like the real blacksmith’s hammer/​anvil, they were extensively used as nails and hairpins on sculpted wooden regalia. They studded ceremonial axes, the chief’s and king’s staff, knives, stools, figurative sculpture and memory boards (Childs and Dewey 1996; Dewey and Childs 1996). The symbolic use of miniature hammer/​anvils reinforced the importance of them as status symbols. As we have seen, similar nails with conical anvil-​ shaped heads decorated the handle of early Kisalian ceremonial axes. Nooter Roberts and Roberts (1996b: 28) have argued that Luba power rested not with a single dynastic line of kings or with a single ‘center’, but with a constellation of chieftaincies, office holders, societies, and sodalities that validated claims to power in relation to what we [Nooter-​Roberts and Roberts] suggest to be a largely mythical center. The paradox is explicit: there was no real center, yet belief in one allowed cultural integration of an entire region. Identification with a ‘center’ was in effect a means of legitimizing the ‘periphery’. In that context, the Luba kingdom had to rely more on ideology than on military power and to share its prestige with the heads of largely autonomous peripheral communities, which sought legitimacy and identity through the manipulation of a rich array of emblems and myths. Objects of power and memories were in fact at “the very foundation of the main Luba kingdom, and the gist of a Luba-​inspired concept of ‘civilized life’ for much of southeastern Zaïre and nearby Zambia” (Vansina 1996: 13). This unusual model of social and political organization found its roots very likely at the start of the Kisalian period (de Maret 1999).

Implications In the heartland of Luba country, the Upemba Depression’s wealth of archaeological remains offers an exceptional opportunity to use the ethnographic information available for the area in investigating various aspects of the funerary rituals over almost a millennium and a half. There is considerable material and factual evidence to link the ethnographic present to many aspects of the archaeological past, through the long and continuous sequence of occupation documented in the northern half of the Depression. In order to proceed in such a way, it is crucial to avoid the many pitfalls of direct historical analogies and to proceed step by step, in dealing first with the archaeological evidence, building up the sequence and then assessing, on the basis of the material culture and the physical anthropological evidence, the likelihood of a significant degree of continuity. When reaching

 

Upemba archaeology, Luba ethnography 243 that far back in time this is essential. It is only after those steps that one can try to project backward what we know about the behavior and the thought patterns of present-​day people. Unfortunately, in Upemba, the few places suitable for villages have been in continuous use, and the resulting disturbance has destroyed most structures, especially as huts were made of reeds. The archaeological record thus relies almost exclusively on data retrieved from burials. Unlike southern Africa, we have almost no information on everyday life, settlement patterns or the use of space in general. Nevertheless, the truly exceptional state of conservation of the many burial goods allows us to investigate such diverse topics as symbols of power and the origin of sacred kingship, children’s toys and their relation to the spiritual world and the many connections between dolls, fertility and sexuality. In doing so, in the Upemba/​Luba case, the process stops being one-​directional and, using an ethnographically informed approach to interpret symbolic aspects of the archaeological remains, it becomes iterative or bi-​directional. By accumulating proof of continuity in the material culture but also in the population itself, in the first step, one gains a certain amount of confidence in the possibility to project some symbolic aspects of Luba life into the remote past. From a methodological point of view, one goes first down the timeline from the archaeological observations to look for their ethnographic counterpart, and then backward in time, to interpret the archaeological remains and then forward again to illustrate a millennium-​long continuity in practice and belief. In this way, one can decipher the thought patterns of the people of the past and attempt a credible cognitive interpretation of rituals and other aspects of life, from childhood to death.

Note 1 Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Free University of Brussels.

References Alainmat, Y. 1942. Poupées en os: le ‘Di Kori’. Notes Africaines 15: 1. Anciaux de Faveaux, E. and de Maret, P. 1984. Premières datations pour la fonte du cuivre au Shaba (Zaïre). Bulletin de la Société Royale Belge d’Anthropologie et de Préhistoire 95: 5–​20. Becker, R. 1992. The photographs of W.F.P. Burton. In University Art Galleries Staff (eds), The collection of W F.P. Burton: ‘Of course you would not want a canoe …’. Johannesburg: University of Witwatersrand Art Galleries, pp. 26–​37. Bisson, M.S. 1975. Copper currency in Central Africa: the archaeological evidence. World Archaeology 6 (3): 276–​92. Bontinck, F. 1974. L’autobiographie de Hamed ben Mohamed el-​Murjebi Tippo Tip (ca. 1840–​1905). Brussels: Académie Royale des Sciences d’Outre-​Mer. Burton, W.F.P. 1927. The country of the Baluba in Central Katanga. Geographical Journal 70 (4): 321–​42.

244  Pierre de Maret Burton, W.F.P. 1936. L’organisation sociale des Baluba. Bulletin des Juridictions Indigènes et du Droit Coutumier Congolais 4 (7): 150–​3. Burton, W.F.P. 1961. Luba religion and magic in custom and belief. Tervuren: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale. Cameron, E.L. 1996. Isn’t s/​he a doll? Play and ritual in African sculpture. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. Centner, T.H. 1963. L’enfant africain et ses jeux dans le cadre de la vie traditionnelle au Katanga. Elisabethville: Mémoires du CEPSI. Childs, S.T. and de Maret, P. 1996. Re/​Constructing Luba pasts. In M. Nooter Roberts and A.F. Roberts (eds), Memory:  Luba art and the making of history. New York: Museum for African Art, pp. 49–​59. Childs, S.T. and Dewey, W.J. 1996. Forging symbolic meaning in Zaire and Zimbabwe. In P. Schmidt (ed.), The Culture and technology of iron production in Africa. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, pp. 145–​71. Colle, P. 1910. Origine et explication du pouvoir des chefs dans l’Uruwa. La Revue Congolaise 1: 58–​68. Dagan, E.A. 1990. African dolls for play and magic. Montreal:  Galerie Amrad African Arts. de Heusch, L. 1972. Le roi ivre ou l’origine de l’Etat:  Mythes et rites bantous. Paris: Gallimard. de Heusch, L. 1980. Heat, physiology and cosmogony: rites de passage among the Thonga. In I. Karp and S.C. Bird (eds), Exploration in African systems of thought. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 27–​43. de Heusch, L. 1982. Rois nés d’un cœur de vache:  Mythes et rites bantous. Paris: Gallimard. de Maret, P. 1979. Luba roots: the first complete Iron Age sequence in Zaïre. Current Anthropology 20 (1): 233–​5. de Maret, P. 1980. Ceux qui jouent avec le feu:  la place du forgeron en Afrique centrale. Africa 50 (3): 263–​79. de Maret, P. 1985a. Fouilles archéologiques dans la vallée du Haut-​ Lualaba, Zaïre, II Sanga et Katongo, 1974. 2 volumes. Tervuren: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale. de Maret, P. 1985b. The smith’s myth and the origin of leadership in Central Africa. In R. Haaland and P. Shinnie (eds), African iron working: ancient and traditional. Bergen: Norwegian University Press, pp. 73–​87. de Maret, P. 1992. Fouilles archéologiques dans la vallée du Haut-​Lualaba, Zaïre, III Kamilamba, Kikulu, et Malemba-​Nkulu, 1975. 2 volumes. Tervuren: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale. de Maret, P. 1995. Croisettes memories. In L. de Heusch (ed.), Objects—​Signs of Africa. Tervuren: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, pp. 133–​45. de Maret, P. 1999. The power of symbols and the symbols of power through time: probing the Luba past. In S. Keech McIntosh (ed.), Beyond chiefdoms: pathways to complexity in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 151–​65. de Maret, P. 2016a. Tea party toys? Classical Kisalian grave goods from the Upemba (D.R. Congo). Journal of African Archaeology 14 (1): 19–​32. de Maret, P. 2016b. Bones, sex and dolls: solving a mystery in Central Africa and beyond. Journal of Field Archaeology 41 (4): 500–​9. de Maret, P. and Livingstone-​Smith, A. 2015. Who’s who? The case of the Luba. In F.G. Richard and K.C. MacDonald (eds), Ethnic ambiguity and the African past. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, pp. 192–​216.

 

Upemba archaeology, Luba ethnography 245 Dewey, W.J. and Childs, S.T. 1996. Forging memory. In M. Nooter Roberts and A.F. Roberts (eds), Memory: Luba art and the making of history. New York: Museum for African Art, pp. 61–​83. Dlamini, N. 2014. The early inhabitants of the Upemba Depression, the Democratic Republic of Congo. PhD thesis, University of Cape Town. Fagan, B.M., Phillipson, D.W. and Daniels, S.G. 1969. Iron Age cultures in Zambia:  Volume 2 (Dambwa, Ingombe Ilede and the Tonga). London:  Chatto and Windus. Geyh, M.A. and De Maret, P. 1982. Histogram evaluation of 14C dates applied to the first complete Iron Age sequence from West Central Africa. Archaeometry 24 (2), 158–​63. Hattings, S. and Hall, S. 2009. Shona ethnography and the archaeology of the K2 burials. Southern African Humanities 21: 299–​326. Herbert, E.W. 1993. Iron, gender and power. Bloomington:  Indiana University Press. Hiernaux, J.E., de Longrée, E. and De Buyst, J. 1971. Fouilles archéologiques dans la vallée du Haut-​Lualaba, I Sanga, 1958. Tervuren: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale. Hiernaux, J.E., Plantier, M. and De Buyst, J. 1992. Etude ostéométrique des restes humains de Sanga et Katoto (Age du fer, Zaïre). Anthropologie et Préhistoire 103: 9–​44. Kagame, A. 1956. Les Hamites du Rwanda et du Burundi sont-​ils des Galla ? Bulletin de l’Académie Royale des Sciences Coloniales 11: 341–​64. Lane, P.J. 2005. Barbarous tribes and unrewarding gyrations? The changing role of ethnographic imagination in African archaeology. In A.B. Stahl (ed.), African archaeology. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 24–​54. Leibhammer, N. and Dell, E. (eds). 1998. Evocation of the child: fertility figures of the southern Africa region. Cape Town: Human and Rousseau. Livingstone Smith, A., Bostoen, K., Cornelissen, E., Maniacky, J. and Janssen, B. 2006. Crossing borders:  an integrated archaeological and linguistic approach to population dynamics in southern central Africa. In N. David and J. Sterner (eds), Proceedings of the 18th Biennial Meeting of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists. Calgary: Society of Africanist Archaeologists, pp. 1–​37. Lutten, E. 1933. Poupées d’Afrique occidentale recueillies par la Mission Dakar-​ Djibouti. Bulletin du Musée d’ethnographie du Trocadéro 5: 8–​19. McIntosh, S. and Fagan, B.M. 2017. Re-​dating the Ingombe Ilede burials. Antiquity 91: 1069–​77. Nenquin, J. 1963. Excavations at Sanga, 1957. Tervuren: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale. Neyt, F. 1993. Luba. Aux sources du Zaïre. Paris: Musée Dapper. Nooter, M. 1991. Luba art and polity: creating power in a central African kingdom. PhD dissertation, Columbia University. Nooter Roberts, M. and Roberts, A.F. (eds). 1996a. Memory:  Luba art and the making of history. New York: Museum for African Art. Nooter Roberts, M. and Roberts, A.F. 1996b. Audacities of memory. In M. Nooter Roberts and A.F. Roberts (eds), Memory:  Luba art and the making of history. New York: Museum for African Art, pp.17–​47. Nooter Roberts, M. and Roberts, A.F. 1996c. Body memory. In M. Nooter Roberts and A.F. Roberts (eds), Memory:  Luba art and the making of history. New York: Museum for African Art, pp. 85–​115.

246  Pierre de Maret Nooter Roberts, M. and Roberts, A.F. 1996d. Memory in motion. In M. Nooter Roberts and A.F. Roberts (eds), Memory:  Luba art and the making of history. New York: Museum for African Art, pp. 177–​209. Packard, R.M. 1981. Chiefship and cosmology: an historical study of political competition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Parker Pearson, M. 2003. The archaeology of death and burial. London:  Sutton Publishing. Petit, P. 1993. Rites familiaux, rites royaux: Etude du système cérémonial des Luba du Shaba (Zaïre). PhD dissertation, Université Libre de Bruxelles. Phillipson, D.W. 1972. Early Iron Age sites on the Zambian Copperbelt. Azania 7: 93–​128. Reefe, T.Q. 1981. The rainbow and the kings: a history of the Luba Empire to 1891. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rossie, J.-​P. 2005. Cultures ludiques sahariennes et nord-​africaines. Poupées d’enfants et jeux de poupées. Stockholm: SITREC Editors. Roumeguère, P. and Roumeguère-​ Eberhardt, J. 1960. Poupées de fertilité et figurines d’argile: Leurs lois initiatiques. Journal de la Société des Africanistes 30 (2): 205–​23. Segy, L. 1972. The Mossi doll, an archetypical fertility figure. Tribus 21: 35–​68. Stahl, A.B. 1993. Concepts of time and approaches to analogical reasoning in historical perspective. American Antiquity 58: 235–​60. Swan, L. 2007. Economic and ideological roles of copper ingots in prehistoric Zimbabwe. Antiquity 81: 999–​1012. Theuws, T. 1960. Naître et mourir dans le rituel luba. Zaire 14 (2–​3): 115–​73. Theuws, T. 1962. De Luba mens. Tervuren: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale. Van Avermaet, E. and Mbuya, B. 1954. Dictionnaire Kiluba-​Français. Tervuren: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale. Van Noten, F. 1972. Les tombes de Cyirima Rujugira et de la reine-​mère Nyirayuhi Kanjogera—​Description archéologique. Tervuren:  Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale. Vansina, J. 1996. From memory to history: process of Luba historical consciousness. In M. Nooter Roberts and A.F. Roberts (eds), Memory: Luba art and the making of history. New York: Museum for African Art, pp. 12–​15. Verhulpen, E. 1936. Baluba et Balubaïsés du Katanga. Anvers: L’Avenir belge. Womersley, H. 1975. In the glow of the log fire. London: Peniel Press. Zeebroek, R. 2015. Perles et tissus:  Les instruments monétaires au Katanga. Afrique: Archéologie et Arts 11: 21–​38.

 

11 Gates between worlds Ethnographically informed management and conservation of petroglyph boulders in the Blue Ridge Mountains Johannes H.N. Loubser1 and Scott Ashcraft2 The two of us adopted an ethnographically informed cognitive approach for different reasons. Loubser grew up in South Africa, where, from early childhood, he daily interacted with indigenous Bantu-​speaking people and later majored in Social Anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand. Local Bantu-​ speaking people were Loubser’s field assistants during his excavations of Late Iron Age stonewalled settlements, some of whom knew the traditional customs and oral histories of the areas where he worked. The knowledge shared by these assistants not only helped Loubser with the identification of sites, and areas within sites to excavate, but also with the interpretation of exposed features and recovered artifacts. Ashcraft grew up in western North Carolina and majored in Physical and Cultural Geography. He decided to shift his studies to archaeology after assisting with excavations of a site near the Cherokees’ Qualla Boundary. His perception of the archaeological record changed following two separate incidents when indigenous Cherokee people implored the excavation crews to “stop digging up our people”. These encounters at Late Mississippian period sites also changed Ashcraft’s views on the relationship between living indigenous communities and archaeological remains, which kick-​started his journey of exploration into indigenous perspectives on the past and their rendering in the archaeological record. Both Loubser and Ashcraft’s experiences with rock art recording, interpretation, and conservation management in the mountains of northern Georgia and western North Carolina solidified their affiliation with the beliefs, accounts, and actions of the region’s indigenous peoples. Contrary to Bednarik’s (2007: 60) outright dismissal of all “humanistic pre-​occupations, such as what is depicted and why … and the abundance of meaningless claims about meaning” in the management and conservation of rock art, we argue that an ethnographically informed identification of motifs and their culturally shared meaning has got everything to do with the management and conservation of rock art, particularly in areas where a link between the rock art and living communities can be demonstrated. To be effective and sustainable, rock art management and conservation must

248  Johannes H.N. Loubser and Scott Ashcraft be based on thorough background research, site observations at different levels of inclusion, and conversations with all concerned parties, particularly cultural descendants of those who made the rock art. When it comes to the implementation of management and conservation decisions, it is useful to remember that sound preservation ultimately depends on reliable research-​ based interpretation that has the approval of cultural descendants. The type of background research and interpretation of research results that we advocate is influenced by Whitley’s (1998) ethnographically informed identification of rock art motifs and their meaning within a wider landscape setting. Looking closely at the ethnography of various Native American Indian communities in far western North America, Whitley showed that, regardless of inter-​cultural variation, people believe that the spirit world is in many ways the reverse of the physical one, and further, that throughout the region sacred mountain peaks contained no rock art. Focusing on the Blue Ridge Mountains of the southeastern United States, we explore these principles with respect to two separate mountain tops and associated sets of petroglyph sites (Fig.  11.1). The first is Brasstown Bald Mountain in far northern Georgia with its related petroglyph sites in the nearby Brasstown Creek and Hiwassee River valleys. The second is Tanasee Bald Mountain in western North Carolina with its related petroglyph sites in the nearby Caney Creek and Pigeon River Valleys. Brasstown Bald Mountain is roughly 94 km southwest of Tanasee Bald Mountain. Both mountains fall within what was once territory inhabited by Iroquoian-​speaking Cherokee

Figure 11.1 Key locations and the two petroglyph corridors

 

Gates between worlds 249 people. Whereas Brasstown Bald Mountain was located on the southern end of the Cherokees’ Valley Towns, Tanasee Bald Mountain marked the eastern end of the Cherokees’ Out Towns. As we show in this chapter, names given to areas surrounding petroglyphs in both town concentrations were most probably significant in terms of Cherokee conceptions of cardinal directions. We propose that the associations in the minds of traditional Cherokees between the mountain tops and the petroglyphs contribute to a better understanding, management, and conservation of the rock art and surrounding landscape. We furthermore propose that proper interpretation, management, and conservation should comply with traditional identifications and meanings concerning the landscape and the petroglyphs therein.

The Blue Ridge Mountains and the Cherokees The landscape features and associated plants and animals of the Blue Ridge Mountains, varying in height between 460 and 2020 m above mean sea level, provide natural models (Whitley 1994) by which indigenous communities lived for centuries. Rapidly changing undulating terrain with an extreme climatic regime provide apt metaphors for specific mental states (Lakoff and Johnson 1999) including distant vistas (transcendence), restricted spaces (containment), and marked seasonal shifts (reversals). Comprising very old metamorphic rocks with some igneous intrusions, the generally rounded mountains of the Blue Ridge for the most part lack dark-​zone caves, while exposed near-​vertical granitic cliffs are mostly confined to the southeastern ranges between North and South Carolina. The mountains experience higher rainfall, milder summers, colder winters, and exhibit a greater biodiversity than the foothills to the south. Summer precipitation falls chiefly during thunderstorms, whereas in winter precipitation is chiefly rain and snow. Extreme seasonal shifts in temperatures occur, with hot and humid summers followed by cold winters. The comparatively dense tree cover can be best described as an oak-​chestnut-​hickory deciduous forest, with pines as pioneer species. Isolated patches of grass-​or brier-​covered ground normally occur where wildfires or humans have removed trees. Mammals include white-​tailed deer, black bear, mountain lion, bobcat, raccoon, squirrels, chipmunk, and various other rodents. The long and narrow flood plains along rivers and larger creeks are well suited to migratory ducks. Reptiles in the area include various turtles and snakes. Aquatic life in rivers and creeks includes brook trout, catfish, various amphibians, and freshwater mussels. Whereas deep alluvial soils in valley bottoms along rivers and bigger creeks are suitable for cultivation, topographic variation in the surrounding hills and mountains provides a range of contrasting but juxtaposed rock types, edible and medicinal plants, and wildlife. The Blue Ridge Mountains comprise the heartland of various Iroquoian-​ speaking Cherokee town-​centered groups (a 1733 map by Moseley labels

250  Johannes H.N. Loubser and Scott Ashcraft this portion of the Appalachian Mountains as the ‘Cherokee Mountains’). That at least some Muskogee-​speaking Creeks once lived in areas historically occupied by Cherokees can be seen in Muskogee place and river names, for example (Mooney 1900:  383). River names in northern Georgia and northern South Carolina are evidence that the Siouan-​speaking Catawba Indians also lived in the region (Mooney 1900: 380). Mooney (1900: 234) furthermore maintains that Catawba communities lived for a considerable time to the east of the Cherokee, in the mountains and foothills of northern South Carolina. A few prominent Catawba Indians who lived among the Cherokee acquired the reputation as ritual specialists (Mooney 1900: 165). Pockets of ancient Yuchi that lived scattered among the Cherokee remarkably retained their distinct language (Mooney 1900:  385). Natchez communities, originally from Louisiana and Mississippi, also lived among Cherokees and, like the Algonquian-​speaking Shawnee from Kentucky to the north of the Cherokee heartland, were known to have powerful medicine people (Mooney 1900: 386). Near the Georgia and North Carolina boundary, Natchez lived with Cherokee in a town on the confluence of Brasstown and Gumlog Creeks until their forced removal by the United States government to Oklahoma in 1838 (Mooney 1900:  386). Mooney (1900:  234–​5, 452)  suggests that the various Cherokees, Creeks, Catawba, Yuchi, and Natchez shared certain myths and religious practices due to constant trade and other long-​distance interactions, such as evidenced in the historic period record. Ceramics and site layout in in Late Mississippian times appear to have transcended linguistic and cultural boundaries in what is now known as Georgia, eastern Alabama, southeastern Tennessee, northern Florida, western South Carolina, and western North Carolina (e.g., Williams and Shapiro 1990: 5; Lewis et al. 1998: 1), although extensive cultural resource management (CRM) excavations increasingly reveal regional idiosyncrasies within this pan-​regional pattern. It is worth noting that many designs found on Middle Mississippian ceramics (A D 1200–​1350) in northern Georgia can be traced back to the Late Woodland (A D 500–​1000), notably nested-​circle and cross-​in-​circle designs (Wauchope 1966). Rodning (2008: 39) suggests that Lamar-​looking Qualla vessels in western North Carolina can be traced to much earlier Mississippian Wilbanks, Savannah, and Etowah ceramics of northern Georgia. With the apparent abandonment of north Georgia in the late 1400s and early 1500s, it is possible that Indian refugees from that area settled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and intermarried with the makers of Pisgah and Catawba-​like ceramics. Likely through long-​term and wide-​ranging links between communities and individuals, Late Mississippian period polities resembled each other in many ways. Archaeological evidence indicates that Late Mississippian ceramics, such as those found at proto-​historic and historic period sites in the vicinity of all petroglyph complexes mentioned in this chapter, are closely related to historic Cherokee and Creek ceramic traditions (e.g., Sears 1955: 143; McManamon 2001: 32840) and so it is mainly to Cherokee and

 

Gates between worlds 251 Creek groups that we should look for the creators of the more recent archaeological record in the project area. However, even though Catawba pots were distinctive from Cherokee and Creek ware, as mentioned above, there are instances where Catawba inhabited the same settlements as Cherokees (Mooney 1900: 165). The influence of groups such as the Catawba on the Cherokees should accordingly not be ruled out, even though their numbers have dwindled considerably ever since the early nineteenth century. The town was the primary economic unit among all these groups, each town comprising several maternally related families (e.g., Bartram 1955; Champagne 1990; Lankford 2011). The townhouse, also known as a council house or communal building, was commonly located on a pre-​ existing mound. In the Cherokee heartland these mounds varied in shape and size, those pre-​dating A D 1600 being far more visible on the landscape than those occurring afterwards (e.g., Rodning 2015: 187; Steere 2015: 198). It is from these townhouses that agricultural, hunting, and raiding activities were planned and coordinated. The townhouse also served as a focal point for rituals, particularly the going-​to-​water ceremony. This ceremony was central among almost all southeastern Indian groups. Going-​to-​water was normally preceded by seclusion, prolonged dancing, fasting, and sweating. These activities are also known to occur in a family’s winter house or tiny sweat lodges (Mooney 1900: 230; Adair 1930: 128, 453; Grantham 2002: 130). Such rituals of transition or rites of passage (see Van Gennep 1960; Bloch 1992) included preparation for raiding, hunting excursions, menstrual seclusion (Mooney 1900:  469; Fogelson 1980:  70) and obtaining altered state dreams or visions (e.g., Mooney 1900:  492; Hawkins 1982:  78–​9). The central importance of the going-​to-​water purification ritual among the southeastern Indians in part explains why their towns and structures were normally located near rivers and creeks (e.g., Mooney 1900:  395; Adair 1930: 238–​9). Mooney (1900: 234–​5, 452) suggests that the various southeastern Indian groups shared social structures, economic and political systems, and religious beliefs and practices in a large part due to constant economic and political interactions, but also due to shared ancestral links extending back into prehistoric times. Given the extreme sixteenth to nineteenth century changes that resulted in the fragmentation and re-​aggregation of various communities (see Ethridge and Shuck-​Hall (2009) on Mississippian fragmentation and re-​organization following European colonization) that became known as Cherokees and Creeks (e.g., Muller 1986: 38), it is testimony to the tenacity of religious tradition that commonalities in beliefs and rituals survived (e.g., Moore 1994: 130; Grantham 2002: 10, 86). Whereas suggesting slight regional variations across space and certain changes through time, ethno-​ historic evidence supports the existence of a deep-​rooted and widely shared southeastern cognitive system. Not only is it justified to talk about a pan-​southeastern cognitive system, the petroglyphs occurring in the foothills and mountains of northern Georgia

252  Johannes H.N. Loubser and Scott Ashcraft and western North Carolina also show broad similarities across space and through time. Other than the absences and concentrations of specific designs in certain sub-​areas, a correspondence analysis of 10 design categories at 26 petroglyph sites in northern Georgia and western North Carolina suggests that the different sites are part of an overarching tradition (Loubser 2016). An assessment of the overlap sequence supports the assertion of a broadly shared tradition that cross-​cuts the sub-​areas within the southern Blue Ridge Mountains.

The petroglyphs in the framework of regional culture history Close examination of petroglyph interior surfaces shows that most petroglyphs in the southeastern mountains are pecked, some of which are further enhanced by engraving and grinding. Relative sequencing of petroglyphs is determined by observing direct overlaps between pairs of petroglyphs. Basically, within any pair of overlaps, truncated or dissected petroglyphs are earlier, while those cutting into the interior surface of another are later. What follows is a summary description of the petroglyph-​overlap sequence documented at 26 sites in northern Georgia and western North Carolina. Petroglyphs can be seen overlapping soapstone-​ bowl extraction depressions at six sites. Direct Accelerator Mass Spectrometry radiocarbon dates of soot on soapstone cooking bowls from sites in South Carolina and Georgia show that these bowls were extracted and used between 1300 and 900 BC (Sassaman 1997). This date range places soapstone-​bowl extraction scars within the terminal Late Archaic. At all six sites where soapstone-​ quarry scars and petroglyphs overlap, the petroglyphs are always on top, strongly suggesting that the petroglyphs post-​date the Late Archaic period of soapstone-​bowl quarrying and use. Within the overlap sequence of petroglyph designs, meandering lines are the earliest, followed by feet and tracks, vulva forms, stick figures, nested-​ circle and cross-​in-​circle designs, and rectilinear grids. Meandering lines, feet and tracks, and vulva forms occur on exposed granitic bedrock pavement high up in the mountains of the South Carolina and North Carolina state line, without the later stick figures, nested-​circle and cross-​in-​circle designs, and rectilinear grids (Loubser and Chastain 2017). At petroglyph boulders in northern Georgia, dense applications of nested-​circle and cross-​in-​circle designs have virtually obliterated all traces of earlier meandering lines, although a few feet, tracks, and vulva forms continue to be pecked. Cupules occur throughout the sequence but increase noticeably towards the more recent end of overlaps. The nested-​circle and cross-​in-​circle designs found on boulders in northern Georgia and western North Carolina resemble designs found on Late Woodland (AD 500)  to Middle Mississippian (AD 1200)  ceramics in the same area. In the mountains of South Carolina similar designs first appeared during the Early Mississippian (AD 1000). The ‘single component’

 

Gates between worlds 253 occurrence of meandering and circular designs at sites on the South Carolina and North Carolina state line and their virtual obliteration by a later component of nested-​ circle and cross-​ in-​ circle designs in northern Georgia and western North Carolina suggest that the South Carolina and North Carolina state-​line petroglyphs pre-​date the Early Mississippian while the northern Georgia and western North Carolina petroglyphs continue after that time. The terminal moment of petroglyph production in northern Georgia and western North Carolina might be in early historic times. Early fifteenth-​ century radiocarbon dates of charcoal associated with Late Mississippian-​ period ceramics excavated from directly above pecked cupules next to the Yellow River, Atlanta, provide additional support for a recent date of pecked surfaces (Loubser 2005:  146). The current owner of the private property across the road from the Track Rock Gap petroglyph complex in far northern Georgia, Mr. Brown, was told by his grandparents about a Cherokee tradition handed down within the local Cook family, who inter-​married Cherokees in the nineteenth century, that a rectilinear grid-​looking image on the big boulder portrays a historic period house (Loubser 2009: 83). An Indian-​looking face has been incised with a historic period metal instrument into Judaculla Rock, western North Carolina (Loubser and Frink 2008). Also, boulders within the nearby Turkey Track Rock complex have motifs carved with metallic objects. These examples suggest that petroglyph production continued up until the time of large-​scale Cherokee removal to west of the Mississippi River in 1838, if not later. When combined, dating evidence suggests that petroglyphs in northern Georgia and western North Carolina date to between the Late Woodland Period (AD 500) and historic times (A D  1838). The chronological overlap between Cherokee occupation of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the period of petroglyph production adds credibility to the Cherokee claim that the petroglyphs can be identified and interpreted according to traditions handed down through the generations. Knowing that there is an overlap between various Cherokee town groupings in the river valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the petroglyph boulders nearby, it is safe to accept that the culturally shared thoughts, language, and productive actions of the Cherokees created the petroglyphs, rather than merely accounted for them post-​production. The petroglyphs that are the focus of this chapter all fall within what have been historically known as the Valley and Out Towns. That the location of these towns coincides with much earlier Mississippian-​period platform mounds (supporting townhouse structures) attests to the antiquity of the Cherokee heartland (e.g., Steere 2015: 212–​13).

Petroglyph corridors in the Cherokee heartland The oldest documented reference to petroglyphs in the mountains of Georgia and North Carolina was made by a Cherokee known as Charles Hicks

254  Johannes H.N. Loubser and Scott Ashcraft

Figure 11.2 Re-​drawn tracing showing footprints on the main boulder at Track Rock Gap

in the late eighteenth century (Haywood 1823:  280). Hicks recounted a story of the Cherokee Master of Game, a giant being known as Tuli-​cula or Judaculla, and his wife and two children leaving their footprints on the rocks within Track Rock Gap while journeying to the Brasstown Bald mountain-​ top in far northern Georgia (Fig.  11.2). More recent statements made by Cherokees to Brett Riggs and Scott Ashcraft (pers. comm. 2013) state that Judaculla’s journey went southwards, along Brasstown Creek, starting at its confluence with the Hiwassee River. Track Rock within Track Rock Gap in far northern Georgia is also known as Datsun’ălâsgûñyĭ (Where their Tracks are this Way) or Degayelûñ’ăin (Printed Place) (see Fig.  11.1). Mooney’s (1900: 480) mention of another Datsun’ălâsgûñyĭ petroglyph boulder in the Balsam Mountains of western North Carolina is consistent with Cherokee practice of giving the same name to geographically separate but symbolically related places. Corroboration of a powerful spirit being leaving footprints in Track Rock Gap came from two later accounts in the nineteenth century. According to a Cherokee story collected by a certain Stevenson in 1834 (White 1855: 660), a Great Spirit residing near Track Rock Gap commanded thunder and lightning to scare unqualified visitors approaching Brasstown Bald Mountain. This account is a variation of a story associated with Judaculla Rock in western North Carolina, which holds that visitors must approach Judaculla’s Domain centered on Tanasee Bald Mountain correctly otherwise he may harm them with thunder, lighting, and earthquakes (e.g., Mooney 1900: 335, 341, 346). At least 20 years later, Indian guides who accompanied a certain Stephenson to Track Rock told him that a ‘Great

 

Gates between worlds 255 Warrior’ left his footprints on the main rock within the gap (Stephenson 1871: 214–​15). Warfare and hunting, both integral parts of the southeastern Indians’ agriculture-​based political-​economy, were perceived as sacred activities intricately linked to the spirit world (e.g., Mooney 1900: 374, 393–​4, 470; Adair 1930: 334; Tuggle 1973: 176; Kelly 1978: 223). In addition to being Master of Game, there is reason to believe that Judaculla was probably associated with war and female fertility too. The roughly 25 km route taken by Judaculla and his family from the Hiwassee River valley up to Brasstown Bald Mountain was likely along the pre-​European Choestoe Indian Trail that once paralleled Brasstown Creek (see Fig.  11.1). An 1832 land-​lottery survey map of Indian land in the then Cherokee County, Section 1, District 17 (Torrence 1832) shows the Choestoe Indian trail running through Track Rock Gap in the direction of the Brasstown Creek and Hiwassee River confluence. Six petroglyph sites have already been recorded along the old Choestoe Trail: Track Rock Gap, Young Harris, two along the Brasstown Creek, one near the old Brasstown Valley Cherokee town, and one near the Brasstown Creek and Hiwassee River confluence (Loubser 2016). Until to this day certain knowledgeable Cherokees know the Brasstown Creek and Hiwassee River confluence at the northern end of the Choestoe Trail (and petroglyph corridor) as Aquohee—​meaning ‘Big Place’, ‘Great Place’, or ‘Place where it is Strong’ (Brett Riggs, pers. comm. 2013). According to Riggs the Brasstown Creek and Hiwassee River confluence is also known as the ‘Southern Gate’, implying that it links Peachtree Mound and associated Cherokee settlements along the Hiwassee River with a potent southward corridor to Brasstown Bald Mountain. Cherokees told Brett Riggs (pers. comm. 2013)  that war medicine was associated with the area surrounding the historically occupied Hiwassee Town at Peachtree Mound. Peachtree Mound served as a platform for the townhouse at Hiwassee, one of the most important eighteenth-​ century Cherokee Valley towns (Steere 2015: 205). The concentration of petroglyphs at the confluence of the Brasstown Creek and Hiwassee River physically marks the location of the ‘Southern Gate’. The gate is the transition point between the heavily populated Hiwassee valley to the north and east and Judaculla’s Domain to the south, centered on Brasstown Bald Mountain. The presence of additional petroglyphs east and south of the confluence and their complete absence to the north and west must be significant, particularly in the light of southeastern Indians ascribing great importance to cardinal directions (e.g., Mooney 1900: 431). The southeastern Indians generally associate west and north with death and war, whereas east and south are linked to life and peace (e.g., Gatschet 1884: 41; Mooney 1900: 253). Among the Cherokees, traveling in a westerly direction means approaching the ‘Darkening Land of the Dead’, while traveling eastwards is moving towards the sun where Judaculla, Master of Game, releases game animals (e.g., compare Mooney’s (1900: 339) account of Judaculla departing westwards to his hidden resting

256  Johannes H.N. Loubser and Scott Ashcraft place with Parris’s (1950: 37) account of Cherokee hunters heading east to acquire life-​giving wild game released by Judaculla from his mountain top abodes). Cherokees have recently pointed out a depiction of Judaculla pecked into an exposed rock slab on the edge of an island in the center of the Brasstown Creek and Hiwassee River confluence (Brett Riggs, pers. comm. 2013) (Fig. 11.3). They, and other Cherokees claim, that they can identify Judaculla by his exaggerated fingers, at times resembling claws. One of the hands of the pecked Judaculla figure on the island has six digits. Similarly, a massive clawed-​hand engraving at Judaculla Rock with seven digits is said to be an imprint left by Judaculla (Parris 1950: 36) (Fig. 11.4). Cherokees continue to consider any exaggerated claw-​ like hand petroglyph to be Judaculla’s ‘trademark’. The Cherokees think of Judaculla as a red-​colored giant or as the Red Man of Lightning/​ Thunder (Zeigler and Grosscup 1883:  24; Mooney 1900:  340, 341, 477), although his name actually derives from his eyes, known as tsulʽkălû’, said to have been slanted (e.g., Mooney 1900:338). The slanting referred to the pupils of his eyes, reminiscent of certain snakes and cats with good night vision (Tom Belt to Scott Ashcraft, pers. comm. 2014). Like spirit beings in general and certain powerful medicine people (Speck 1909:  144), Judaculla could see the thoughts of other people and visited certain medicine people in their dreams (Ziegler and Grosscup 1883:  23; Mooney 1900: 327, 338). One of the individuals to whom Judaculla paid nocturnal visits was a Cherokee medicine woman. This medicine woman, who became Judaculla’s wife and the mother of his two children, secretly slept with the slant-​eyed giant in her sweat lodge, or âsĭ, in Kanuga Town (Mooney 1900:  338), near the ancient Garden Creek Mound east of the Balsam Mountains. An account describes the slant-​eyed giant as lying in a serpentine configuration on the floor of the medicine woman’s sweat lodge with his nails “scraping the roof in the right-​hand corner by the door” (Mooney 1900: 338). Another account has Judaculla scraping “with the nail of his right finger … across the face of the [Judaculla] rock” at the entrance to his domain (Parris 1950:  37) (see Fig.  11.1). By emphasizing the slant-​eyed giant’s claw-​like digits instead of his eyes in the petroglyphs, perhaps those who made the petroglyphs intended to portray his ability to cut into material substances and so transcend the divide between the mostly visible world of physical things and the predominantly invisible world of spirit beings. Cherokees living in the early twentieth century stated that by cutting a straight line into Judaculla Rock with his nail Judaculla wanted to remind hunters that death would come to all those who crossed it without first fasting, purifying in a nearby stream, or saying the necessary prayers (Parris 1950: 37). Cherokees made concerted attempts to ask favors from the Master of Game, particularly in their effort to hunt animals successfully. In the past this required that they join a religious sodality associated with Judaculla. Membership of this sodality demanded certain ritual observances. As

 

Gates between worlds 257

Figure 11.3 Re-​drawn tracing of the main panel at the Hiwassee River/​Brasstown Creek confluence

far back as the late eighteenth century, Haywood (1823: 280) mentions Cherokees partaking in extended dancing and fasting rituals to be become a member of Judaculla’s extended family of medicine people and spirit beings. Judaculla was an earthly member of the Thunder family, which lived for the most part at the very apex of mountains and within the sky vault above (Mooney 1900:  342). One perk of becoming part

258  Johannes H.N. Loubser and Scott Ashcraft

Figure 11.4 Re-​drawn tracing of Judaculla Rock

of Judaculla’s family was apparently the receipt of distinctive garments, real and/​or spiritual, as a mark of this newly acquired, elevated status (Mooney 1900:  340). Cherokees believed that the slant-​eyed giant and a variety of spirit beings observed them from behind the veil of rock wherever they went, and accompanied them whatever they did, but that Cherokees in turn could not properly see or communicate with Judaculla and other spirit beings unless they fasted and undertook the going-​to-​water ceremony (Mooney 1900: 342), preferably following the instructions of medicine people. The role of medicine people as mediators between Cherokees and Judaculla is mentioned in various accounts. Mooney (1900: 339) was told

 

Gates between worlds 259 that a medicine man followed his sister and her husband, Judaculla, along the Kanuga Town to Tanasee Bald Mountain trail adjacent to the Pigeon River on the eastern side of the Balsam Mountains, using petroglyph boulders as guides (the petroglyphs marking this corridor have been destroyed by railroad construction). The boulders contained the footprints of the giant Judaculla, the marks where his medicine-​woman wife menstruated and gave birth to a baby boy (probably a reference to vulva-​shaped petroglyphs at various sites), and the footprints left by the girl and boy medicine children ‘running all about’ (hence the term Track Rock). As the woman’s brother reached Judaculla’s townhouse at Tanasee Bald Mountain, he came to a cave like a doorway in the side of the mountain, but the rock was so steep, and smooth that he could not climb up to it, but could only just look over the edge and see the heads and shoulders of a great many people dancing inside. (Mooney 1900: 339–​40) An account published in Zeigler and Grosscup (1883:  21) mentions a medicine man that managed to live in a cave on the steep side of Tanasee Bald Mountain. This medicine man announced that “he was in league with” Judaculla and “consequently could go in and out with perfect safety, which fact caused him to be recognized as a great man”. Judging from these accounts the medicine woman from Kanuga Town and the medicine man mentioned by Zeigler and Grosscup were more successful at accessing Judaculla than the brother of the medicine woman. Although the religious sodality centered on Judaculla no longer appears to be operational, Cherokees from far and wide still respect the petroglyph boulder that bears his name on the western side of the Balsam Mountains. Stories recall encounters with the giant Master of Game and underline the need for respectful conduct at Judaculla Rock. Historic period Cherokees continued to view this petroglyph boulder as marking the boundary to the domain of the Master of Game, with its geographic center at Tanasee Bald, or Tsunegûñyĭ Mountain, roughly 18 km to the east. Parris (1950:  37), for example, notes that prior to the Cherokee removal west in 1838, the hunters, chiefs, and others came annually to Jutaculla’s [sic] preserve for a big hunt so they would have plenty of food through the rest of the year. They came from all sections of the mountains and encamped at Jutaculla [sic] Rock, on the safe side of the line. Each morning the priests [medicine people] and hunters made supplication to the god of the hunt. They asked his permission to enter his domain, which he forever granted by showing himself in the clearing on the top of the mountain and beckoning them to enter.

260  Johannes H.N. Loubser and Scott Ashcraft Wilburn (1952: 21) mentions a related tradition which recounts that large groups of Cherokee Indians used to assemble at the rock, and remain a day or two. Solemn ceremonies or rituals would be carried on. The older members of the group with a long cane as a pointer would indicate different objects on the rock, and this will be followed by exclamations and animated chants. These visitations were likely as late as the 1880s and 1890s. The leaders of these groups, as well as some of the others, came from the West [Oklahoma] long after the Removal of 1838. The reference in Parris (1950:  37) to Judaculla “showing himself in the clearing on the top of the mountain” is a reference to the Master of Game appearing to “cleansed” Cherokee visitors at his Tanasee Bald Mountain townhouse at the top of the Balsam Mountains. The “safe side of the line” refers to the line that Judaculla scratched with the nail of his right finger … across the face of the rock … to remind the Cherokee that death would come to all who crossed it [without first fasting, purifying in a nearby stream, and/​or saying the necessary prayers]. (Parris 1950: 37) Knowledgeable and observant traditionalists among the Cherokees still use a “long cane as a pointer” (Wilburn 1952: 21). At times, visiting Cherokees will carry sticks to avoid directly touching the spiritually potent petroglyph boulder. Today, traditionalist Cherokees avoid touching the petroglyph boulder, but it is not known whether they would willingly enter the Balsam Mountain wilderness beyond the boulder. Prior to their 1838 removal, documents and oral traditions suggest that most Cherokees avoided the Balsam Mountain wilderness altogether, unless they had undertaken the necessary rituals. Known as the ‘Remote Balsams’ but better labelled as ‘Judaculla’s Domain’, this wilderness area includes Judaculla Mountain, Judaculla Ridge, Judaculla Old Fields, and Devil’s Courthouse, as well as Tanasee Bald. All are potent places associated with the Master of Game. Wilburn’s quote above suggests that large-​scale Cherokee visitation to the rock continued at least into the late nineteenth century. A series of petroglyph boulders along Caney Creek that parallels an old trail linking Cullowhee with Tanasee Bald Mountain are physical testimony of a petroglyph corridor west of the Balsam Mountains, reminiscent of the one along the Pigeon River valley to the east and the Brasstown Creek corridor north of Track Rock Gap. Of the Caney Creek petroglyphs, only Judaculla Rock has remained in situ. Brinkley Rock, which was originally located downstream from Judaculla Rock, has been moved to a private yard in a valley south of Caney Creek.

 

Gates between worlds 261 According to some Cherokee traditions, a time came when it was no longer viable for Judaculla to live among human beings (Kirk 2013:  81). Prior to his departure to the land in the west, Judaculla revealed his secrets to the people, such as instructions on how to talk to plants and animals, proper procedures for rituals, and sacred formulas. He carved these instructions into Judaculla Rock. People living in a nearby Cherokee village became custodians of Judaculla Rock. In response to a prophetic vision, medicine people from other villages in the region gathered at the rock at specific times of the year to obtain medicine (Kirk 2013:  82). Even the Cherokees who were forced to move west retained knowledge of the rock for a considerable time; designated individuals traveled from Oklahoma to join designated local Eastern Cherokees for ceremonies at the rock. Because Judaculla Rock is a mere 40 km southeast of the Eastern Cherokee Indian Land Trust (also known as the Qualla Boundary), it has received visitation on a more regular basis by Cherokees than the Hiwassee River-​Brasstown Creek-​Track Rock petroglyph complex, which has been separated by 130 km of Euro-​American owned land to the southwest of Cherokee territory since the mid-​nineteenth century. Members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, a federally recognized Native American tribe in the United States of America, are descended from the small group of at least 800 Cherokees who remained in the area after the Indian Removal Act moved 15,000 Cherokees to the west in in 1838 (e.g., Chavez 2016). Today at least 14,000 Cherokees live in the area (Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians 2016), some of whom still visit Judaculla Rock. Native American Indian visitation to Track Rock and the Brasstown Creek-​Hiwassee River corridor is less well documented, although there are recollections among various Euro-​Americans families living in the vicinity of Track Rock Gap of solitary Indians visiting the petroglyph complex in the early 1900s. More recently representatives of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Oklahoma came to visit Track Rock Gap, with representatives of the United States Forest Service, which indicates official recognition that Muskogean Creek-​speakers once lived in the area too. Together with members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian Cultural Preservation Office, members of the Muscogee Nation Cultural Preservation Office were consulted during the recording, interpretation, and infrastructural changes at the Track Rock Gap complex (Ledbetter et al. 2013). Duke Energy and the North Carolina Department of Transportation also consult with both Cherokee and Creek representatives concerning any decisions regarding the petroglyph concentration at the Hiwassee River and Brasstown Creek confluence. Because Cherokees have visited Judaculla Rock on a far more regular basis since the 1838 removal than they have the Track Rock Gap or the Hiwassee River and Brasstown Creek confluence petroglyphs, relatively more is known of Judaculla Rock’s traditional significance and ongoing use. It is nonetheless clear from an overview of the Track Rock Gap petroglyph complex’s traditional significance that it shared many attributes with

262  Johannes H.N. Loubser and Scott Ashcraft Judaculla Rock; ethno-​ historical information suggests that petroglyph boulders found along trails in various parts of the mountains and foothills had broadly similar cultural meanings (e.g., Lewis-​Williams and Loubser 2014). The relatively close involvement of Cherokees in the conservation and management of Judaculla Rock nevertheless means that the remaining discussion concerns this site and its associated landscape.

Ongoing significance and management of Judaculla Rock and the nearby Balsam Mountains since Euro-​American settlement Euro-​Americans gradually entered and passed through the area, with some deciding to settle permanently. The Coward family must have settled by 1812 on Caney Creek, for it is in that year that Benjamin Coward was born south of Judaculla Rock near the creek (Parris 1950). Benjamin’s father had been one of the first Euro-​American pioneers to settle in the mountains of North Carolina, where he learnt the language of Cherokee Indians who had had lived in the valley for many generations. One outcome of living so close to Cherokees was that the settlers became acquainted with indigenous traditions and customs (Parris 1950). From the above-​mentioned accounts it is clear that Cherokees continued to visit the rock and retained traditions concerning its significance on the landscape and association with the Master of Game. According to current Cherokee spokespeople Judaculla Rock falls in an area known as the ‘Eastern Gate’, which is guarded by the turtle (Cherokee comments shared with Scott Ashcraft, pers. comm. 2012). With its deep knowledge of the ground surface, the water, and the world below the ground surface, the turtle is an appropriate guardian and gate keeper between worlds. The ‘Eastern Gate’ was known as a place where things change or where people could change things. In Cherokee thought, the world of spirits mirrors the physical one, with many things reversed, such as winter becoming summer, quiet becoming noise, scarcity of game becoming abundance, and dry becoming wet (e.g., Mooney 1900:  240, 324, 345–​7). In Cherokee stories, turtles appear in liminal situations and a few petroglyph boulders in the mountains resemble turtles (e.g., Loubser 2011). Current conceptions that associate the turtle with a transition into Judaculla’s Domain and beyond therefore make sense in terms of Cherokee thought patterns and symbolism. Judaculla lived near the highest place on the landscape and so was above and beyond the turtle. Once Cherokees managed to pass the turtle and reach Tanasee Bald everything changed and Cherokee clan laws ceased to apply. Old tree growths in Judaculla’s Domain are potentially dangerous and should be left untouched. There was once no human settlement within his domain, for it was a place of spirit beings and judgement. Tanasee Bald and its surroundings were powerful and sacred terrains where few people stayed long. The line on Judaculla Rock was a reminder to hunters to conduct the correct rituals prior to crossing into his domain. The Cherokees

 

Gates between worlds 263 interviewed stated that Judaculla and associated spirit beings predate their appearance on the landscape, suggesting that beliefs in the Master of Game have ancient roots. The location of a spring underneath Judaculla Rock is seen as important for two main reasons. First, the springhead is a poignant reminder of what Swimmer and John Axe, two respected Cherokee medicine men, told Mooney (1900: 240): “streams … are the trails by which we reach the underworld, and the springs at their head are the doorways by which we enter it”. Secondly, emanating from the underworld, spring water contains powerful medicine. According to Tom Belt (Scott Ashcraft, pers. comm. 2010), the power of this water can be amplified by pouring it along the top of the rock to let it absorb medicine from the grooves and cupules in the rock, before collecting it at the base of the rock for later use. Some of the larger holes in the rock’s surface were used to rest tobacco pipes, the stems of which would come together if set down correctly. Cherokee visitors would bring ‘renamed’ native tobacco and leave some in the larger holes and smaller cupules. Such gifts add medicine to the rock. According to Tom Belt (Scott Ashcraft, pers. comm. 2010) and information more recently volunteered to Kirk (2013: 82), Judaculla Rock is a map that contains multiple layers. One layer shows the location of heavenly bodies above, another layer represents features on the immediately surrounding landscape (i.e., the Balsam Mountains), and yet another layer represents the underworld of spirits below the Balsams. This contemporary emic interpretation shows a remarkable agreement with the traditional Cherokee idea of layered worlds found within certain mountain tops, each which was believed to contain underground, surface, and sky worlds “all the same”/​ mirror images as far as their internally layered make-​ups are concerned (Mooney 1900: 342). Many spirit beings, including the winged Horned Serpent, can move between the ground surface into water and even ascend up to the sky dome (Mooney 1900: 297). The Cherokees basically believe in parallel multi-​layered worlds inhabited by a hierarchy of spirit beings; in addition to a readily visible ground surface, their landscape includes topographies hidden from everyday view, both below the ground surface and above the sky dome. Judaculla Rock and its petroglyphs offer a rare glimpse of these layered worlds on a single physical surface. According to Kirk’s informant, only the ‘old ones’ knew how to ‘read’ the different layers. The palimpsest of petroglyphs at Judaculla Rock includes a mixture of lines, foot and hand prints, human figures, concentric rings, cross-​in-​circles, and cupules. What appears as a chaotic jumble to the uninitiated eye is a conflation of multi-​layered worlds (Lewis-​Williams and Loubser 2014); underworld town houses (e.g., inverted U-​shapes) are depicted among hand and foot imprints of spirit beings that have entered the physical world. These images are depicted alongside townhouses, rivers, and trails on the ground surface (Loubser 2009) and with hitherto unidentified features and beings from the sky dome. As is the case in many modern interpretative

264  Johannes H.N. Loubser and Scott Ashcraft maps, scale clearly did not matter, bearing in mind that feet and tracks are much bigger than stick figures and depictions of structures. In a sense, then, Judaculla Rock can perhaps best be viewed as a highly stylized ‘picture map’, conflating elements of the physical and spiritual worlds. Although not all Cherokees know of these esoteric aspects concerning the rock, it is probably safe to say that most respect the rock and the need to maintain its cultural integrity. From a relatively early date Euro-​American landowners recognized visiting Cherokees as stakeholders in the conservation, management, and interpretation of Judaculla Rock. The Parker family, which owned the farm on which Judaculla Rock is located, was concerned about increasing visitation to the rock. For example, Milas Parker requested in a 1934 newspaper article that a proper road be built to the rock to accommodate increased vehicular traffic (Special Report 1934). Parker was moreover willing to donate a half-​ acre of ground surrounding Judaculla Rock to the Smoky National Park museum. Members of the museum committee and the chief of Eastern Band of Cherokees agreed with Parker that Judaculla Rock would lose a large part of its appeal if it was moved from its natural setting. From at least the 1930s concerned parties expressed the need to conserve Judaculla Rock in its original setting with public visitation in mind. J.B. Parker finally donated the rock and surrounding land to Jackson County in 1959 (Parker 2006: 12). A roofed cinder-​block building that was built around Judaculla Rock in 1962 was dismantled in 1966. Problems associated with the cinder-​block building included vandalism, crowding within, and pooled water from the spring beneath dammed up by the structure. In the early 1970s the building was replaced by an open-​roofed pavilion which unfortunately did not solve the problem of trampling sandy mud onto the rock surface or rainwater from the roof creating a deep furrow around the rock (Jerry Parker, pers. comm. 2007). Moreover, Cherokees were unhappy about the rock being covered by a structure. According to Lynne Harlan, a Cherokee historian who lived within the nearby Qualla Boundary, “the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians would like to be included in any discussions concerning a significant part of their history” (Ellison and Davis 1998). According to a newspaper article by Ellison (1998), The Jackson County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted on May 4, 1998 to tear down the 1970s-​built shelter over the rock, construct a fence and wooden walkway around the rock and erect an interpretive sign. However, the Cherokees did not approve of a fence surrounding the rock (Tyler Howe, pers. comm. 2016). More recently, at the instigation of the North Carolina Rock Art Project, members of the Caney Fork community joined heads with Jackson County officials and representatives from the Eastern Band of Cherokees to solve the conservation and management problems at Judaculla Rock (Goble 2007).

 

Gates between worlds 265 Following recording of the petroglyphs on the rock (Loubser and Frink 2007) and excavations of disturbed deposits around the rock (Loubser 2010), it was agreed that any interpretation of the recording and excavations will be subject to final approval from the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians Tribal Historical Preservation Officer and Cherokee elders. Also, any infra-​ structural changes at the site had to be approved by representatives of the Eastern Band. The ‘open’ design favored by the Cherokees resulted in the installation of a semi-​circular elevated viewing platform slightly downhill from the rock in 2011. The natural springhead and a thicket of river cane (Arundinaria gigantean) were left intact. Bearing in mind that Cherokees used river cane for a variety of purposes (e.g., Adair 1930: 456), including as raw material for basket manufacture and ritual implements, it is understandable that Eastern Band representatives insisted that the river cane thicket immediately west of the rock not be disturbed (Russell Townsend and Brain Burgess, pers. comm. 2007). As in earlier times, ongoing Cherokee concerns about the spiritual integrity of Judaculla Rock extend eastwards to include Judaculla’s Domain in the Balsam Mountains. The United States Forest Service recently completed investigations within Judaculla’s Domain in order to develop better management and conservation strategies on a landscape level. This work included archaeological surveys to identify sites and extensive interviews with knowledgeable traditionalist Cherokees (Ashcraft 2014). According to Rodney Snedeker (pers. comm. 2016) of the Forest Service in western North Carolina, management now requires formal consultation between the Forest Service and the Eastern Band of Cherokees for any proposed changes to the terrain within Judaculla’s Domain. The delineation of the domain is based on ethnographic information, topographic breaks, and watersheds on land administered by the Forest Service. Protection and preservation are emphasized, keeping Cherokee preferences in mind. Archaeological survey results revealed essentially Archaic period sites, except for two ceramic sites that probably represent ceremonial locales (Ashcraft 2014:  24). According to knowledgeable Cherokees interviewed by Ashcraft (see above), the Balsam Mountains is a potent area where traditional people do not necessarily want to live or linger. Considering the virtual absence of post-​Archaic period sites, frequent Cherokee habitation of this area over the past 2,000 years is unlikely. The paucity of archaeological remains within Judaculla’s Domain is evidence of its spiritual importance among the Cherokees.

Concluding remarks All petroglyph sites recorded in northern Georgia, western North Carolina, and northern South Carolina occur along old Indian trails that connect inhabited valley bottoms with desolate mountain tops (Loubser 2013). The fact that petroglyph boulders were located at gateways to sacred domains

266  Johannes H.N. Loubser and Scott Ashcraft might have been completely overlooked had the rock art and archaeological investigations not been ethnographically driven. Moreover, in the absence of ethnography that contains information on the perceptions of indigenous communities, critical points regarding acceptable and sustainable conservation, management, and interpretation of traditional places and landscapes would probably have been missed. In the absence of ethnography, the result might have been the obliteration of less obvious traces left by a once spiritually-​charged cultural landscape.

Acknowledgments Lorie Hansen is thanked for her work alongside Scott and for facilitating various rock art projects in western North Carolina. Dave Whitley’s ongoing intellectual and moral support for rock art work in the southeastern United States is greatly appreciated. Without the academic influence of David Lewis-​Williams, Tom Huffman, and the Social Anthropology Department at the University of the Witwatersrand, this chapter would have been entirely different or not even written.

Notes 1 Stratum Unlimited LLC, Johns Creek, Georgia 30022, USA and Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa; [email protected]. 2 Pisgah National Forest, Mars Hill, North Carolina 28754 USA and North Carolina Rock Art Project, Asheville, North Carolina 28802 USA:  sashcraft@ fs.fed.us.

References Adair, J. 1930. Adair’s history of the American Indians. Edited by S.C. Williams. New York: Promontory Press. Ashcraft, S. 2014. Cultural resources survey for the proposed Courthouse Creek Project. Asheville:  National Forest report submitted to the National Forests in North Carolina. Bartram, W. 1955. Travels of William Bartram. Edited by M. van Doren. New York: Dover Publications. Bednarik, R. 2007. Rock art science: the scientific study of palaeoart. New Delhi: Aryan Books International. Bloch, M. 1992. Prey into hunter: the politics of religious experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Champagne, D. 1990. Institutional and cultural order in early Cherokee society: a sociological interpretation. Journal of Cherokee Studies 15: 3–​26. Chavez, W. 2016. EBCI ancestors remained east for various reasons. Cherokee Phoenix. www.cherokeephoenix.org/​Article/​index/​10143, site accessed 14 December 2018.

 

Gates between worlds 267 Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. 2016. Take a journey to the home of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. http://​visitcherokeenc.com/​eastern-​band-​of-​the-​ cherokee/​>, site accessed 14 December 2018. Ellison, Q. 1998. Judaculla Rock one step closer to being preserved. Asheville Citizen-​Times, May 18. Ellison, Q. and Davis, T. 1998. Judaculla Rock’s future in doubt. Asheville Citizen-​ Times, April 28. Ethridge, R. and Shuck-​Hall, S.M. (eds) 2009. The Colonial Indian slave trade and regional instability in the American South. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Fogelson, R.D. 1980. The conjurer in Eastern Cherokee Society. Journal of Cherokee Studies 5 (2): 60–​87. Gatschet, A.S. 1884. A migration legend of the Creek Indians, with a linguistic, historic, and ethnographic introduction. Vol. 1. Brinton’s Library of Aboriginal Indian Literature, Number 4. Philadelphia: D.G. Brinton. Goble, J. 2007. Community members share ideas to preserve Judaculla Rock. The Sylva Herald and Ruralite, March 29. Grantham, B. 2002. Creation myths and legends of the Creek Indians. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Hawkins, B. 1982. A sketch of the Creek Country, in the years 1798 and 1799. And letters of Benjamin Hawkins, 1796–​1806. Reprinted from the Collection of the Georgia Historical Society. Vol. 3, pt. 1. Spartanburg: Reprint Company. Haywood, J. 1823. The natural and aboriginal history of Tennessee, up to the first settlements therein by the white people, in the year 1768. Nashville:  George Wilson. Kelly, J.C. 1978. Oconostota. Journal of Cherokee Studies 3 (4): 221–​38. Kirk, D.L. 2013. Visualizing the Cherokee homeland through indigenous historic GIS: an interactive map of James Mooney’s ethnographic fieldwork and Cherokee collective memory. MA thesis, University of Kansas. Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. 1999. Philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York: Basic Books. Lankford, G.E. 2011. Native American legends of the Southeast:  tales from the Natchez, Caddo, Biloxi, Chickasaw, and other nations. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Ledbetter, J., Gresham, T., Loubser, J. and Bonhage-​ Freund, M.T. 2013. Archeological survey and Phase II testing for proposed improvements to SR 515/​ US 76 from Blairsville to Young Harris, Union and Towns Counties, Georgia. Atlanta:  Southeastern Archeological Services report submitted to the Georgia Department of Transportation. Lewis, R.B., Stout, C. and Wesson, C.B. 1998. The design of Mississippian towns. In R.B. Lewis and C. Stout (eds), Mississippian towns and sacred spaces: searching for an architectural grammar. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, pp. 1–​21. Lewis-​Williams, J.D. and Loubser, J.H N. 2014. Bridging realms:  towards ethnographically informed methods to identify religious and artistic practices in different settings. Time and Mind 7 (2): 109–​39. Loubser, J.H.N. 2005. In small cupules forgotten: rock markings, archaeology, and ethnography in the Deep South. In L. Loendorf, C. Chippendale and D. Whitley (eds), Discovering North American rock art. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pp. 131–​60.

268  Johannes H.N. Loubser and Scott Ashcraft Loubser, J.H.N. 2009. The recording and interpretation of two petroglyph locales, Track Rock Gap and Hickorynut Mountain, Blue Ridge and Chattooga River Ranger Districts, Chattahoochee-​ Oconee National Forests, Union and White Counties, Georgia. Gainesville:  Stratum report submitted to Chattahoochee-​ Oconee National Forests. Loubser, J.H.N. 2010. Phase II test excavations at Judaculla Rock, State Archaeological Site 31JK3, Jackson County, North Carolina. Sylva: Stratum report submitted to Jackson County. Loubser, J.H.N. 2011. Heritage resources evaluation of the Allen petroglyph boulder, 9HM299, Habersham County, Chattooga Ranger District, Georgia. Gainesville: Stratum report submitted to the USDA Forest Service Chattahoochee-​ Oconee National Forest. Loubser, J.H.N. 2013. The ritual and socio-​economic contexts of petroglyph boulders in the southeastern United States. In E. Anati (ed.), Art as a source of history. Capo di Ponte: Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici, pp.83–​93. Loubser, J.H.N. 2016. Petroglyph identification at NCDOT Old Highway 64 bridge replacement, Hiwassee River, Cherokee/​ Clay County, North Carolina. Stone Mountain: Stratum report submitted to New South Associates. Loubser, J.H.N. and Chastain, D.V. 2017. Heritage resources evaluation of Long Ridge Road petroglyphs (38PN122), Jocassee Gorge, South Carolina. Columbia:  Stratum report submitted to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. Loubser J. and Frink, D. 2008. Heritage resource conservation plan for Judaculla Rock, State Archaeological Site 31JK3, North Carolina. Sylva:  Stratum report submitted to Jackson County. McManamon, F.P. 2001. National Park Service notice of inventory completion at Ocmulgee National Monument. Federal Register (66) 117: 32839–​40. Mooney, J. 1900. Myths of the Cherokee. Extract from the nineteenth annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Washington: Government Printing Office. Moore, J.H. 1994. Ethnoarchaeology of the Lamar people: In P.B. Kwachka (ed.), Perspectives on the Southeast: linguistics, archaeology, and ethnohistory. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, pp. 126–​41. Moseley, E. 1733. A new and correct map of the Province of North Carolina. East Carolina University Digital Collections. https://​digital.lib.ecu.edu/​1028, site accessed 14 December 2018. Muller, J. 1986. Serpents and dancers: art of the Mud Glyph Cave. In C.H. Faulkner (ed.), The prehistoric Native American art of Mud Glyph Cave. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, pp. 36–​80. Parker, G.K. 2006. Seven Cherokee myths: creation, fire, the primordial parents, the nature of evil, the family, universal suffering, and common obligation. Jefferson, GA: McFarland. Parris, J. 1950. The Cherokee story. Asheville, NC: Stephens Press. Rodning, C.B. 2008. Temporal variation in Qualla pottery. North Carolina Archaeology 57: 1–​49. Rodning, C.B. 2015. Mortuary patterns and community history at the Chauga mound and village Site, Oconee County, South Carolina. Southeastern Archaeology 34 (3): 169–​95. Sassaman, K.E. 1997. Refining soapstone vessel chronology in the Southeast. Early Georgia 25 (1): 1–​20.

 

Gates between worlds 269 Sears, W.H. 1955. Creek and Cherokee culture in the 18th century. American Antiquity 21 (2): 143–​9. Special Report, 1934. Judaculla Rock to be given to Park Museum. Asheville Citizen. February 10. Speck, F.G. 1909. Ethnology of the Yuchi Indians. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Steere, B.A. 2015. Revisiting platform mounds and townhouses in the Cherokee Heartland. Southeastern Archaeology 34 (3): 196–​219. Stephenson, M.E. 1871. Geology and mineralogy of Georgia. Atlanta:  Globe Publishing. Torrence, S. 1832. District plats of survey, survey records, surveyor general, RG 3-​3-​ 24. Atlanta: Georgia Archives. Tuggle, W.O. 1973. Shem, Ham, and Japheth:  The papers of W.O. Tuggle. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Van Gennep, A. 1960. The rites of passage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wauchope, R.S. 1966. Archaeological survey of Northern Georgia. Salt Lake City: Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology 21. White, G. 1855. Historical collections of Georgia: containing the most interesting facts, traditions, biographical sketches, anecdotes, etc. relating to its history and antiquities, from its first settlement to the present time. New  York:  Pudney & Russell. Whitley, D.S. 1994. Shamanism, natural modeling and the rock art of far western North American hunter-​gatherers. In S. Turpin (ed.), Shamanism and rock art in North American. Special Publication 1. San Antonio: Rock Art Foundation, Inc., pp.  1–​43. Whitley, D.S. 1998. Finding rain in the desert:  landscape, gender, and far western North American rock-​art. In P.S.C. Taçon and C. Chippindale (eds), The archaeology of rock-​art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 11–​29. Wilburn, H.C. 1952. Judaculla Rock. Southern Indian Studies 4: 19–​22. Williams, M.J., and Shapiro, G. 1990. Introduction. In M. Williams and G. Shapiro (eds), Lamar archaeology: Mississippian chiefdoms in the Deep South. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, pp. 3–​29. Zeigler, W.G. and Grosscup, B.S. 1883. The heart of the Alleghanies, or Western Carolina. Raleigh, NC: Alfred Williams.

12 On the archaeology of elves Joakim Goldhahn1

In northern Europe, where the lion’s share of my research about rock art as a meaningful phenomenon has taken place, we find a hiatus of millennia between the time when the last rock art traditions flourished and the earliest commentary on that rock art in historical sources (Goldhahn 2017). The study of these rock art traditions has therefore been conducted mainly through ‘simple dirt archaeology’. The archaeological sources are indeed rich, complex and diverse, but they have often been regarded as of limited use in rock art research. This situation is in sharp contrast to places in the world where the practice of making rock art has been continued into recent times, even into our own days, and where we find reliable information about how, when and why rock art was created. My own research started in the mid-​1990s when I  decided to write a dissertation on northern European Bronze Age rock art. My choice of subject was thought to be senseless and pointless. However, I  received the best advice a newly appointed PhD student could wish for from my supervisor:  “But Joakim, rock art! Why? There is nothing more to say about them. Everything is already done”. It was like putting out fire with gasoline. I immediately familiarized myself with what had been said and done about the meaning of northern European rock art traditions. Many accounts were impeccable but descriptive contemplations. The images were persistently categorized and lots of data and tables were produced. To generate distribution maps of different categories of images sometimes appeared as a goal in itself. Few dared to pronounce the word ‘interpretation’; even fewer used notions like ‘ritual’, ‘cognition’, ‘cosmology’, or ‘ontology’. One of the most sensible researchers I came across, but also one of the most restrained, was Mats P.  Malmer (1921–​2007). He favored a sharp demarcation between ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ approaches to rock art (Malmer 1981). The absolute approach verified its studies through historical sources and anthropological analogies, a relativist perspective through objective archaeological facts: chorology and chronology became both the aim and goal. Malmer’s dissection is clearly interrelated to Paul Taçon and Chris Chippindale’s (1998) now firmly rooted notions about informed and formal approaches to the study of rock art. Malmer was quite harsh with

 

Archaeology of elves 271 those who used historical sources and analogies for understanding northern European rock art traditions. He argued that the former were too scarce and limited and that the latter were inadequate because “Other possible interpretations are rejected as of secondary or negligible importance” (Malmer 1981: 108). For Malmer, the different approaches to the meaning and significance of rock art came down to a choice between ‘Archaeology as Fact or Fiction’ (Malmer 2016). Malmer demanded facts. At first, Malmer’s black-​and-​white division between absolute and relative approaches discouraged me from studying rock art through informed methods. Instead, I let myself be influenced by the post-​processual motion (e.g., Tilley 1991; Bradley 1997), some would say commotion. However, in the end, it was impossible not to be provoked by the informed trailblazing international studies of traditional and indigenous societies’ use and reuse of rock art. At first, my reading concerned Australia (Munn 1973; Morphy 1991; Layton 1992; Mulvaney 1996), South Africa (Vinnicombe 1976; Lewis-​Williams 1981; Lewis-​Williams and Dowson 1988) and North America (Hultkrantz 1981, 1986; Rajnovich 1994; Turpin 1994; Whitley and Lorendorf 1994). Indigenous practices associated with rock art seemed limitless and the various studies fundamentally changed my perception of rock art as a meaningful and creative media. I was fascinated by these studies. Not mainly, as Malmer suggests, to find any definitive explanation to an enigmatic rock art image. Rather, the opposite:  I see informed studies of rock art as an inexhaustible source of inspiration for raising new questions about how rock art might have been used to express meaning, and about what it might mean to be human. That said, the archaeological context—​the testimony of the trowel—​has always been the foremost guiding principle in my research. And yes, my supervisor was wrong. Everything about the many rock art traditions of northern Europe had not been done (e.g., Goldhahn 2005, 2007, 2013a, 2016, 2019). There is also more to say, for example, about the few but exquisite rock art traditions in northern Europe that actually can be studied through historical and ethnographic sources (e.g., Mulk and Bayliss-​Smith 2006; Lahelma 2008; Gjerde 2010). The same is true of the theme of this article—​ the archaeology of elves.

Elves? Why? Isn’t everything already said and done? There are few creatures that have been more tenacious in people’s imagination than elves (Fig. 12.1). Elves, people believed, were small, dainty and nimble beings that populated people’s worldings in northern Europe during the early modern era, from 1527 until recently. My beloved grandmother, who was born in 1908 in the county of Värmland in Sweden, for instance, often and eagerly testified about elves and other ingenious creatures that she had met in her childhood. She could tell vivid stories about people affected by the elves’ anger and about how one could best restore their amity. When

272  Joakim Goldhahn

Figure 12.1 Älvalek (The play of elves) (1866) by August Malmström (1829–​1901). Source: Wikimedia

we drove out to her summer cottage, she would point out places where she had seen the elves dancing, and where you could find traces of their nocturnal dances in the landscape. Today, they are gone, both my grandmother and the elves. Beliefs about elves were widespread across northern Europe (Schön 1986; Tillhagen 1996:  179–​201; Sveinsson 2003; Hall 2004). According to traditions recorded from Sweden, elves were secluded, unobtrusive fairy beings that people claimed to encounter at crossroads, strange or odd rocks and trees, and even on house porches. Sometimes they sneaked into houses  and danced, especially if the occupants did not keep it tidy and clean. Now and again, people said, one might come across elves dancing in meadows and wetlands, and they might appear at lakes and woods, and leave traces of themselves in the landscape. These traces include what

 

Archaeology of elves 273

Figure 12.2 Both naturally and culturally made features and phenomena in the landscape were believed to derive from elves. Examples include mushrooms that grow in circles (top left), such as shingled or Scaly hedgehog (Sarcodon imbricatus), Shaggy parasol (Macrolepiota rhacodes), St. George’s mushroom (Calocybe gambosa), and Scotch bonnet (Marasmius oreades), which is also known as the fairy-​ring mushroom. The same applies to various species of grass (top right), and traces resulting from mating roe deer (bottom), which appear in July and August. Photos: Wikipedia Commons and Joakim Goldhahn

we today recognize as both natural and cultural features and phenomena (Fig. 12.2). Elves were erratic and had a clear agency, though they were mostly harmless. If you were careful and treated them well and with respect, they usually left you alone. And contrarily, if the elves were disturbed, if you cast water on them, or somehow happened to disrupt their circles, their bright and friendly minds would turn. If you did not know how to appease angry elves with magic and gifts, they could cause disease, the so-​called ‘elf-​blow’ (Swedish, älvablåst). Those affected became tired, dazed, and red-​eyed. They

274  Joakim Goldhahn could also get skin rashes, diarrhea or chapped fingers. It was also thought that elves brought sickness onto children by sucking their fingertips when they were asleep, which attentive parents sometimes tried to prevent by dipping the fingers of their children in tar or similar bad-​tasting substances. In the worst-​case scenario, to be breathed upon or blown at by an elf could cause death. Both nobles and servants were similarly vulnerable, as ‘The ballad of Sir Oloff and the Elves’ testifies. This ballad was first transliterated in 1670 in Lyrestad Parish of the county of Västergötland in Sweden. As many as 16 versions of the ballad are known from Sweden, Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Iceland (Jonsson et al. 1994). As my grandmother sometimes noted: “Life takes its toll”. Sooner or later, life dampens your sense of invulnerability. High or low, we are all mortals. Historical and ethnographic sources indicate several ways of appeasing angry elves. Most rituals can be described in terms of sympathetic magic. Often the sickness was cured by the principle ‘like cures like’. The most common method to cure elf-​blow was to blow it away. Blowing through a nettle stem could do it, or you could ask a blacksmith to perform an ‘anti-​blow’ with bellows (Swedish, motblås). To heal, the patient should ask “Why do you blow?”, and the one performing the anti-​blow should answer: “I blow away the elves”. Then all you had to do was to wait for recovery. You could also gather ‘elf birch-​bark’ (Swedish, älvanäver), lichen that grew under juniper bushes or on birch trees, and immerse yourself in smoke to get rid of the elf-​blow. If the ritual did not have the desired effect, it could be repeated three or nine times to enhance its magical power. Another method to appease elves was to return to the place where they had been disturbed and offended, and try to persuade them with a gift. The gifts were often simple and unpretentious, and from our perspective they might even appear peculiar: a button, a pin, juniper, a beautiful little stone, a coin, a piece of iron, and quartz pebbles, to name just a few of the most common inducements (Tables 12.1, 12.2). The power of these simple gifts derives from the rituals conducted in connection with the negotiations with the elves. Knowledgeable old women, each often spoken of as a ‘wise old woman’ (Swedish, klok gumma), are mentioned by historical sources as the ones who conducted the rituals. The rituals were preferably performed on a Thursday at dusk at the place where the elves had been disturbed, or at a place where elves were known to dwell. Thursdays are especially charged as a day to contact immaterial forces in Swedish folklore, a phenomenon that Nilsson (1838–​43, part  3:  45) called ‘Thorism’ (see also Holmberg 1867: 237). Many sources mention cupmarks or cupules as an advantageous place for the negotiations (Fig. 12.3). It was generally assumed that these small, pecked, human-​made hollows were made by elves and functioned as their ‘mills’ (Swedish, älvkvarnar). Historical sources from the late 1600s mention that rain water collected in cupmarks could be used to rub away elf-​blow. Sources from the mid-​ 1800s indicate that the person who performed the ritual should move

 

Archaeology of elves 275

Figure 12.3 Block of stone at Tjust, southeast Sweden, with 567 cupmarks (RAÄ Gamleby 113). Photo: Joakim Goldhahn

backwards three times, counter-​clockwise around the stone, and then grease the cupmark three times in the same direction with unsalted meat rind, grease or butter. During lubrication, she invoked the elves by reciting the following magical chant, or some variation of it: “I smear the stone, to heal flesh and bone” (Åmark 1956: 71, my translation). An account from Västmanland in Sweden indicates that the smearing of the cupmark would facilitate the dancing of the elves: “it is useful and necessary to smear the elf mill, they will thrive better in the wood, and their dancing at the elf mill will be easier, and they will not go to your house” (Hermelin 1874: 190, my translation). Many sources mention that cupmark stones should be kept clean and that no one should disturb the elf-​stone or the offerings. Accounts from the counties of Södermanland and Västmanland in Sweden mention the creation of enchanted dolls to cure elf-​blow (Hammarstedt 1929; Hellqvist 1994:  24). Similar stories are known from contemporaneous Norway (Hermelin 1874: 191–​2). The dolls consisted of cuttings from the patient’s nails and hair, and a piece of cloth from his or her clothes (Fig. 12.4). The cloth ideally included a cross-​shaped seam. The magical doll was sometimes created around a stick from a rowan tree (Sorbus species), which had great significance in folklore (Tillhagen 1995). Furthermore, the magic of the doll was enhanced by adding bits of: sacred things, such as a piece of altar cloth from the church, a piece of the holy cross, iron chips from church keys or from a church bell, or even a piece of cloth from the vicar’s robes; all this is considered

276  Joakim Goldhahn

Figure 12.4 Three dolls collected from the Troll-​stone at Bors close to Lindesberg in the county of Västmanland, Sweden. Photo:  Nordic Museum in Stockholm, published with permission

very effective. These objects ought, however, all to be stolen, or taken without anyone knowing about it. (Hermelin 1874: 192, my translation) The dolls were set down at the place where the sick person was thought to have upset the elves. This ritual was preferably performed at dusk on a Thursday by a knowledgeable old woman, who recited the following magical chant: “Play with this and let N.N. [sick person’s name] go in peace” (my translation). Sometimes these rituals should be performed by throwing the doll diagonally back over the left shoulder onto the cupmark while the chant was recited (Hermelin 1874:  192). If the ritual proved ineffective, it was ideally repeated and carried out three Thursdays in a row, and if that did not help, then it should be repeated at three locations in the vicinity at places where the elves were known to dwell, for another three weeks in a row. Similar dolls were also made of cloth to protect domestic animals affected by malicious creatures. These dolls were hung around the animal’s neck to ‘suck up’ and absorb sickness from the animal as well as provide a ‘shield’ against external threats (Hammarstedt 1920: 42; Tillhagen 1958: 75–​87). In this context it is important to emphasize that these elf-​related practices were not associated with the making of cupmarks. In fact, not a single account indicates that any cupmarks were produced as a part of the practices

 

Archaeology of elves 277 connected with elves. However, sometimes stone powder was scratched from the cupmarks for consumption in the belief that it would strengthen the sick person (Table 12.1). The elves were also believed to appear at places other than stones with cupmarks, such as lakes, distinctive trees, springs, meadows, crossroads, stones, at the porch, on the stove, and so on. The same rituals were performed at these places. Ritual paraphernalia found at these places includes pins, nails, coins, buttons, quartz stones, and, more rarely, dolls (Drakenberg 1931:  62–​3; Tillhagen 1958:  108–​9). In short, stones with cupmarks were just one kind of several places where elves were thought to dwell.

Aims This outline of elf beliefs and practices summarizes some 300 interviews and accounts that are found in the Folklore Archive at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm (Tables  12.1, 12.2). The sources mention only two men as facilitators, and one of them is explicitly said to have learned his skills from his knowledgeable mother. There is otherwise little variation in the preserved testimonies, possibly for several reasons. On the one hand, the ethnologists and antiquarians who transcribed these beliefs and practices in the 1800s were all schooled and molded within a narrow intellectual field, which meant that the questions they asked were standardized in many respects. When the knowledge of elves spread within academic circles, expectations about the questions scholars ought to ask informants, and how informants ought to answer, also spread, which certainly affected the outcome. Alternatively, the uniform answers and accounts may result from the authenticity and resilience of the folklore and traditions. As is so often the case, the truth likely lies between these extremes.

Table 12.1 Elf practices as a percentage of a total of 138 accounts from the counties of Uppland (64 accounts), Västmanland (30 accounts), and the rest of Sweden (44 accounts) Practice

Uppland

Västmanland

Rest of Sweden

Smearing with fat Magical chants Offering pins Offering coins Making stone powder Offering textiles Making use of water from cupmarks Offering other items Offerings objects to elves

66 16 66 69 5 3 3 16 87

87 7 37 40 3 10 3 37 67

39 11 23 30 0 9 25 36 70

Source: Käck (1996: 35).

278  Joakim Goldhahn Table 12.2 Reasons given for elf practices as percentage out of a total of 70 accounts from the county of Uppland (24 accounts) and Västmanland (12 accounts), and the rest of Sweden (34 accounts) Practice

Uppland

Västmanland

Rest of Sweden

Search for lost animals Curing diseases Curing child disease Curing rashes Curing wart Curing eyes Curing illness after accident Curing tooth aches Curing callus Curing in general Offering without clear cause Offering for success

8 67 8 8 12 4 4 4 4 4 0 0

0 75 17 8 0 8 0 0 0 0 0 8

0 29 0 9 26 6 0 6 6 0 9 35

Source: Käck (1996: 37).

On and off, beliefs about elves and their mills have been taken as a starting point for those interested in prehistoric rock art and its significance from an archaeological perspective. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, culturally and historically minded people commonly referenced these beliefs and practices to argue for a firm continuity between the modern era and the production and use of cupmarks in the grey mist of ancient times (e.g., Hildebrand 1873, 1874; Hermelin 1874; Flentzberg 1907; Hammarstedt 1917, 1920). Archaeologists used this ‘demonstrated continuity’ as evidence that Swedes had lived in Sweden since the last Ice Age (Almgren 1927, 1934; see also Ekholm 1915, 1917, 1921; Nordén 1918, 1923, 1925). Such a nationalistic perspective was explicit and central to creating a glorious Swedish Antiquity (see Welinder 1994; Svanberg 2012; Goldhahn 2013b). Even today, there are archaeologists who claim a continuity between these historically known elf practices and the use of cupmarks in ancient times (Kaliff 1997, 2007:  193–​4; Bengtsson 2004, 2012). Usually this is asserted without the researcher invoking any tangible evidence of continuity in the form of archaeological finds that link these phenomena to each other, or any analyses that could confirm the alleged continuity. Lasse Bengtsson (2004:  172), for example, proposes that cupmarks were used to worship ancestors in the past, and that they were used in libation rituals, but he does not refer to any historical or ethnographic sources, nor any archaeological finds or analyses that would suggest such a connection. Malmer would characterize such claims as ‘archaeology as fiction’, lacking the required ‘facts’. A common and often trusted assumption in claims for this long continuity is that elf beliefs could not have been an innovation of Christianity

 

Archaeology of elves 279 (Kaliff 1997; Kaul 2018a, b), so it must reflect a pure pre-​Christian pagan worldview. This hypothesis is, as all hypotheses should be, reasonable before it has been tested by explicit archaeological analyses and interpretations. In my opinion, this hypothesis can be said to constitute necessary but insufficient conditions for such a conclusion, because it assumes that all people were Christians in so-​called Christian times. This is hardly the case today, nor in historical times when we find ample examples of ‘pagan’ people sent to court and prison for practicing non-​Christian deeds. Some of these people were even executed for their sinful manners and for practicing healing ceremonies according to local folklore and beliefs (see Linderholm 1917; Segev 2001; Raudvere 2003; Ankarloo 2007; Mitchell 2009; Zachrisson 2017). My aim in the following is to challenge these preconceptions through a consideration of historical sources concerning elves, and archaeological evidence on the use of cupmarks (Fig. 12.3) (for the latter, see Lidén 1938; Tvauri 1999; Bengtsson 2004, 2012; Horn 2015). What has been found at cupmark stones and at elf-​stones, and what can we learn from these findings?

The oldest historical sources According to the prominent Swedish ethnologist Carl-​Herman Tillhagen (1906–​2002) elifi, or elves, are mentioned on a bracteate from AD 600 (Tillhagen 1958:  7). He does not specify which bracteate, but he is probably referring to a C-​bracteate from Ågedal in Vest-​Agder from Norway with runes in the Older Futhark script with 24 letters (Fig. 12.5). According

Figure 12.5 C-​bracteate from Ågedal in West Agder, Norway, with a rune inscription that possibly mentions elves. Photo:  Archaeological Museum in Stavanger, published with permission

280  Joakim Goldhahn to Sophus Bugge’s (1891–​1903) interpretation, the runes read as follows (my translation): “The high borne Rikithir owns the chief-​ornament. Uha carved, wrote [and] arranged [the picture of) the Elf-​woman on it [the ornament]”. Other interpretations of the runes have been proposed (Hauck and Axboe 1985), which should be seen in the light of the manifold allegorical meanings that runes often had. During this time, runes seem to have served as Old Norse kenningar, as a form of parables and metaphors with several layers of meaning. One proposed interpretation does not necessarily contradict others. Morten Axboe (2004) argues that the C-​bracteates date to the latter part of the Migration Period, about A D 450–​540. This is contemporaneous with the famous epos of Beowulf that describes people and events probably of the period A D 525–​550 (Gräslund 2018); the most recent version of the epos was probably transliterated in the early AD 1000s (Kiernan 1996). In the Beowulf verse 113, elves are mentioned together with evil phantoms or trolls, giants, and the undead. Few of the oldest historical sources mention the elves in connection with illness. Two important exceptions are two early Medieval lead amulets from the Danish island Bornholm, with runes that mention elves. The amulets probably date to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries (Imer and Stemann Pedersen 2016). It is likely that the amulets were created to cure a sick person. Another case described in Kormak’s saga from the thirteenth century, which tells about Torvard who had a wound that refused to heal. His wife suggests that he should smear blood on a stone where some elves were supposed to dwell, but, to be clear, the elves were not thought to have caused his situation. The story is consistent with more recent Icelandic folklore (Sveinssion 2003). Other sources from early Medieval times provide some variety. According to the Icelandic historian, poet and politician Snorri Sturlason (1179–​1241) and his Gylfaginning, the world was inhabited of light and dark elves, ljósálfar and døkkálfar. The former lived in the sky and were fairer than the sun; the latter lived in the netherworld and were blacker than pitch or tar. The same work later mentions svartálfaheimr and svartálfar in a way that makes it likely that they are dwarfs (Schön 1986, 1998). The phrase ása ok álfa, Æsir and elves, is mentioned in Snorra Edda, which seems to associate the elves with the Æsir gods. Following the poem Grímnismál, however, Álfheimr is the name of the dwelling of Freyr, one of the Norse Vanir deities, which emphasizes a connection between elves and the Vanir. The Vanir have been linked to a fertility cult that existed before the onset of the Odin or Wodan cult when Æsirs were worshiped in northern Europe (Ström 1985; see also Hedeager 2011). It is therefore unclear how elves relate to the Norse pantheon in early historical times, and how this should be best understood (Clunies Ross 1994; Steinsland 2007). A clue might possibly be found in the poems Skírnismál and Vafþrúðnismál where the kenning álf röðull, or the glory-​of-​elves, seems to refer to the sun

 

Archaeology of elves 281

Figure 12.6 Famous sun disc from Trundholm bog on Zealand, Denmark, c. 1400–​ 1300 BC . Photo:  National Museum of Denmark, published with permission

in general, and particularly to the god Sól. In Grimnismál 38 the sun is mentioned as ‘the shining God’. In front of it we find a shield named Svalinn that protects the sea and mountains from burning up. In Gylfaginning 10 we learn that the sun traveled in a chariot pulled by two horses:  Árvakr, meaning ‘early wake’, and Alsvi∂r, meaning ‘very quick’ (Andrén 2014: 117–​ 66), a faint but clear reminiscence of Bronze Age cosmology (Fig.  12.6), manifested and materialized in ritual paraphernalia made of bronze, and by rock art images some 2,600–​2,000  years earlier (Goldhahn 2013c, 2016, 2017). In this context it is clear that the kenning álf röðull, or ‘the glory-​of-​ elves’, relates to ljósálfar (the ‘light elves’) and the sun.

Elves and the undead To complicate matters further, there are historical sources that connect elves with the souls of dead ancestors and undead beings that were thought to dwell in burial monuments. An incident recounted by Snorri in the poem Austrfaravísur mentions how Christian Sigvat is denied shelter on his journey in A D 1019–​1020 through the county of Västergötland in Sweden. If we follow the epos Hávamál, it was a great dishonor to deny anybody shelter during this time (Evans 1986). In this case the farmer tried to excuse his behavior by stating that they were busy with álfablót, a sacrificial ritual

282  Joakim Goldhahn to the elves. It has been suggested that álfablót involved a form of ancestor worship (Steinsland 2007: 384–​5), but how this álfablót was executed, what it meant, and what its significance was, is not clear from the original source, nor from Steinsland’s interpretation. It is difficult to find evidence of a relationship between dead ancestors, elves and cupmarks in Old Norse sources. The relationship is traditionally said to be implicitly hinted at in the County Law of Uppland from the thirteenth century, where it is stated that: “In Christ shall all Christians believe, that He is God and that there are no other Gods beside Him alone. No one should soak or sacrifice to idols, and no one should believe in groves of trees and stones” (Holmbäck and Wessén 1979: 13, my translation). Similar precedents were set in the Norwegian Gulating Law (Steinsland 2005), which is why it has been argued that elf beliefs and ritualized practices were widespread in northern Europe during early Medieval times. However, there is no clear statement that clarifies and connects curing sickness, the undead, groves of trees, elves and/​or cupmarks in these or other contemporaneous sources. In the pre-​Christian worldview, the dead and undead were a natural and vital part of the world, and were thought to possess an agency of their own (Gansum 2008; Kanerva 2011). The most famous example is probably the story of Olaf Gudrødsson, of one of the royal lineages of the legendary kings of the Ynglings. Olaf Gudrødsson came to be worshiped after his death and he was therefore given the epithet Olaf Geirstaðaálfr (Davidson 1943: 101–​ 2, 138–​9). As undead, he was supposedly so influential that he affected his successor’s tasks. We do not know when Olaf Gudrødsson was born, but he probably died c.  A D 934. Some 60 years after his death, a man named Hrani claimed that Olaf visited him in a dream. Olaf urged Hrani to break into his grave, chop his head off, and to take his sword Bæsingr, a ring and his belt—​obviously animated objects—​and to give these to Queen Ásta to help her give birth to Olaf Haraldsson (995–​1030), who later became king Olaf II (Røthe 1997; Goldhahn 2014). In this case it is the suffix álfr in Geirstaðaálfr, meaning the ‘Geirstad elf’, which arguably connects elves with the souls of undead ancestors. No cupmarks are mentioned. Later sources, such as the knowledgeable Olaus Magnus (1490–​1557), also connect the elves with the undead. Magnus and his brother were Sweden’s last Catholic archbishops. They were maligned during the Reformation processes in the 1520s, but they refused to convert and thereafter they lived in asylum in Rome. Here, Magnus began transcribing old Swedish folk customs and folklore, which he published in 1555 in his Description of the Nordic peoples (Magnus 1996–​98). This work, which is several thousand pages long, is acknowledged as one of the oldest ethnological studies in Europe. In Chapter 11 of the third book, which has the intriguing title (my translation): ‘About nocturnal dances of Elvish-​beings, such as spirits of the dead, ghosts’, Magnus writes (Fig. 12.7):

 

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Figure 12.7 ‘Nocturnal dance of elvish beings, e.g., the spirit of the dead, ghosts’ (after Magnus 2001: 150)

Sometimes they have found, that these beings left their footprints in the ground after their dances, so that the place where they habitually dwell, has become round like a circle, apparently as if it was burnt by fire, so that the turf dried and no blade of grass could grow there [see Fig. 12.2]. These nocturnal dances of spiritual beings are called Elf-​dances by the inhabitants, and they entertain the idea that the souls of sinful beings, those who slave under their sensual pleasures, and give in to their evil desires and without resistance follow lust impulses, and thus sin against both divine and human law, after having assumed bodily form in this way, hover around the earth itself, where they lived their lives. (Magnus 2001: 150, my translation) Magnus could not resist the urge to warn former fellow citizens about what awaited those who abandoned the correct and righteous Catholic doctrine. Once again, no cupmarks were mentioned.

Early modern sources Northern Europe was Christianized in the ninth century, concurrently with early state formations (Sawyer and Sawyer 1993). From the end of the first millennium until 1527, the Nordic kingdoms adhered to Catholicism. Church and state were in close symbiosis, but separate. During this time, the church often had a gracious patience with folklore, folk medicine and people’s old traditional life-​worlds, including those depicted in the early historical sources about elves. Old belief systems and their associated materialities were often

284  Joakim Goldhahn quite literally incorporated into the new doctrine. Runic stones (Johansen 1997), cupmark stones and figurative rock art were built into stone churches to incorporate and represent earlier beliefs and practices (see Glob 1969). Probably this also applies to cupmark stones that are found in the walls surrounding churchyards (cf. Johnsson 1947; Bengtsson 2004:  61–​ 84, 2012: 69–​94). The Reformation brought this practice and patience to an end. Church and state became one. Most Catholic monasteries were dissolved, and their extensive lands were confiscated by the new state rulership (Weibull 1997; also Grell 1995; Gaimster and Gilchrist 2003; Marshall 2015). As Bengt Ankarloo (2007) has shown in his seminal research on this period (Ankarloo and Henningsen 1993; Ankarloo et  al. 2002), there was a blunt Protestant radicalization in the latter half of the 1500s. After Abraham Angermannus (1540–​ 1609) was elected as the Archbishop of Sweden in 1593, there were obvious undertakings to eliminate heresies, which included everything from Old Catholic and pagan traditions to illicit sexuality (Ohlsson 1946, see also Zachrisson 2017). Like many other folkloric beliefs and practices, practices associated with elves were caught in the crossfire. There is even a Christian-​influenced Latin curse against elves preserved from this time:  “Conjuro vos, elffos vel elffwas et omne genus demonum”; that is, “I conjure you, elves or alves, and the whole race of devils” (Schön 1998: 230, my translation). Under Angermannus’s leadership, traditional folklore and folk medicine was viewed with severity, with numerous lawsuits against ‘sorcerers’, ‘seers’, and suspected ‘witches’ (Ankarloo 2007). Some of the knowledgeable old women who were on trial in 1596 were, for instance, accused of attempting to cure toothache, ‘cod-​bite’ (mouth mycosis), ‘neck-​bite’ (skin diseases or rashes), ‘teat-​boil’ (breast infections), ‘sprains’ (dislocations), ‘ghost-​hugs’ (general aches), ‘troll-​ shots’ (back aches), and, unsurprisingly, elf-​ blow. Some of the convicted were imprisoned, others were burned as witches. These events coincide with the oldest antiquarian sources that explicitly connect elves with cupmarks. Johan Thomasson (1568–​1652), better known as Johannes Bureus, who became the first Swedish National State Antiquarian in 1630 (Baudou 2004), mentions ten to twelve ‘elf-​ spring’ (Swedish, elfkällor) on a stone at Ekolsund in the county of Uppland in his notebook Sumlen (Bureus 1886: 211), which was in use from the late 1500s and early 1600s. Otherwise, there are few documents that testify to the relationship between elves and cupmarks during the first half of the 1600s (Goldhahn 2011). Johannis Haquini Rhezelius (c. 1600–​ 1666) made the oldest recordings of rock art in Sweden during his antiquarian journey in 1634. His first recording comes from the island of Öland, and it documents three cupmarks on an egg-​shaped boulder which was placed on a prominent stone setting at Folkeslunda in Långlöt parish. The cupmarks were explained as the finger marks from two giants who had a stone throwing contest. Other rock art images in the county of Kronoberg and Tjust were explained in

 

Archaeology of elves 285 Christian terms (Goldhahn 2011). It is clear that the purgative action that Angermannus initiated had begun to erase elf practices. At the risk of being dragged into court and possibly burnt as a witch, there were few, if any, knowledgeable old women who dared discuss elves. With the approaching enlightenment at the door, and with Immanuel Kant’s (1724–​ 1804) often quoted wording—​ “man’s emergence from his self-​imposed nonage”—​we once again find informed sources about elves. For instance, from the first nationwide inventory of ancient monuments and remarkable and memorable things during the 1660s, we find that the water gathered in cupmarks was used to lubricate sick persons against elf-​ blow (Jensen 2002: 322; cf. Tvauri 1999). During the 1700s, we also find the first attempts to distance the interpretation of rock art from folkloristic beliefs (Goldhahn 2013a: 53–​83). When the famous natural historian Carl von Linné (1707–​1778) visited the island of Öland in 1741, he was shown some ‘Elf-​rings’ (Swedish, älvringar) on a lawn at Resmo church (cf. Fig. 12.2). After examining them carefully, he could see evidence for a natural explanation, in the form of blue moor-​grass (Sesleria uliginosa) that leaves a ring-​formation as it grows (Von Linné 1907: 64–​5). In Sweden, this grass is known as älväxing, or ‘elf-​dance’ or ‘elf-​dance-​grass’ (Swedish, älvdans, and älvdansgräs). The Protestant church, however, continued to oppose folklore and folk medicine, including practices associated with elves. Ingeborg Andersdotter in Ramsberg in the county of Västmanland in Sweden was charged for smearing an elf mill in 1733 in her attempt to cure a sick child (Käck 1996: 20–​1). Some clerks and priests tangibly went to war against knowledgeable old women. Several stone panels and boulders with cupmarks from Åker, Dalby and Västeråker parish in Uppland were blasted away with explosives during the eighteenth century (Käck 1996:  21–​2; Grundberg 2000:  100, see also Odencrants 1932: 47; Althin 1945: 6; Åmark 1956: 69; Kjellén 1976: 25, 55, 59, 65). The most infamous incident was when the priest Matthias Matthiæ Gagnerus (1688–​1750) in A D 1734, “to the great sadness and ache of disbelief and stupidity” (Grundberg 2000: 102, my translation), blasted away some cupmarks at Torsberget in Himmeta parish in Västmanland.

The elf mill: A long-​term perspective From an archaeological point of view, it is mainly the assumed relationship between elves and cupmarks that has been used as an argument for continuity between informed sources and prehistoric contexts. As we have seen, none of the historical sources that makes this connection is older than the Reformation, c.  A D 1527. Cupmarks or cupules, however, are as far as we all know a global phenomenon, for which an association with burials of Homo sapiens neandertalis is even claimed (Bednarik 1993, 2003). In northern Europe, the oldest cupmark-​like stones are found in settlement contexts that are about 10,000 years old and associated with the

286  Joakim Goldhahn

Figure 12.8 ‘Pocket stones’ with cupmark-​like cupules. Top left:  from Ramsdorf, Kr Rendsburg-​Eckernförde, northern Germany, dated to Middle Bronze Age (period II). Bottom: from Sværdborg, dated to the mid-​Maglemose culture. Top right:  A reconstructed bow-​ drill from Sværdsborg. Sources: Henriksen (1974); Aner and Kersten (1978). Not to scale

hunter-​gatherer Maglemose culture (Henriksen 1974, 1976). These so-​called ‘pocket stones’ (Danish, lommesten, see Glob 1969), were used as a hand-​ held tool in connection with bow-​drilling, to create holes in bone, horn, or stone items (Fig. 12.8). For as long as tools were created with bow-​drills, pocket stones occur on production sites and settlements, which in this case extends from the mid-​Maglemose Culture until the end of the Bronze Age (Fig. 12.8), c. 8500–​500 B C (e.g., Frödin 1910a: 19; Glob 1969; Bokelmann 1971; Henriksen 1974, 1976; Widholm 1974: 71–​81; Strömberg 1982: 103; Browall 1986: 21–​3, 27; Björhem and Säfvestad 1989: 116, 1993: 59–​60; Streiffert 1996; Hornstrup 1999). The relationship between pocket stones with cupmark-​like depressions and shafted bone, antler, or stone items are evident from two deposits with unfinished or semi-​finished hammer axes from the Early Bronze Age, here c. 2350–​1600 BC (Karsten 1994: 771, no. 478). In the deposit from Torup in Scania, two unfinished hammer axes with two cupmarks each were found. The cupmarks were situated where a shaft-​hole might hypothetically

 

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Figure 12.9 Stone artifacts with cupmarks. Top left: stone axe with a cupmark from Oxie in Scania (SHM 1374). The cupmark indicates where the shaft hole was to be drilled, or it might have been added later as a part of a memory practice. Top right:  axe with a cup mark that was at least two thousand years old when it was deposited in an Iron Age burial at Imbramåla in Misterhult parish. Bottom:  stone implement from the Sandarna settlement in Bohuslän, dated 8000–​6400 BC (bottom). Photos: Joakim Goldhahn and Michael Dahlin, published with his permission. The Sandarna implement, source: Hernek (2005)

be placed, one at the top and the other underneath the axe (Althin 1953). Similar finds of preformed worked axes with cupmarks are relatively common in settlement contexts from the Maglemose period to the end of the Bronze Age, c. 8500–​500 B C (e.g., Widholm 1974: 71–​81; Hernek 2005) (Fig. 12.9). Earlier researchers argued for a ‘magical’ understanding of these cupmarks (Althin 1953), while later scholars advocated a functional interpretation. The cupmarks were made to show that the preformed axe did not have any cracks so that the shaft-​hole could be finished without jeopardy (Lekberg 2002, 2005). However, similar cupmarks on unfinished axes have sometimes been found in burial contexts, and in some cases the axe was several thousand years old when it was deposited in the grave (Syse 1996: 5–​8; Fallgren 2001:  39; Dahlin 2014:  137–​40). This could be interpreted as a form of mindful memory practice (Fig. 12.9). With a more nuanced view, which does not regard notions of ‘ritual’ and ‘secular’ as fundamentally separated but as a continuum of structured social practices (e.g., Bell 1992;

288  Joakim Goldhahn Bradley 2005), an interpretation that combines these perspectives can be endorsed (Goldhahn 2015). Cupmarks on rock art panels with figurative images, or boulders with cupmarks (Fig. 12.3), are more difficult to date and interpret, but they are often assumed to be contemporaneous with the figurative rock art images of the Middle Bronze Age through to the first part of the Pre-​Roman Iron Age, c. 1600 to 300 B C in this region (e.g., Kaul 1998; Sognnes 2001; Ling 2008, 2013; Lødøen and Mandt 2010; Vogt 2011; Skoglund 2016). Since cupmarks occur on the roof slabs of dolmens from the Early Neolithic II (c. 3600–​3350 BC ) and passage graves from the Middle Neolithic A (c. 3350–​ 2800 BC ), many researchers argue that these are contemporaneous practices and phenomena (Kaul 1987; Tilley 1996, 1999; Burenhult 1999; Bengtsson 2004, 2012; Toreld 2008). Archaeological excavations, analyses and the following interpretations have, to the best of my knowledge, regularly failed to support this hypothesis. When cupmarks have been found on portable stones or slabs during archaeological excavations of megalithic monuments, they are often—​inconsistent with the suggested interpretation—​closely and intimately associated with alterations of existing monuments conducted during later periods (e.g., Sprockhoff 1966: 39; Eriksen 1980; Dehn et al. 2000: 235–​54; Sjögren and Persson 2001: 45, 124, 130). The relationship between megalithic monuments and cupmarks is therefore, for the time being, and in the case of northern Europe (cf. Daniel 1972; Nash 2012), best explained and interpreted as resulting from a deliberate re-​use of older monuments (Goldhahn 2015, cf. Kaul et al. 2017). That said, there are many finds of cupmarks on portable stones and slabs from burial contexts in northern Europe that are easy to date. I have compiled a database of 271 well-​ dated burial contexts with rock art (Fig. 12.10), which ranges from the Middle Neolithic B (c. 2800–​2350 BC ) to the Early Viking Age (c. A D 800). In most cases, the rock art comprises cupmarks. The database includes three burials dated to Middle Neolithic B, and six to the Early Bronze Age, here 2350–​1600 BC . Figurative rock art and cupmarks occur mostly in burials dated to the Middle Bronze Age (97 cases) and Late Bronze Age (84 cases), here 1600–​500 BC (e.g., Goldhahn 2013a, 2016, 2017). Cupmarked stones only are known from burials of the Pre-​Roman Iron Age (10 cases), here 500–​1 B C . Thereafter this tradition got a renaissance during the Roman Iron Age (40 cases) and Migration Period (24 cases), here c. A D 1–​550, when cupmarked stones often occur in remarkably rich burials with female ornaments. The latter periods are associated with major or even dramatic changes in northern Europe (Herschend 2009); this is a period that coincides with the oldest images of the Æsir god we call Wodan or Oden (Hedeager 2011). There are but a few finds (6) of cupmarks dated to the earliest phase of the Vendel or Merovinger period, around A D 600, and only a single very uncertain find from the earliest Viking Age (Fig. 12.10), around A D 800 (Fig. 12.10).

 

Archaeology of elves 289 120

100

80

60

40

20

0

EN

MNA

MNB

EBA

MBA

LBA

PRIA

RIA

MP

LIA

Figure 12.10 Chronological distribution of 271 contextual and firmly dated finds of figurative and non-​figurative rock art from burials in northern Europe. EN = Early Neolithic 4000–​3350 BC (none), MNA = Middle Neolithic A 3350–​2800 BC (none), MNB = Middle Neolithic B 2800–​2350 BC (3 burials), EBA = Early Bronze Age 2350–​1600 BC (6), MBA = Middle Bronze Age 1600–​1100 BC (97), LBA  =  Late Bronze Age 1100–​500 BC (84), PRIA = Pre-​Roman Iron Age 500–​1 BC (10), RIA = Roman Iron Age 1–​400 AD (40), MP  =  Migration Period 400–​550 A D (24), LIA  =  Late Iron Age 550–​1000 AD (7). The data relate to rock art found during excavations of burial features undertaken and published between 1748 and 2016

The practice of depositing portable stones and slabs with cupmarks in burial contexts seems to end at about the same time that elves appear in historical sources. As we saw earlier, the relationship between these phenomena is then muzzled until the early AD 1600s. However, a Viking Age runestone from Gussjö, RAÄ 2, in Fläckebo parish in the county of Västmanland in Sweden, had some of its runes obliterated by six cupmarks (Janson 1964: 67–​9). This shows that cupmarks were made after the practice of placing cupmark stones in burial contexts ended (e.g., Mandt 1991:  195; Innselset 1995:  15). It is worth noting that runestones were used for extracting stone powder in a manner similar to the way elf-​stones were used to cure sickness, but that this was done without references to elves (Schnell 1935: 54–​5).

290  Joakim Goldhahn

The archaeology of elves There are few archaeological studies that have explicitly explored the folkloristic notions of elves with formal methods and archaeological perspectives. A notable exception is Grete Lillehammer’s (2004) PhD thesis on elf dances in Rogaland, southwest Norway (Fig. 12.11). She examined circular rings in the ground reputedly associated with elf dances using archaeological methods. Lillehammer showed that the rings on the ground were the result of haystacks that were used prior to the modernization of agriculture in the mid-​1900s (Fig. 12.11). It is uncertain when these particular kinds of haystacks were first used. All we know is that local folklore associated the ring features with elf dances (Lillehammer 2004). As far as I know, the relationship between elves and cupmarks has not been subject to any explicit investigations. Coins have occasionally been found in previously unrecorded cupmarks, but none predate the Reformation, at AD 1527. The oldest coin I have identified was found in a cupmark at Bro outside Stockholm (Raä Låssa 98, www.fmis.raa.se), and it was minted during Karl XII’s last year of life, AD 1718. The coin, of course, does not date the creation of the cupmark or the deposition of the coin, but it gives us a useful terminus post quem for historical known elf practices. It is worth noting that other kinds of folkloristic practices, such as offerings placed in wells or springs (Larsson 1920; Lund 2009), or house cults with depositions of animals and objects in barns and houses (Carlie 2004; Falk 2008), respectively demonstrate a clear continuity from prehistoric and Medieval times into early modern times. This suggests that the observed discontinuity of elf practices must be considered significant. During the excavation of a Bronze Age complex at Nibble in the western part of the county of Uppland in Sweden, a ¼ öre coin from AD 1644 (Queen Kristina’s reign) was found in close proximity to a stone, 1.9 × 1.6 m in size, with 53 cupmarks (Fig. 12.12). The stone rested on four smaller hand-​sized stones. Seven other coins were found beside and in some of the cupmarks; these date from 1822 to 1953 (Table 12.3). This makes the connection between the older coin and the cupmarks likely (Artursson et al. 2011). Other finds discovered in relation to the cupmarks include smashed and reworked quartz and flint, iron slag, and a piece of a thin plate made of bronze (Fig. 12.13). The archaeologists who conducted the excavation at Nibble consider the finds of quartz and flint as an authentic part of a Late Bronze Age (1100–​500 BC ) rock art practice, including “sacrifices and rituals”, which took place adjacent to the cupmarks. They contend that the coins, however, were associated with the much more recent folkloristic practices concerning elves, when people had “lost the knowledge of how these cupmarks were made and new beliefs became established asserting that the spirits of the ancestors—​the elves—​made the cupmarks” (Artursson et al. 2011: 385, my translation). If these interpretations are accepted, the post-​reformation practice associated with elves shows continuity from at least the 1600s into the

 

Archaeology of elves 291

Figure 12.11 Ring formation from Rogaland interpreted as traces of elf-​dance (top) and suggested cause, hay stacks (bottom). Photos: Grete Lillehammer and the Archaeological Museum of Stavanger, published with permission

twentieth century (Table 12.3), which, as we shall see in the following, is not totally implausible.

The Troll-​stone The interpretation linking elves, cupmarks and coins at Nibble is supported by informed methods, but we do not actually know when and why these

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Figure 12.12 Cupmark stone at Nibble, western Uppland. Photo: Joakim Goldhahn

Table 12.3 Coins found at the Nibble cupmark stone, RAÄ 341:2 Find no.

Regent

Year

Value

F311 F631 F691 F694 F631 F693 Survey 2005 F616

Kristina (1632–​1654) Karl XIV Johan (1818–​1844) Oskar I (1844–​1859) Oskar II (1872–​1907) Oskar II (1872–​1907) Oskar II (1872–​1907) Gustav V (1907–​1950) Gustaf VI Adolf (1950–​1973)

1644 1822 1857 1883 1893 1901 1937 1953

1/​4 öre ½ skilling ½ öre 2 öre 1 öre 1 öre 10 öre 5 öre

Source: Artursson et al. (2011).

finds were deposited. The only explicit excavation of a site where such information is available was conducted at the ‘Elvestenen’, also known as the ‘Smear or Lubrication stone’, the ‘Sacrifice Stone’, the ‘Troll-​stone’, and by us today as Raä Linde 27, from Lindesberg parish in the county of Västmanland in Sweden (Fig. 12.14).

 

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Figure 12.13 Finds from the cupmark stone at Nibble, western Uppland. Photo: Magnus Artursson and Staffan Hyll, National Heritage Board, published with permission

Figure 12.14 Troll-​stone and two of the ‘troll dolls’ collected by Hyltén-​Cavallius in the summer of 1846. Source: Hyltén-​Cavallius 1864–​68. Scale 3 feet

The Troll-​stone, as I prefer to call this feature (it is the locally preferred name), is a boulder measuring 3 × 3 m with nine supposed cupmarks, five on top of the stone and two on each of the short ends (Fig. 12.15). These cupmarks are atypical. They are oblong and wedge-​shaped and were probably made in an attempt to split the stone in two using iron tools. The top of the stone also has some atypical rune inscriptions that were made in late historical times (indicated in part by the atypical triangle around the runes),

294  Joakim Goldhahn

Figure 12.15 Plan of the Troll-​stone excavations in 2003. Drawing: Patrik Nordström and Joakim Goldhahn

apparently in 1827 by Fredric Cederborgh (1784–​1835), owner of Bors Estate, a family company with wood and mining interests. Cederborgh was a celebrated novelist and is widely regarded as one of the first modernists in Swedish literature (Böök 1925). He cultivated an ironical attitude, and made many rune inscriptions in the vicinity of the Troll-​stone, perhaps to fool antiquarians of the time. The runes on the Troll-​stone depict Cederborgh’s initials (F, N and s). As the letter C is not present in the runic alphabet, and his father’s name was Nils, the runes ought to be read as Fredric Nilsson (English, Fredric son of Nils). As far as I know, these runes are unrelated to elf practices at the Troll-​stone. The elf practices at the Troll-​stone were first documented during Gunnar Olof Hyltén-​Cavallius’s (1818–​1889) ethnographic expedition through Sweden in 1846. At the time, the Troll-​stone was known as ‘Elvestenen’, and knowledgeable old women frequently used it in their efforts to cure elf blow. Hyltén-​Cavallius’s encounters with the Troll-​stone appear in his book Wärend and Wirdarne: an attempt in Swedish ethnology (my translation), published in two booklets in 1864 and 1868, which is considered to have laid the foundation for the Swedish ethnological research (Bringéus 1966). According to Hyltén-​Cavallius (1864–​68: 146) (Fig. 12.14):

 

Archaeology of elves 295 This stone, the commoners name ‘Elfvestenen’, and the women in the neighborhood still, when their children have an illness that according to popular belief comes from the elves, first rub the stone with tallow and butter, rubbing it into the mentioned cavities, and then into these insert small dolls (‘troll dolls’) made of pieces of cloth. (my translation) In an undated note in the archive of his research comrade, George Stephen (1813–​1895) (see Eriksson 2008), Hyltén-​Cavallius describes his discovery in greater detail (Fig. 12.16): In these cavities they sacrificed pennies, buttons, pins, etc., after the holes first had been smeared with tallow or butter (I do not know which, but it looked like melted tallow). Another kind of sacrifice occurs when a child is ill. The mother makes a doll out of some patches of the child’s clothes and a stick, which is set in one of the cavities, and it is thought to appease the elves. I collected nine dolls in the summer of 1846, and I hereby send you two. (my translation) Apart from the two dolls Hyltén-​Cavallius sent to Stephen’s ethnographic collection (Fig.  12.16), two others seem to be depicted in Wärend and wirdarne (Fig. 12.14), and three were submitted to Bror Emil Hildebrand at the National Historical Museum in Stockholm (Fig. 12.4), where they were catalogued as ‘Mystica’. These three dolls were transferred in 1926 to the Nordic Museum’s collections (Hammarstedt 1929). Hyltén-​Cavallius gave at least three of the remaining four dolls to the Swiss archaeologist Frédéric Troyon (1815–​1864). Troyon left his personal collection to the Cantonal

Figure 12.16 Two of the ‘troll dolls’ from Bors near Lindesberg, now in George Stephen’s Collection at Husaby, close to Växjö in the county of Småland, Sweden. The larger doll is about 8 cm long. Photo: Joakim Goldhahn

296  Joakim Goldhahn Museum of Archaeology and History in Lausanne, Switzerland, but a search there has thus far failed to locate the dolls (Lamm 2019). Two of the dolls in the Nordic Museum collections consist of a piece of sacking wrapped around a stick. The smaller of the dolls is constructed around a stick of rowan. It has been shown that the dolls contain parts of the sick person in the form of nails, hair, and pieces of cloth, in accordance with the basic rule pars pro toto, so that the doll would represent the patient and the elves could pursue their ‘elf-​game’ (Swedish, älvalek). The larger doll also has a brass pin stuck into its head. The third doll is made of a Post och Inrikestidningar newspaper from 1821 (Fig. 12.4). In the mid-​1920s, the ethnologist Nils Evald Hammarstedt (1861–​1939) visited the Troll-​stone at Bors, and found that it was still used in the way that Hyltén-​Cavallius described 80 years earlier (Hammarstedt 1929). This is confirmed by other historical sources from the vicinity (Nygren 1949; Åmark 1956). Hammarstedt noticed no dolls. According to local oral history in the 1920s, a sick person should be smeared before approaching the elves and their mills at the Troll-​stone, a practice not mentioned in other sources about the elves (Tables 12.1, 12.2). The Troll-​stone was used for all sorts of therapeutic treatments, such as pain in the ear, tooth ache, body pain, and so on. One of the dolls Hyltén-​Cavallius collected from the Troll-​stone was said to have been made on behalf of a young girl who suffered from rickets. She was unable to walk and people thought she had been ‘elf-​sucked’ (Swedish, älvsög), and made a doll to cure her (Forsslund 1930: 72–​4). The custom of making dolls was apparently widespread in Västmanland in the 1800s, and similar stories and findings of dolls are known from the county of Södermanland in Sweden (Tillhagen 1958:  108–​ 9) and from Norway (Hermelin 1874: 191–​2). Some dolls are known to be made and deposited at trees, in the chimneys of houses (Flentzberg 1907: 13), at lakes (Nordin-​Grip 1964: 125–​6), as well as at stones with or without cupmarks. A sick child in Mellösa parish in Södermanland, for instance, was treated by her mother who created no less than eight dolls, and these were set out at each of the cardinal points around the lakes Gärssjön and Starrsjön with the plea: “Take these to play with and leave my child alone!”

Excavating the elves I made my first visit to the Troll-​stone in the spring of 2003. The landowner, Lars Erik Larsson, was born and raised nearby and was then 70 years of age. He told me that before the Second World War he had collected 2 and 10 öre coins from the stone as a child, with which he bought candy. As an adult, he had found a coin dating from the late 1700s that had eroded out from beneath the stone (pers. comm. 18 April 2003). In July, Patrik Nordström and I undertook a minor archaeological excavation of the Troll-​stone. The excavation took four days and covered about 8 m2 (Figs 12.15, 12.17). We encountered the first finds in the turf and top

 

Archaeology of elves 297

Figure 12.17 Troll-​stone excavation in 2003. Photo: Joakim Goldhahn

soil: these were coins, pins, buttons, a molded rifle bullet, old washers, and, most probably, parts of the drawing equipment that Hyltén-​Cavallius had used when he created his documentation back in 1846. Most of the finds came from below the two ‘cupmarks’ at the northern end of the Troll-​stone. Here we also found parts of plastic toys, which seem to date from the late 1960s, and which, Larsson said, derived from his daughter, who loved to play at the Troll-​stone when she was a child (pers. comm. 28 July 2003). The finds include 16 coins, dating from 1717 to 1979 (Table 12.4). Along with the coin Larsson once found, five coins date to the 1700s, six to the 1800s, and the rest to the mid-​to late 1900s. About half of the coins date from before Darwin and the popularity of evolutionary theory. Thereafter we find a hiatus that coincides with the establishment of decent health care in Linde town (Table  12.4). Few coins postdate that. With the historical sources of Hammarstedt and Lars Erik Larsson’s account in mind, many coins placed on the Troll-​stone in the late 1800s and early 1900s might have been collected by children on their way to the nearest candy store. The elves had apparently begun to lose their power among children and youngsters, a phenomenon also evident in oral and historical sources from the 1920s and 1930s (e.g., Forsslund 1930; Nygren 1949; Åmark 1956). Most finds from our excavation can be understood in the light of the historical and ethnographic sources. Archaeology then appears as an expensive way to confirm what is already known through informed methods (e.g., Steinsland 2005: 38; cf. Andrén 1998). However, archaeology does provide

298  Joakim Goldhahn Table 12.4 Coins found at the Troll-​stone, Raä Linde 27 in Västmanland, Sweden Regent

Year

Value

Karl XII (1697–​1718) Ulrika Eleonora (1719–​1720) Ulrika Eleonora (1719–​1720) or Fredrik I (1719–​1720, 1720–​1751) Ulrika Eleonora (1719–​1720) or Fredrik I (1719–​1720, 1720–​1751) Gustav IV Adolf (1792–​1809) Gustav IV Adolf (1792–​1809) Karl XIII (1809–​1818) Karl XIV Johan (1818–​1844) Karl XIV Johan (1818–​1844) Oskar I (1844–​1859) Gustav V (1907–​1950) Carl XIV Gustav (1973–​) Carl XIV Gustav (1973–​) Carl XIV Gustav (1973–​) Carl XIV Gustav (1973–​) Carl XIV Gustav (1973–​)

1717 1719 or 1720 –​

1 daler 1 öre 1 öre

–​

1 öre

1800 1805 1812 1821 1830 1852 1949 1973 1973 1973 1973 1979

¼ skilling riksgälds 1/​12 skilling 1/​12 skilling ¼ skilling 1/​6 skilling 1/​6 skilling banco 25 öre 5 öre 5 öre 5 öre 5 öre 10 öre

a possibility to study the time-​depth of the elf-​belief practices, and not least, how it altered and changed in space. Some finds made at the Troll-​stone can also tell us about practices that are not known by the formulaic historical sources. The coin from 1821, for instance, a ¼ skilling copper coin from Karl XIV Johan’s government, was perforated and must therefore have been worn on a string (Fig. 12.18, Table 12.4). According to nineteenth-​century folklore and folk medicine, it was common to wear a so-​called ältsten on a string at the place where a person became ill or injured (English, kneaded-​ or trouble-​stone, from now on ält-​stone). Sometimes a prehistoric axe or a spindle whorl was used as an ält-​stone, but any inanimate object could be used (Hylten-​Cavallius 1864–​68: 193, 257; Hammarstedt 1920: 17, 19–​23; Tillhagen 1958). When worn in the right way, the ält-​stone was thought to possess the magical power to absorb and capture the evil forces that had obviously harmed the sick person, after which it could be removed. Another way to cure the sick was by scraping dust from an ält-​stone, which then was consumed to strengthen the sick person (Tillhagen 1958). This was how toothache was treated in the Danish court during the early 1600s. Sometimes rune stones were used in this way as well (Schnell 1935), which might explain the cupmarks on the runestone at Gussjö in Fläckebo parish mentioned earlier. It is likely that the perforated coin from 1821 was carried around the body to ‘suck out’, absorb and capture the elf blow so the malicious powers could be handed back to the elves. Maybe the magic power to

 

Archaeology of elves 299

Figure 12.18 Perforated coin from 1821 and one of the cupmark-​like cavities on the north side of the Troll-​stone. Photo: Joakim Goldhahn

capture the elf blow was considered to reside in the image of the king? The old washers that were found in the same place might have been used in a similar way and could therefore be interpreted as ält-​stones. The archaeological excavation of the Troll-​stone indicates several practices that were already known through historical and ethnographic sources, but also some never previously documented practices that were performed in relation to the elves. The coin that had probably served as an ält-​stone, and the washers, suggest a more intricate and dialectical relationship between humans, elves, and the places where these nonhuman beings could be met, confronted, and where both mundane and more serious business could be negotiated. The result of the excavation can be used to pave new trails to combine ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ approaches to rock art, as well as to raise new questions about the relations between humans and elves.

Discussions and conclusions I have tried to navigate the different approaches and source materials that are available for exploring the relations between humans and their beliefs about elves. To me it is clear that different absolute and relative approaches, or informed and formal methods, provide different problems and possibilities to explore these phenomena. It is also clear that relative and formal methods may reveal known and previously unknown practices associated with these beliefs, and document changes across space and through time. It is worth underlining that no historical sources link the making of rock art to the elves and the practices that have been documented through different approaches and perspectives to the elf mills. This implies that the cupmarks were believed to have been made by elves. However, it is noteworthy that it

300  Joakim Goldhahn has not been possible to link the historically known elf-​belief practices to a prehistoric context; it is not even possible to make this connection beyond the Reformation that took place in the 1520s in northern Europe. As the evidence stands today, it is therefore impossible to argue for a direct unadulterated ‘elfhood’ in general and, in particular, practices that link elves to cupmarks. The oldest finds of cupmarked stones, the so-​called pocket-​stones, seem to be functional tools associated with making holes in bone, horn, and stone items with a bow-​drill. This does not mean that such practices were not surrounded by performances, or a series of structured practices, suppositions and rituals. However, there is nothing to suggest that these cupmarks were related to elves. We also saw how cupmarked stones were deposited in burials, which with reasonable accuracy range in time from 2800 BC to the end of the Migration and early Vendel Period, about A D 600. The few atypical finds of cupmarked stones dating from the Viking Age and early Medieval times indicate that some considerable changes in practices associated with the cupmarks occurred when Christianity was introduced. At the same time, we find the oldest written sources mentioning elves. The latter seem most obviously related to the undead, which sometimes were thought to possess agency. It is also from early historical times we find the oldest sources that associate elves with folkloric beliefs about illness and healing (Kormáks saga). Paradoxically, the time periods from which we have the most fragmentary knowledge about these phenomena seem to be the Viking Age, the Middle Ages, and the first century after the Reformation, from AD 800 to 1600. The scarce historical sources from these periods, the Uppland and Gulating Law, indicate that people still found use for (engraved?) ‘stones’, but for reasons that we do not know much about, because there are no archaeological finds from this period that provide us with any idea of what the mentioned practices include. It is only after the Reformation and the mounting Enlightenment we get a sharper picture of the connection between elves and rock art. It coincides with the radicalization of the Protestant church, and an outspoken wish to erase pagan rituals and beliefs, as well as the heresy of Catholicism. We have seen how both ‘naturally’ and ‘culturally’ created phenomena were associated with elves and their dances. However, there are currently no finds from the archaeological excavations of cupmarked stones, or other related phenomena (e.g., Lillehammer 2004), which link these practices to prehistoric times. None of the finds from archaeological excavations of elf stones extends beyond the Reformation in northern Europe, about AD 1527 in Sweden. Having said that, in the current situation, there is nothing that contradicts a continuity of the notion of elves, but if so, it is clear that the practice that was linked to these creatures altered and changed over time. The medium may have changed, but the performances might be consistent, and vice

 

Archaeology of elves 301 versa, new media may have meant changing perceptions. Archaeology has the potential and means to study how such human practices and beliefs are transformed over time and in space, but much work remains to be done before we can say more about the archaeology of elves. To succeed in this pursuit each geographical area and epoch ought to be studied on its own terms, both with informed and formal methods, because there are no short cuts to be found. An example of changing elf-​belief practices is highlighted by the excavation of the Troll-​ stone. The Protestant radicalization can be said to have changed the mutual interaction between human beings and elves. Considering the finds of coins and other objects at the site, it is possible to argue for a continuous practice from the early 1700s to the mid-​1800s, when Hyltén-​ Cavallius stripped the site of dolls. The excavation also revealed some new insights into the relationship between humans and elves that do not appear in the historical and ethnographic sources (Tables 12.1 and 12.2). The clearest example is that both coins and washers might have been used as ält-​stones in elf-​belief practices. This shows that people had a more intricate and dialectical relationship with the elves, where items could be picked up at the elf-​stone, worn around the neck like an ält-​stone, and thereafter could be put back. This can be characterized as a mutual two-​ way communication in which both humans and elves were attributed an agency of their own. It can also be proposed that Hyltén-​Cavallius’s act contributed to a change and alteration in the practice that was associated with the elves. Very few coins post-​dating his visit were found at the Troll-​stone, nor were any dolls seen at or recovered from the site, and it might be worth taking Larsson at his word and suggest that children increasingly came to treasure the Troll-​ stone as a place to gather ‘candy-​coins’. In whichever way we choose to interpret the archaeological remains, Hyltén-​Cavallius’s brusque collecting the dolls seems to have changed the relationship between humans and elves. The elves started to fade away. It is well known that antiquarians and ethnologists as well as archaeologists and anthropologists affect their ‘study objects’ (Clifford and Marcus 2010; Lucas 2012), and it is also an important component in current articulations of symmetrical archaeological perspectives where different ontologies are ascribed equal value and attentiveness (Marshall and Alberti 2014; Jones 2015; Alberti 2016). Elf archaeology is a good example of this phenomenon. The only way we have to create new knowledge about the elf beliefs and practices is to follow the path and the testimony of the trowel. Maybe we will not find out what people actually thought, but hopefully what they did at sites associated with the elves. Many more elf practices are probably to be found. Perhaps the purpose and objective of an archaeology of elves should not only be to try to understand how people perceived the elusive elves, but also to try to figure out how the elusive elves perceived human beings.

302  Joakim Goldhahn

Acknowledgments Thanks to the editors for the invitation to participate in this enthralling anthology. Patrik Nordström took part in the excavation of the Troll-​stone at Bors near Lindesberg, and he is gratefully thanked for pleasant camaraderie in the field and for fruitful discussions about elves and other ogres. Thanks also to Frédéric Elfver who performed the identifications of the sometimes heavily worn coins from the Troll-​stone. The National Museum in Copenhagen, Magnus Artursson and Staffan Hyll, Stavanger Museum, and Grete Lillehammer are equally thanked for providing some of the figures. Judith Crawford improved my English. Any remaining faults are mine alone. This article is dedicated to my much-​loved grandmother Margit, who once swore that she had met the elves.

Note 1 School of Cultural Sciences, Linnæus University, 39182 Kalmar, Sweden; Adjunct Research Fellow at PERAHU, School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus, Queensland 4222, Australia; [email protected]

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310  Joakim Goldhahn Tillhagen, C.-​H. 1996. Vattnens folklore: Sägen och folktro kring bäckar, älvar, sjöar och hav. Stockholm: Carlssons. Toreld, A. 2008. Kärrastenen i Tanum—​en västsvensk megalitristning? Fornvännen 103: 160–​64. Turpin, S.A. (ed.) 1994. Shamanism and rock art in North America. San Antonio: Rock Art Foundation, Special Publication 1. Tvauri, A. 1999. Cup-​marked stones in Estonia. Folk-​lore, Electronic Journal of Folklore 11: 113–​69. Vinnicombe, P. 1976. People of the eland:  Rock paintings of the Drakensberg Bushmen as a reflection of their life and thought. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press. Vogt, D. 2011. Rock carvings in Østfold and Bohuslän, South Scandinavia: an interpretation of political and economic landscapes. Oslo: Novus Forlag. Von Linné, C. 1907. Carl von Linnés Öländska resa: förrättad 1741. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag. Weibull, J. 1997. Swedish history in outline. 2nd edition. Stockholm:  Svenska Institutet. Welinder, S. 1994. Svensk arkeologis protorasistiska föreställningssediment. Tor 26: 193–​215. Whitley, D.S. and Lorendorf, L.L. (eds) 1994. New light on old art: Recent advances in hunter-​gatherer rock art research. Los Angeles: UCLA Institute of Archaeology, Monograph 36. Widholm, D. 1974. En bronsåldersboplats vid Kvarnby: Undersökning 1969. Årsbok för Malmö Museum 1973–​74: 43–​89. Zachrisson, T. 2017. Mellan fromhet och vidskepelse: Materialitet och religiositet i det efterreformatoriska Sverige. Göteborg: Göteborg University, Institutionen för Historiska Studier.

 

13 Cognitive continuities in place An exploration of enduring, site-​specific ritual practices in the Shashe-​Limpopo Confluence  Area M.H. Schoeman1 As an undergraduate student I  assumed that it was the norm for archaeologists to study religion. The ability to trace belief systems and rituals through material culture and texts was a fundamental component of the approach to archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand. David Lewis-​Williams and Tom Huffman enthusiastically espoused the merits and potential of cognitive archaeology in their teaching on rock art and African Iron Age archaeology respectively, while, Lyn Wadley’s Ancient Cognition and Culture research program for the Middle and Later Stone Age (LSA) periods in Africa was as a radical endeavor that sought to extend our understanding of cognition and culture into a deeper hunter-​gatherer past. While Lewis-​Williams’s teaching guided us to see the materialization of southern African hunter-​gatherer religion in rock art (e.g., Lewis-​Williams 1981, 1982), Wadley showed us that patterns in seemingly mundane, quotidian material culture can help identify the social and cultural context, such as aggregation, in which the rituals took place (e.g., Wadley 1987). Simon Hall, who joined Wits later in my undergraduate degree, had a profound impact on my approach to archaeology too. Hall’s teaching and research on temporally and spatially specific social dynamics shaped the core of my approach to archaeology. My other major subject was social anthropology, and I was privileged to be taught by eminent social anthropologists, including David Hammond-​ Tooke. Hammond-​Tooke took us on a journey into the worlds of ethnographies, and deeper structuralist meanings. This chapter is rooted in the understanding of cognitive archaeology I developed as a student, and entwines this with the archaeology of ritual in the Shashe-​Limpopo Confluence Area (SLCA) (Fig. 13.1), where I did my PhD research. The archaeological record for the SLCA indicates a 13,000-​ year-​long occupation sequence that manifests substantial continuities, and significant innovations, with cultural homogeneity and continuity being counterbalanced by hybridity and shifting practices. Among other things, the SLCA supported the rise of the Mapungubwe state early in the second millennium A D and, later, lay on the edges of the Great Zimbabwe, Khami

312  M.H. Schoeman

Figure 13.1 The confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo rivers

and Venda polities. This complex mixture means that tracing beliefs and ritual practices in the SLCA is both relatively easy, and extremely difficult. Tracking beliefs in contemporary and historical communities, and in cases where significant continuities exist between past and contemporary communities, is the easier endeavor. Investigating the cognition of pre-​ Mapungubwe farming communities, however, is more difficult, because the varying nature of interaction between farmers and hunter-​ gatherers during 300 years of co-​occupation of the SLCA prior to the emergence of Mapungubwe society. Secondly, cognitive continuities between residents of the K2 polity and later Venda/​Shona-​speaking communities are problematic to affirm, because people in the region have experienced substantial religious, ideological and social changes related to Mapungubwe state formation, dispersal, interaction, Venda state formation, and subsequent historical processes. At least one of these processes included substantial transformations in religious beliefs. Thirdly, most historical southern African societies that have ancestor-​based belief systems similar to early K2, do not have any population continuities, nor common origins with the K2-​Mapungubwe peoples (cf. Huffman 2002a, 2004 for discussions of the origins of Nguni and Sotho-​Tswana peoples). Nevertheless, in this chapter I  trace cognitive continuity and change through time, and where possible, I identify spatially and temporally specific dynamics. I focus on place-​specific actions, because interaction between

 

Cognitive communities in place 313 different communities, and communities and places, can result in locale-​ specific interpretations of widely held beliefs about landscapes and sites. As Gupta and Ferguson (1992: 8) note notions of locality or community refer both to a demarcated physical space and to clusters of interaction, [and] we can see that the identity of a place emerges by the intersection of its specific involvement in a system of hierarchically organized spaces with its cultural construction as a community or locality. This suggests that the continued articulation of people with sites on the landscape could result in longer-​term continuities in beliefs about places. While ideas are not fixed in such contexts, some form of continuity in inhabitants (whether as individuals, or as collectives) can lead to local continuities in ideas and practices. I start by reflecting on interaction, gender and the transfer of ideas between communities. A brief overview of the SLCA occupation sequence then forms the foundation for a discussion of place-​specific ritual in the SLCA.

Interaction, ‘borrowing’ and gender Much of the cognitive archaeological research in South Africa has focused on cultural and religious continuities (e.g., Lewis-​ Williams 1981, 1982, 2002, 2003; Huffman 1986, 1996, 2000, 2015; Loubser 1989, 1991, 2008, 2010; Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004a). In general, scholars have argued that religious beliefs and practices are conservative, and thus manifest continuity. Understandings of how southern African societies formed in the past, and how these processes could result in both continuity and change in belief systems and religious practices, have advanced substantially since these cognitive approaches were first developed in the 1980s. New insights include the recognition that the origins of many southern African populations were not necessarily homogenous. Heterogeneity resulted from societal-​scale interaction, as well as the impact of individual mobility. The latter is difficult to see archaeologically, but societal-​scale interaction is more recognizable. Archaeological evidence for interaction includes hunter-​gatherer materials on farmer sites, as well as the reverse (e.g., Mazel 1986, 1989; Thorp 1996; Wadley 1996; Hall 2000; Hall and Smith 2000; Van Doornum 2007, 2008; Mitchell 2009). Evidence of interaction also exists in rock-​art depictions, as well as in the ways in which people interacted with rock art (e.g., Dowson 1994, 1998; Ouzman 1995; Van der Ryst 1998, 2003; Hobart 2003; Challis 2012, 2014; Sinclair-​Thomson and Challis 2017). Some interaction in southern Africa resulted in hybrid communities, such as Type R communities (Maggs 1971; Humphreys 1988, 2009), the Vaalpense (Van der Ryst 1998, 2003) and the AmaTola (Challis 2012, 2014).

314  M.H. Schoeman The power relations of these interactions were not necessarily balanced, as is traceable in the material culture of interaction between hunter-​gatherers and farmers at Madikwe. Madikwe is an A D 1500–​1700 Tswana site where all hunter-​gatherer material culture, irrespective of whether made by men or women, was associated with the domestic sphere, and thus feminized (Hall 2000). Hall (2000) argued that this place-​association stems from farmer constructions of foragers as less than human, wild, part of nature and operating outside (male) culture, whilst simultaneously being able to mediate nature on behalf of farmers. Research on interaction has not been confined to relationships between hunter-​gatherers and farmers, but has also explored fluidity and interaction between different farming communities. On a community scale, newcomers interacted with already settled farmers, and elements of material-​culture traditions were transferred between the two (e.g., Boeyens 2003; Whitelaw and Hall 2016). Hybrid languages such as Ndebele and Venda also were shaped through the interaction of various farming communities, and in the case of Venda, the emergence of the new language can be tracked through changes in ceramic style (Loubser 1981, 1989, 1991). Hybridity, however, is not the only outcome of interaction. The development of gendered ‘dual’ identities has also been recorded. These developed where African farmer communities interacted with one another (e.g., Felgate 1982: 24; Webster 1991: 251), and in the context of the colonial frontier (Hall 1997). Communities that were shaped through contact might share concepts, such as mediumistic divination in eastern South Africa, but, hybridity was not automatic (Hammond-​Tooke 1998, 1999; Whitelaw 2017). This included approaches to rain-​control. ‘Traditional’ San and farmer approaches to rain-​ control were dissimilar. Southern San rain-​control took place in the spirit world (Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004a) and was profoundly different from how southern African farming communities dealt (and in some cases still deal) with drought, which requires the management of pollution, and placating of ancestors. Ancestors generally are placated with the aid of the sacrifice of a domestic animal (cf. Fourie 1921; Eiselen 1928; Schapera 1930; Stayt 1931; Hunter 1936; Feddema 1968; Mönning 1978; also see De Heusch 1985; Whitelaw 2017). Where transfers did take place, such as between the San and the Mpondomise, they were informed by the specific power relations between communities, and groups or individuals in these communities, status of various agents, respective population sizes, as well as the structuring of gender in the communities (cf. Hammond-​ Tooke 1998, 2002; Whitelaw 2017). Hammond-​Tooke (1997, 1998, 1999, 2002), for example, argued that the transfers of religious concepts, and San understandings of wild animals as extra-​societal manifestations of the ancestors, as well as practices such as mediumistic divination between San and Nguni speakers in the Eastern Cape, were not simple ‘borrowings’, because the social and cosmological differences between the two groups were substantial. Instead, the adoption into Nguni

 

Cognitive communities in place 315 religious practice was the result of a modification in Nguni beliefs in the context of interaction with the San, which provided women with an opportunity to respond to “extreme patriarchy” (Hammond-​Tooke 1998: 13). Xhosa-​speaking women might not have been the sole ‘borrowers’ of San religious ideas. It is possible that San-​speaking women marrying into these farming communities also played a role in the transfer. The number of San women marrying across was significant, with mtDNA data indicating that approximately 28.5% of Eastern Cape women are of KhoeSan descent (Schlebusch et al. 2009). These marriages occurred against the background of unequal political statuses between farming and hunter-​gatherer communities (e.g., Blundell 2004; Challis 2012, 2014; Whitelaw 2017), which when combined with pre-​existing unequal gendered power relations within Nguni communities, could mean that San-​speaking brides had to navigate very low-​status social positions. ‘Borrowing’ ritual practices and religious beliefs from their natal homes, might have helped them navigate their new lives as “ambiguous outsiders” (Hamilton and Hall 2012: 286). Patterns in the genetic ancestry of modern South African populations suggest that the gender-​biased population incorporation processes evident in the Eastern Cape (Schlebusch et al. 2009) were present on a much wider scale in Africa (e.g., Wood et al. 2005; also see Lane et al. 2002; Li et al. 2014). This was a continual process, and DNA data indicate both shifting populations and shifting frontiers (e.g., Marks et al. 2014; also see Soodyall et al. 2008). That migrations and other population processes were gendered is not surprising, because labor, interaction and social identities are gendered (see Wadley 2013 for a more detailed discussion; also Whitelaw this volume). I return to gender and interaction later, but I now turn to the SLCA occupation sequence, making specific reference to religion and ritual.

Coming, going, and staying The SLCA at the border zone of South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe is a dry place. Today the area receives about 350 mm of rain per annum, mostly in summer. But long-​term fluctuations exist in the region’s annual rainfall and at the start of the second millennium the annual rainfall was about 500 mm per annum (Smith et al. 2007). A large floodplain exists at the confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo rivers. This would have teemed with wild animals before people turned it into farmland. Smaller rivers, such as the Kolope River, create localized floodplains, which were probably also farmed during the K2 and Mapungubwe periods, AD 1000–​1300 (Smith et al. 2007). The broader region has been occupied since the beginning of the tenth millennium B C and, despite environmental challenges, facilitated the rise of two new polities during the last millennium. These were the early second millennium K2-​Mapungubwe polity, and the mid-​second millennium Venda polities in the nearby Soutpansberg range.

316  M.H. Schoeman The first SLCA occupants were LSA hunter-​gatherers (Hall and Smith 2000; Van Doornum 2008). It is likely that these hunter-​gatherers shared cultural practices and beliefs with San speakers of historic times. The first such similarity is the practice of seasonal aggregation and dispersal, for which there is archaeological evidence from 6,000 years ago. Ethnographic accounts show that the healing (or trance) dance is performed regularly during aggregation periods. Evidence of aggregation in the archaeological record could then be a proxy for the healing dance (Walker 1994, 1995; Van Doornum 2008). This suggests a date for the earliest painting of rock art in the SLCA. This art, like all San rock art, materialized San religious beliefs (Eastwood 1999, 2003; Eastwood and Blundell 1999; Eastwood and Cnoops 1999; Eastwood et  al. 1999; Eastwood and Eastwood 2006; also see Mnguni 2004). Consequently, research on SLCA rock art has taken place within the well-​established cognitive approach (e.g., Eastwood 1999, 2003, 2005; Eastwood and Blundell 1999; Eastwood and Cnoops 1999; Eastwood et al. 1999; Eastwood and Eastwood 2006). This approach is appropriate in the SLCA because the belief system materialized in San rock art had substantial continuity across space and through time, although there were regional variations (Lewis-​Williams 1981, 1982, 2002, 2003; Deacon 1986, 1988; Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004a; Thorp 2015, 2018). Khoe-​speaking hunter-​gatherers with pottery and sheep appeared in the broader SLCA region during the first few centuries AD (Sadr 2015). In the nearby Soutpansberg these herders, who had a distinct geometric rock-​art tradition, occupied Saltpan Shelter from A D 100 to 600 (Hall and Smith 2000). Farmers also settled in the broader region around this time (Meyer 1998, 2000; Huffman 2000, 2002b; Hall and Smith 2000; Van Doornum 2007, 2008), but the first farming community homesteads appeared in the valley only around A D 900. Zhizo ceramics are used as a proxy for their occupation. The largest of their settlements was Schroda, a 150,000 m2 site (Hanisch 1980, 1981; Calabrese 2000a, b; Huffman 2000, 2002b; Van Schalkwyk and Hanisch 2002). Identifying the beliefs of these farming communities is challenging. Our knowledge is largely confined to burial practices. Evidence for ritual at Schroda comprised human burials in the central and domestic areas. This location and treatment of the burials suggests that their religious beliefs included the ancestors (Hanisch 1980, 1981; Huffman 2002b; Van Schalkwyk and Hanisch 2002). For many people in southern Africa today, ancestors still are key figures in the spiritual world (Fortes 1965; Hammond-​Tooke  1985). Hunter-​gatherer material culture began to change with the settlement of Zhizo farmers (Hall and Smith 2000; Van Doornum 2007, 2008). The relationship between the two groups is likely to have followed a pattern found in the rest of southern Africa, where interaction included hunter-​gatherers performing ritual and economic work in exchange for goods and food (Hall and Smith 2000; Van Doornum 2007, 2008, 2014).

 

Cognitive communities in place 317 Around A D 1000, a new farming community expanded into the SLCA, and they established numerous new homesteads in the valley. Their sites were marked by Leopard’s Kopje A, or K2, pottery. The largest site was K2 at the base of Bambandyanalo hill (Fouché 1937; Huffman 1986, 1996, 2000; Meyer 1998, 2000). Work by Calabrese (2000a, b, 2007; also see Huffman 2000) has demonstrated that the first farmers (represented by Zhizo-​derived Leokwe pottery), and the new arrivals (represented by Leopard’s Kopje pottery) co-​occupied the SLCA between AD 1000 and 1200 in a system of ethnic stratification. This system also incorporated hunter-​ gatherers (Schoeman 2006; Van Doornum 2007, 2008, 2014). In the thirteenth century, a new ceramic style called Leopard’s Kopje B or Mapungubwe replaced the earlier ethnic styles, thus signaling a new collective identity. Equally significant was the transformation in the royal settlement pattern. This change entailed a shift from a royal village with male ancestors buried in the center to the top of Mapungubwe hill where certain male and female royals lived and were buried. All the commoner farmers in the SLCA, however, continued to bury their dead in their homesteads (Fouché 1937; Huffman 1986, 1996, 2000, 2015; Meyer 1998, 2000; Calabrese 2007). Huffman (1986, 1996, 2000, 2015) has written extensively about the Mapungubwe belief system, which he locates in the ‘Zimbabwe Culture’, for which he presents considerable historical and ethnographic evidence. Although this overall approach has been extensively critiqued (e.g., Beach 1988; Pikirayi and Chirikure 2011; Chirikure et  al. 2013, 2014), it does allow insight into Mapungubwe-​period religious practices that are not the core subject of the critiques. The Mapungubwe polity was relatively short lived, and most of the population moved into Botswana towards the end of the thirteenth century (Huffman 2009; also see Calabrese 2000a, b, 2007). Some Mapungubwe farmers remained behind in the SLCA (Meyer 1998:  212) and in the Soutpansberg (Loubser 1989, 1991). Hunter-​ gatherer signatures largely disappeared from shelters when most of the farmers left the region (Van Doornum 2008). Those who stayed in the region would have benefited from the ameliorating rainfall, which after the dry spell early in the AD 1200s, gradually increased until the A D 1500/​1600s (Smith et al. 2007; Woodborne et al. 2016: 12). The few farmers and hunter-​ gatherers who remained in the SLCA witnessed the arrival of a new group of farmers soon after the breakup of the Mapungubwe polity. Sites associated with these farmers include Icon, which dates to A D 1330 (Hanisch 1979). A new pottery style, known as Moloko, marks these sites. Other early Moloko occupations include twelfth-​century Nagome near Phalaborwa (Evers and Van der Merwe 1987; also see Huffman 2002a). These farmers were, broadly speaking, ancestral to modern Sotho-​Tswana-​speaking peoples. They established relationships with the small groups of Mapungubwe farmers who had remained in the region (Loubser 1989: 56).

318  M.H. Schoeman This was now a frontier landscape, outside the reach of complex societies such as the Great Zimbabwe polity to the northeast, which was at its zenith at the time. Later, in the middle of the fifteenth century, the Khami polity extended its sphere of influence from southwest Zimbabwe into the SLCA (Huffman and Hanisch 1987). These newcomers interacted and intermarried (Jacobson et al. 1991: 23) with the other farming communities already in the region (Loubser 1989). Distinct Mapungubwe, Moloko and classic Khami sites then disappeared from the neighboring Soutpansberg range after A D 1600. At this time new hybrid pottery traditions appeared, first Tavhatshena, then Letaba. These materialized the emergence of Venda identity, which was an amalgamation of Shona, Sotho, and most probably the local Mapungubwe language (Loubser 1989, 1991, 2008). The emergence of Venda identity signaled a new political system that incorporated distinctive political and ritual roles for women not seen in other South African farming societies. These roles included women as high status diviners (Van Warmelo and Phophi 1967: 1217), while a father’s (or mother’s) sister, makhadzi, was highly regarded as an intermediary between the spiritual and physical worlds. The king’s makhadzi participates in most rituals, and plays a leading role in one of the most important national ceremonies, the thevula, in which the ancestors are thanked for assistance with agricultural success (Matshidze 2013; also see Stayt 1931). Some women also are rain-​controllers, such as among the Mbedzi in the Southpansberg (Ralushai 1977) and, most famously, the Lobedu Rain Queen (Krige and Krige 1943). The core of the Venda polities was in the Soutpansberg, with the SLCA on its periphery. This frontier position of the SLCA meant that there was more flex and flux in its occupations. Groups who settled in the area included Venda, North Sotho, and mixed Venda/​North Sotho-​speaking communities, such as Machete (Van Warmelo 1940, 1953; Wagner 1980; Schoeman 2013). Due to conflict in the eighteenth century, several of these settlements were on hills and terraced hillslopes. The overlap in historical populations between Venda speakers in the Soutpansberg and the SLCA means that religious beliefs in the two areas were probably similar, and it is thus possible to use Venda historical and ethnographic texts to read the archaeology from sites occupied by Venda-​speakers (e.g., Loubser 1989, 1991, 2008). There is also a substantial body of ethnographic and historical material about most of the societies that extended their territories into the SLCA (e.g., Schapera 1930, 1971; Van Warmelo 1932, 1940, 1953; Pauw 1964; Feddema 1968; Mönning 1978; Hammond-​Tooke 1981). While the region was largely under the political control of farming communities, there were still independent, lithic-​producing hunter-​gatherers in the Makgabeng, 50 km to the south of the SLCA, until the beginning of the nineteenth century (Bradfield et  al. 2009). It is thus possible that the ephemeral surface material culture in some SLCA shelters, such as the AD 1660–​1800 layers at Balerno Main Shelter (Van Doornum 2008), relates

 

Cognitive communities in place 319 to the continued use of these sites by hunter-​gatherer, or by hybrid hunter-​ gatherer/​farmer communities. These hybrid communities in northern South Africa referred to themselves as Kattea, but were more generally known as Vaalpense or Masele2 (Van Warmelo 1940; Van Schalkwyk 1985; Van der Ryst 1998, 2003). Merensky (1875) and Keane (1900) suggested that they formed a community, and that they controlled much of the low-​lying land between the Limpopo River and the Waterberg, Makgabeng and western Soutpansberg ranges until the nineteenth century. Relatively little is known about the religious beliefs of the hybrid hunter-​ gatherer/​farmer communities in the SLCA. But, noting the suggested interconnectedness between Kattea groups in wider region, the SLCA groups might have had much in common with the Waterberg Kattea communities, whose belief systems included elements of widely held San beliefs. They, for example, used painted shelters in rituals (Van der Ryst 1998, 2003), and Eugene Marais claimed to have recorded the Dwaalstories3 (Trance Tales or Wandering Tales) narratives from a descendant. These tales include components that refer to trance, as well as San rain-​control beliefs (Marais 2016 (1927); Van der Ryst 1998, 2003).

Thinking from places I now turn to place-​specific beliefs and rituals. As noted earlier, various scales of interaction between people and places can result in continuities in place-​specific beliefs. This observation is particularly appropriate in the SLCA landscape, which is characterized by many kilometers of mopane-​ tree-​ covered, sandy flat lands, intersected by the Kolope, Limpopo and Shashe rivers. In this largely undifferentiated landscape, the sandstone hills, ridges and outcrops that mark the transition from the central valley to the plateau are very visible, and larger hills can be seen from afar. This visual prominence might have contributed to the repeated ritual use of sites in these sandstone outcrops. The shelters discussed below also are located in this sandstone outcrop zone. Shelters More than 2,500 individual San rock art images have been recorded at over 100 rock shelters in the SLCA. These include the larger residential shelters such as Balerno Main Shelter (Fig. 13.2), which would have functioned as aggregation sites, as well as smaller dispersal-​period sites (Van Doornum 2007, 2008, 2014). In addition, art was painted in small shelters, such as those formed by single boulders, which contain no surface evidence for residential use (Eastwood and Blundell 1999; Eastwood and Cnoops 1999; Eastwood 2003; Eastwood and Eastwood 2006). Paintings at these smaller, at times hidden, non-​residential SLCA sites suggest particular kinds of ritual activities such as rain-​control (cf. Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004a).

320  M.H. Schoeman

Figure 13.2 Balerno Main Shelter viewed from the southeast

Like the better-​known San rock art of the Drakensberg (e.g., Lewis-​ Williams, this volume), the SLCA rock art includes paintings of human ­figures and animals. These, however, were not the eland’s people. Prominent and frequently painted animals in the rock art include animals such as giraffe, rhinoceros, and kudu (Fig. 13.3) (Eastwood and Blundell 1999; Eastwood and Cnoops 1999; Eastwood 2003; Eastwood and Eastwood 2006), as well as insects such as occur in Zimbabwean rock art (Mnguni 2004). While giraffe and kudu were painted frequently, special attention was paid to the rhinoceros, and it is depicted in the widest range of contexts; depictions include engravings on the shelter wall at Balerno Main Shelter. Rhinoceroses were also painted at small shelters and boulder shelters, several of which do not have residential remains (Fig.  13.4) (Eastwood and Cnoops 1999; Eastwood 2003; Eastwood and Eastwood 2006). The rhinoceros imagery, other animals depicted with them, and their context suggest that rhinoceroses were linked to rain-​control (see Ouzman 1995 for a detailed discussion on the significance of rhinoceros; also see Boeyens and Van der Ryst 2014 for farming community rhinoceroses related beliefs; Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004a for a more detailed discussion on rain-​related paintings). It is not known when the making of rock art in the SLCA ceased. The as-​yet unstudied white brush-​painted art could indicate that the practice was maintained by hybrid SLCA groups into the recent historic past, as happened in the Drakensberg (Blundell 2004; Challis 2012, 2014) and Waterberg (Van der Ryst 1998, 2003). In the Waterberg, other San ritual practices also continued into the historic period; these included participants clapping in shelters for rain-​calling purposes (Van der Ryst 1998, 2003).

 

Figure 13.3 San painting of a giraffe in Kaoxa shelter

Figure 13.4 Rock art panel with rhinoceroses in a secluded shelter

322  M.H. Schoeman The use, or reuse, of residential shelters is easier to trace. Here I  contrast practices of use and re-​use of shelters in the SLCA with those in the Soutpansberg. In the SLCA intensive hunter-​gatherer use of shelters as residential sites continued until the fall of the Mapungubwe polity c. AD 1300. A shift in shelter use, however, occurred before this general abandonment. At the start of the second millennium, hunter-​gatherers stopped living in smaller shelters (Van Doornum 2007, 2014) and larger sites became the focus of hunter-​gatherer activities (e.g., Balerno Main Shelter). These larger sites contain the archaeological signatures of aggregation (Van Doornum 2008), perhaps implying an increase in the ritual activities that are typically associated with aggregation. The SLCA shelters, and the art in them, appear to have been places of harnessed, rather than contested, power in the context of interaction between hunter-​ gatherers and Zhizo farmers (Hall and Smith 2000; Van Doornum 2008). At Little Muck Shelter, for instance, Zhizo pottery sherds (c. AD 900s) occur in the LSA deposit, while ochre pieces provide evidence for rock art painting until AD 1000. In addition, the pavement outside the shelter contains a large number of cupules and mankala game boards carved into the stone outcrop (Hall and Smith 2000; Schoeman 2006). There are numerous mankala boards carved into the sandstone at hunter-​ gatherer and farmer sites in the SLCA (Fig. 13.5), and the game has been recorded historically in both San and farming communities (Van Binsbergen 1996). Indeed, mankala is played throughout Africa, and entangles gaming, ritual, and layers of social significance, and it is at times associated with divination (Townshend 1979; Van Binsbergen 1996). At least one of the Little Muck Shelter game boards clearly was not utilitarian. A  snake-​like engraving slithers into the board, some of the game board holes have been modified into cupules, and cupules surround the board (Fig.  13.6). The presence of numerous cupules, which Schoeman (2006) linked to rain-​ control, in and between the game boards in the rocky outcrop outside Little Muck suggests that the area outside the shelter was used for ritual purposes, including rain-​control. Around the end of Mapungubwe (c. AD 1300), intensive hunter-​gatherer occupation in SLCA shelters falls away, but a low-​level use throughout the second millennium speaks to some continuities. These include the use by hunter-​gatherers, or the hybrid hunter-​gatherer communities discussed earlier. In addition, material culture similar to that found in shelters in the Waterberg by Aukema (1989; also see Van der Ryst 1998), such as grindstones and pots, could suggest that a few SCLA shelters might have been used for rain-​ control in the second millennium. There is, for instance, at least one verifiable example in the SLCA of the association of a small overhang with rain:  in the early twentieth century, members of the Venda/​North Sotho-​speaking Machete community placed rain pots under a small overhang at the base of Leokwe hill, believing that mist would descend as the rain-​snake visited

 

Cognitive communities in place 323

Figure 13.5 Game board in Kaoxa shelter

the hill (L. Machete, pers. comm., 2009). Keeping rain-​medicines in shelters, however, is a common practice throughout South Africa and therefore it cannot be assumed to be linked to earlier practices in the area (see, e.g., Schapera 1971; Berglund 1976; Mönning 1978; also see Whitelaw 2017). Continuities in the use of shelters, and association of shelters with hunter-​gatherers in the SLCA and Waterberg stands in stark contrast to the Soutpansberg. Based on excavated and painted sequences in Saltpan Shelter on the western edge of the Soutpansberg range, Hall and Smith (2000) argued that pastoralists in the first millennium appropriated ritual control of the shelter from the San. This challenge was materialized in the blocking up of deep ‘sumps’ within the shelter, and in the extensive painting of Khoe

324  M.H. Schoeman

Figure 13.6 Little Muck Shelter game board with cupules and snake-like engraving

pastoralist art over San art. The intensity and the nature of the contestation suggest that the pastoralists were deliberately contesting the power and significance of the San art, as well as the association of the shelter with San spiritual work (Hall and Smith 2000). The deliberate conceptual exclusion of San from shelters is also visible in the use of other Soutpansberg shelters by Venda speakers. For instance, Venda-​ speaking farmers in the Soutpansberg approach midzimu—​ancestral spirits of indigenous people—​in rock-​art shelters, and leave small gifts, believing that the midzimu intervene in misfortunes related to fertility and droughts. Many of these midzimu sites are marked with hunter-​gatherer rock art, but are not conceptually associated with the San. Instead, these spaces are associated with ancestors of earlier farming communities (Loubser and Dowson 1987). It is possible that Venda speakers in the SLCA shared these beliefs, and that some of the metal items and other small artefacts in the upper layers of shelter deposits results from these shelters being seen as midzimu sites. Homesteads Another widely shared continuity in SLCA ritual is the burying of people in homesteads and cattle enclosures. This custom is associated with ancestor-​ based belief systems. This practice was documented in the SLCA at Schroda (Hansich 1981; Van Schalkwyk and Hanisch 2002) and K2 sites (Huffman 1996). It was the dominant pattern until the reconfiguration of the royal

 

Cognitive communities in place 325 settlement pattern at K2 at the start of the thirteenth century. This reconfiguration included moving cattle from the royal settlement as part of the process that eventually materialized in the move of the elite residence and burial grounds onto Mapungubwe hill (Huffman 1986, 1996, 2000, 2015; also see Calabrese 2007). Venda royal settlements also are located on hills. In contrast to the royal settlement pattern, and associated ideological changes, Mapungubwe and Venda commoners still buried their dead in the central enclosures, as did other farming communities who lived in the SLCA more recently. This suggests great continuity in commoner’s ancestor-​based belief systems, and possible resistance to newer royal ideologies (Calabrese 2007; also see Loubser 1989, 1991). Hilltops K2-​period ritual use The archaeologically observable use of steep-​ sided hills on the SLCA plateau started in the K2 period. Excavations on five of these hills indicate that they were used for treating drought (Fig. 13.7) (Murimbika 2006; Schoeman 2006). This use of hilltops appears to have been a place-​and time-​specific choice, because no data indicate that earlier Zhizo farmers used hilltops in rituals, nor is there evidence that this was the case in southeastern Botswana or southwestern Zimbabwe until the start of the second millennium. These hills contain substantial K2-​period deposits and scattered material culture in open areas and in rock tanks (solution cavities in sandstone that are up to 4 m across, which served as symbolic pools). The rock tank

Figure 13.7 The rain-​control site EH hill viewed from Kaoxa shelter

326  M.H. Schoeman deposits contain pottery, metal bangles and faunal remains. Elsewhere I argued that the use of hilltops on the plateau was the result of a confluence of hunter-​gatherer and farmer beliefs and, further, that it was a deliberate move by K2 farmers to exclude Zhizo-​Leokwe peoples and their ancestors from rain-​control in a period when the K2 elite were consolidating their control over the SLCA region (Schoeman 2006). After at least 100 years of intense hunter-​gatherer/​first-​farmer interaction, some hunter-​gatherers had become entrenched as ritual specialists in the SLCA. The Leopard’s Kopje newcomers embraced their role, as it provided a politically neutral alternative to Zhizo-​Leokwe ritual specialists (Schoeman 2006). Accessing the beliefs of K2 farmers about hills and rain-​control before they had settled in the SLCA is near impossible, but it is likely that SLCA hunter-​ gatherers shared historic San beliefs that hills were appropriate places to control rain (e.g., Bleek 1933a, b; Deacon 1986, 1988; Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004a). When considering the origins of the K2 rain-​control rituals, it is worth reflecting on the use of wild animals. The faunal assemblages that have been analyzed thus far are dominated by wild animals, such as kudu, common reedbuck, giraffe, rhinoceros, zebra, mongoose, bullfrog, snake, fish, birds, and tortoise (Brunton et al. 2013). Domestic animals have not yet been conclusively identified in any of the rock tank assemblages. A very similar range of mammal species to those recovered from the hilltop sites is present in SLCA rock art (cf. Eastwood 1999, 2003; Eastwood and Blundell 1999; Eastwood and Cnoops 1999; Eastwood et al. 1999; Eastwood and Eastwood 2006). These are not animals generally associated with farmer rain-​control, which tends to favor (black) domesticated animals such as sheep or cattle (De Heusch 1985; also see Whitelaw 2017), although some wild animals such as snakes and water tortoises were ingredients in rain-​ medicines (Eiselen 1928). While important, it would not be exceptional if ideas about animals related to rain traveled between hunter-​gatherers and farmers in the SLCA. Some Xhosa-​ speaking diviners, for example, ‘borrowed’ the concept of spirit-​world possession of animals from San speakers (Hammond-​Tooke 1999). There, also are other routes by which San ideas traveled into farmer communities. Hammond-​Tooke (1999) highlights another manifestation of transferring ideas, which resulted in the killing and symbolic use of wild animals. He cites Berglund (1976:  155), who reports that Zulu novice diviners must “catch a wild animal” as part of their spiritual experience. This catching did not only take place in the spirit world, and some diviners caught animals in the physical world, and used their bones. It is possible that a similar transfer process occurred in the SLCA. In addition to exchanging ideas about rain animals, there appears to have been sharing of ritual acts in the SLCA. Cup-​shaped hollows—​cupules—​ occur in high densities on the rain-​control hills in the SLCA, and have been linked to early first-​millennium rituals (Schoeman 2006; Schoeman and Murimbika 2007). Cupules also dotted the sandstone pavement outside Little Muck Shelter, which flourished as a ritual center in the Zhizo period.

 

Cognitive communities in place 327 Cupule-​creation, however, has deeper-​time origins in the LSA, and at Tsodilo hills in Botswana dates to at least 6,200 B P (Brook et al. 2010). It is likely that cupules were a by-​product of making repetitive sound (cf. Ouzman 2001 for a discussion on rock hammering and sound production; also see Taçon et al. 1997 on cupules found across the world). Ritual hammering forms part of the San ritual repertoire. A |Xam San woman, for example, pounded a stone digging-​stick weight on the ground when asking the spirits of the game to assist her husband in hunting (Hollmann 2004: 263–​6). Beating a stone on the ground might also have been linked to the management of lightning, and, at least in northern Namibia, was done only by women (Bleek and Lloyd 1968: 429). The presence of Letaba ceramics (associated with Venda identity) in non-​ residential contexts on hilltops in the SLCA could suggest that the ritual use of hilltops might have continued into historic times, although with much lower intensity. Two factors might have informed this use. The first, and best documented, is the Venda association of hilltops with royal power, and pools with ritual power (cf. Loubser 1989, 1991, 2008). The SLCA, however, was on the periphery of the Venda polities, and thus it is possible that practices here drew on commoner understandings held by the descendants of Mapungubwe people who remained in the region. Hilltops as sites for political and ritual power The Venda association of hilltops with royal power (cf. Loubser 1989, 1991; 2008) has its origins in the move of the Mapungubwe elite onto Mapungubwe hill, which reconfigured the use and meaning of hilltops in the SLCA. These new meanings fundamentally entangled political and ritual practices of the elite. These practices included valorization of the royal ancestors (Huffman 1986, 1996, 2000, 2015; also see Calabrese 2007), and the introduction of royal hilltop burial practices, including a form of secondary burial for some elite (Steyn 2007). For Huffman (1986, 1996, 2000, 2015) this shift signals the development of class distinction, and sacred leadership. Calabrese (2007: 218–​20) interprets it as an attempt to undermine ancestor-​based worship that formed part of broader secularization tendencies in the SLCA. Loubser (n.d.) argues that it signified a shift towards dependence on the chiefs’ or king’s lineage ancestors. Irrespective of the logic, this shift of burials out of the center of royal sites marked a significant shift in royal ideology, beliefs and rituals in the SLCA. It included a change in gender relations, which is visible today in Venda society (Loubser n.d.).

Place, continuity, borrowing and gender Framing my discussion of SLCA ritual in terms of specific types of site allowed me to trace continuities, as well as significant changes. There is substantial continuity in the ritual uses of shelters in the SLCA, which seems to follow

328  M.H. Schoeman patterns similar to those recorded in the Makgabeng and Waterberg ranges to the south. In these areas the association between San and shelters with rock art endured, and rain-​control in more recent, historical times invoked the power originating from this association. The persistence of these ideas probably stems from the continued presence of San and San-​descendant communities in this landscape, which created continuities similar to those discussed by Gupta and Ferguson (1992). There also are continuities in ancestor-​based religious beliefs, as manifest in the endurance of burials in cattle enclosures and homesteads. This use of shelters and homesteads was an expression of belief systems that were shared throughout South Africa. The intensive, archaeologically visible ritual use of hilltops, however, is a local development, which was shaped by social relationships in the SLCA. If these relationships had remained consistent with those in the rest of South Africa, gender and the relative status of hunter-​gatherers and farmers would have informed the transfer of religious ideas between hunter-​gatherer and farming communities. For example, the role of women as agents in ritual borrowing has been linked to their relatively low social status in the Eastern Cape (e.g., Hammond-​Tooke 1998, 2002). As discussed earlier, however, historical gender relations, including ritual roles, in Venda-​speaking areas are very different from those in the rest of South Africa. It is probable that the ritual roles of royal Venda women originated in the Mapungubwe polity, where women had high status roles (see Huffman 1986, 1996, 2000, 2015; Loubser 1989, 1991, 2008). This could mean that the female sphere in the SLCA—​at least in the K2-​Mapugubwe and Venda periods—​did not signify the lower status that it might have in other South African farming communities. This in turn would mean that ritual ‘borrowing’ would not stem from attempts by women to ameliorate their low social positions. Nevertheless, the construction of hilltop rain-​control was probably gendered. Like South African farmer rain-​controllers, most San ritual specialists were men (Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004a; Whitelaw 2017), and it is likely that both farmer and hunter-​ gatherer rain-​ control rituals in the pre-​K2 SLCA were performed by male specialists. K2-​period rain-​control material culture, however, suggests that rain-​control might have become more complicated in the realm of interaction between hunter-​gatherers and farmers. The presence of cupules on hilltops and at Little Muck Shelter is the first significant indication that a new and different form of rain-​control developed in the SLCA. These were formed through the deliberate hammering of rock surfaces. Hammering the ground was an act explicitly reserved for San women in northern Namibia (Bleek and Lloyd 1968: 429), and there is no reason to think that these gendered rules would have been different in the SLCA. This suggests that San women played a role in rain-​control on hills during the K2 period, and possibly earlier at Little Muck. These rituals might have included lightning control that required women to pound the

 

Cognitive communities in place 329 ground, similar to lightning control by San women in Namibia. A broader concern about lightning might be visible in the presence of worked quartz on all the SLCA rain hills, since quartz has been linked to lightning control in San beliefs (see Lewis-​Williams and Pearce 2004b: 144). It might also be that the women were pounding the hill with stones to ensure a successful hunt of the rain animal by their husbands (cf. Hollmann 2004: 263–​6). These women might have used this role to enhance their social status in the context of interaction with farmers. It is not possible to establish whether hunter-​gatherer women played this role throughout the hilltop rain-​control sequence, whether ritual hammering was also practiced by hunter-​gatherer women who had married into farming communities, whether the practice was ‘borrowed’ by farming community women, or some combination of the three. The second important new development was the inclusion of the corporeal bodies of wild animals in rain-​control. As discussed earlier, the types of animals killed drew on SLCA San beliefs, but the killing in the physical world is distinctive. This might simply be the result of translations during the ‘borrowing’ processes (e.g., Hammond-​Tooke 1999). Whether accidental or intentional, relocating the killing of animals for rain-​control from the spiritual world to the physical world probably altered who controlled the process. In the corporeal world San rain-​specialists would no longer have had sole control over the capture of the rain-​animals, and killing some of them, such as rhinoceroses, would require substantial collaboration. In addition, placing the remains of these animals on the hills moved the rain-​animals out of secluded painted shelters ‘owned’ by rain specialists into community ritual spaces. These acts are likely to have destabilized initial specialist (male) control over rain, and created the opportunity for the inclusion of other categories of people in hilltop rain-​control. It is not possible to identify the gender of the ‘new’ rain-​controllers, and it would be reckless to transfer Hammond-​Tooke’s Eastern Cape model, but the continued and intensive making of cupules suggests that women did play a role in hilltop rain-​control. These roles ended when hilltop rain-​control was subsumed into the new royal political-​religious system in which hills and pools became entangled with political leadership, to the extent that the terms (hills and pools) were metaphors for political and ritual leadership in the Venda polities (Loubser 1989, 1991). In this new system women, however, continued to play important roles in ritual.

Acknowledgments I thank the editors for inviting me to contribute to the volume, and I am grateful for Gavin Whitelaw and Jannie Loubser’s valuable and insightful comments that strengthened this chapter. My understanding of SLCA archaeology has been shaped through many conversations with colleagues, all of whom I thank. Errors remain my own.

330  M.H. Schoeman

Notes 1 Archaeology, School of GAES, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. 2 The term Vaalpens has been applied to people who lived in large parts of northern South Africa and Botswana, portrayals of whom vary from hunter-​gatherer descendants of the first people to slaves (Van Schalkwyk 1985). This range of portrayals resonate with historic depictions of San speakers in other parts of southern Africa (see, e.g., Schrire 1984; Wilmsen 1989). Here, however, use of the term is restricted to the armed, hybrid hunter-​gatherer communities referred to by Keane as the “true Vaalpens” and who referred to themselves as Kattea (Keane 1900: 71–​2; also see Van Schalkwyk 1985; Van der Ryst 2003). In the late 1800s, independent Kattea communities were described as impoverished hunters who hired out their skills. Most were eventually incorporated into African communities in the region, others lost their independence after they were deliberately subjugated, captured, traded and indentured by ZAR Boers in that late nineteenth century (Van der Ryst 2003). 3 The Afrikaans word ‘dwaal’ is ambiguous. It could be translated as ‘trance’ or ‘to wander’.

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Index

Note: The page numbers in bold refer to tables and the page numbers in italics refer to figures. agency-centered archaeology see neoliberal archaeology agency–structure debate 23, 27, 37–8, 40 Akimel O’odham 119–20 altered states of consciousness (ASC) 32, 34; see also trance dances animal classification 186–9 animism 9, 28, 126–7 anthropology: cognitive theory 31; post-modern challenge to 1, 15; radical alterity 25; US/UK divide 1 apartheid 21, 40, 52, 152 Apishapa 9, 78, 87–90, 92, 108–9; calumet ceremony 107–8, 109; interaction with High Plains Upper Republican 100–7; interaction with Sopris 98–100 Aztec 28 Bantu 3, 8, 11, 12, 15, 28, 34, 148, 153, 154, 159–60, 224, 240, 247 baskets 173–5 Blue Ridge Mountains petroglyphs 248–9, 252–66; Cherokee visits to 259–62, 264; chronology of 252–3; conservation of 264–5; Judaculla mythology 254–63; layering of worlds 263 Bourdieu, Pierre 26 bridewealth 136, 149, 159, 166–7, 195 Bushmen see San calumet ceremony: Apishapa 107–8; High Plains Upper Republican 107–8; Illini 205–6

Casas Grandes region 9, 115, 116, 119, 120, 123, 124, 126, 127; see also Paquimé Catawba 250, 251 Central Cattle Pattern see settlement patterns ceramics, African 157–8, 161–3; Blackburn 143, 147, 156, 167, 173; K2 317; Kisalian 225, 228, 231; Letaba 318, 327; Luba 231; Mapungubwe 317; Moloko 317, 318; Moor Park 156, 167, 173, 175; Msuluzi 138, 145, 154; Mulongo 225; Mzonjani 154, 156; Ndondondwane 138, 143, 144, 154; Nqabeni 156; Ntshekane 138, 143, 144, 156; Ondini 156; Red Slip Ware 225, 231; Silver Leaves 154, 156; Sotho 191–5; Tavhatshena 318; Zhizo 316, 317, 322 ceramics, North American: Apishapa 87; Cherokee 250–1; High Plains Upper Republican 92–3, 94, 105; Late Woodland 250, 252; Middle Mississippian 250, 252; Ramos Polychrome 122, 124, 127; Sopris 98, 107; Tunican effigies 211–19 Cherokee 13–14, 247–66; ceramics 250–1; conservation of Judaculla Rock 264–5; going-to-water ritual 251, 258; Judaculla mythology 254–63; multi-layered worlds 263; turtle guardian 262 Choctaw 12, 202–4 cognitive archaeology 20–40, 135, 311; benefits of ethnography to 2–6, 15–16,

340 Index 35–7, 152–3, 184–5, 196–7, 231, 247–8; cognition and culture 31–2; cognitive universals 32–3; continuity and change 313; natural constants 32–3; natural models 33–4; scientific method 34–5, 40; southern African development of 2, 20–1; see also Direct Historical Approach (DHA); cognitive processualism 21, 30 Creek 250, 251, 261 Culture History paradigm 79–80 cupmarks/cupules see elves; ShasheLimpopo Confluence Area Datura complex 212, 213–15, 219 Direct Historical Approach (DHA) 34, 35–7, 152, 225, 242 dynamic past 152–3, 177 elves 14, 271–301; ält-stones 298–9, 301; Catholic tolerance of folk beliefs 283–4; cupmarks 14, 274–7, 278, 282, 283, 284, 285–9, 290, 291, 292, 293, 295, 297, 298, 299–300; dead and undead 281–3, 300; dolls 275–7, 295–6, 301; Folklore Archive 277–8; historical sources 279–85; period of origin 278–9, 300; Protestant suppression of folk beliefs 284–5; traditional elf beliefs 271–7; Trollstone 292–9, 301 embedded liberalism 24 ethnography: animal classification 186–9; archaeological use of controversial 55, 80, 152, 184, 202, 225–7, 247; cognitive archaeology and 2, 31, 152–3, 185, 196–7, 231, 247–8; emic approach 184–5, 196–7, 263; folk taxonomy 186, 197; guardian spirits 204–19; North American embrace of 117–18, 201–2; plant classification 189–90; pottery 191–5; snuff 195–6 Foucault, Michel 25 Freud, Sigmund 37–8 Friedman, Milton 24 gender 27, 39; Central Cattle Pattern 136, 142, 143, 147, 148, 149; Great Basin 82, 83; interaction between communities 314, 315, 328; Kisalian 231, 238; Northern Caddoan 84; pot

decoration 162; rain-control 328, 329; royal ideology 327 Giddens, Anthony 23, 37–8 gourd vessels 173–5 Great Basin hunter-gatherers 78, 81–2, 87, 89, 90, 108 Great Zimbabwe 311, 318 guardian spirits 204–19; Choctaw 204; Lenape 206–7; Tunican 211–19 Hawai’i 28 hermeneutics 23, 35, 126 High Plains Upper Republican 9, 78, 90–4, 108–9; calumet ceremony 107–8, 109; interaction with Apishapa 100–7 homestead burials 324–5, 328 Hopi 119 Huffman, Thomas 6, 8–10, 14, 21, 30–1, 34, 35, 153, 184, 191, 311, 317 Huichol 119 Icon 317 Illini 205 Inca 28 Ingombe Ilede 241 inhlonipho 161, 175, 176 Jivaro 34 K2 period 312, 315, 317, 324, 325–6, 328 Kabambian 227, 228, 229, 229–31, 234, 235 Kalundu phases 11, 138, 154, 156, 159–60, 162–7, 176–7 Kamilambian 227, 231 Karanga 161, 162 Kattea 319 Khami 311, 318 Khoe 316, 323–4 Kiowa 12 Kisalian 227–43; baskets 231; birth, death, and afterlife 231–7; bone dolls 237–9; ceramics 228, 231; ceremonial axes 228, 229, 235, 240, 242; children 234–7; collective action 227–8; craftsmanship 228; hammer/anvil artifacts 240–2; social stratification 228–9; tooth filing 231 Kuper, Adam 31 KwaGandaganda 135, 147, 148, 163, 164, 165

 

Index 341 Lenape 12, 206–7 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 52, 53, 71, 186, 224 Lewis-Williams, David 5, 6–9, 14, 20, 30–1, 153, 184, 311 Linnaeus, Carl 186, 285 Little Ice Age 167 Lower Mississippi Valley see Tunican speakers Luba 12–13, 224–43; baskets 231; birth, death, and afterlife 232–7; ceramics 231; ceremonial axes 228, 240, 242; children 234–7; dolls 239, 241; hammer/anvil artifacts 240–2; patrilineality 229; tooth filing 231 Luiseño 36 Lyotard, François 25, 39–40 macrocognition 22, 38–9 Madikwe 314 Magnus, Olaus 282–3 Makgabeng 318, 319, 328 Malinowski, Bronislaw 49, 50, 54, 184 mankala 322, 323 Mapungubwe 311, 312, 315, 317, 318, 322, 325, 327, 328 Marxist social theory 52, 153, 154, 177, 185 Masele 319 Menominee 12, 206, 208–10 methodological individualism 24, 28 Moor Park phase 11, 143, 156, 159–60, 167–77 Muscogee see Creek Nagome 317 Natchez 250 Navajo 119 neoliberal archaeology 6, 21–30, 31, 39–40; agency–structure misconceptions of 25–30; internal contradictions 27, 40; political/ economic neoliberal turn 23–5, 40 neuroarchaeology see cognitive processualism neurophysiology 5, 6 neuropsychology 7, 32, 66–7 Nguni 15, 143, 156, 161, 185, 189, 195, 314–15 Northern Caddoan bison-hunting farmers 78, 82–4, 92, 93, 108 Ntshekane 10, 135–49; bottomless pots 140–1, 143, 145, 148; capital

status 146–7; Central Cattle Pattern 136–8, 140–1, 146–9; ‘male’ and ‘female’ pits 136, 142, 143, 147, 148; Msuluzi phase 145–6; Ndondondwane phase 144–5; Ntshekane phase 139–43 ontological turn 5, 28 Paquimé as pilgrimage center 9–10, 115–28; animism 126–7; atalayas 122, 124, 125; ballcourts 115, 121–2, 123; ceremonial mounds 10, 121, 123, 125, 127; emergence as religious center 115–17; feasting facilities 115, 120, 124; human remains 121, 125; offerings 115, 123, 127; pottery 122–3, 124, 127; water ritual 127 Pauketat, Timothy 22, 26–7, 30 Pawnee 82–4, 94, 107 Pedi 165–6 phenomenology 23, 35 pilgrimage: definition 118; historical North American 118–20; prehistoric North American 120; see also Paquimé plant classification 189–90 pollution beliefs 10, 11, 148, 161, 162, 163, 165, 173, 314 post-colonialism 1, 21 post-modernism 1, 15, 21, 25, 39, 40 post-processual archaeology 1, 15, 39, 185, 271 processual archaeology 1, 21, 22, 31–2 Puebloan agriculturalists 9, 10, 78, 84–7, 94, 96, 97, 98, 108 Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. 1, 49, 51, 52 radical alterity 25 rain-control 314, 319, 320, 322–3, 325, 326, 328–9 rainmaking 15, 188, 203, 241 Reagan, Ronald 24, 40 rock art 5, 6, 20–1, 39, 311, 313; Apishapa 90; Blue Ridge Mountains 248–9, 252–66; Coso Range 20; ethnographic turn 53, 55–71; High Plains Upper Republican 93; northern European 270–1, 281, 284, 285, 288, 289, 290, 299, 300; quantitative research 52–4; San 3, 4, 7, 20, 48–71, 153, 316, 319–21, 323–4, 328;

342 Index southern Californian 3, 4; theoretical research 53–4 Romney, Mitt 25 Rwanda 241 San: Bleek and Lloyd Archive 50, 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 61, 64, 71; cosmology 58, 59, 64–5; interaction with other communities 314–15; mythology 53, 57, 58, 59, 60; rain-control 314, 319, 320, 326, 328–9; ritual hammering 327, 328–9; rock art 3, 7, 14, 48–71, 153, 316, 319–21, 323–4, 328; trance dances 7, 57–67, 319; unity of fundamental beliefs 55–7, 63 Saussure, Ferdinand de 33 Schroda 316, 324 settlement patterns 78; aggregation– dispersal pattern 81, 82, 108, 316, 322; Central Cattle Pattern 3, 4, 8, 10–11, 135–49, 153, 159–60; dualism 86, 94, 96, 98, 108; ethnographic parallels 78–80, 108; royal patterns 317, 324–5; Street pattern 135; Venda pattern 8; Zimbabwe pattern 8, 135 shamanism 8, 12, 20; Amazonian 28; Casas Grandes culture 9; Choctaw 203–4; Great Basin hunter-gatherers 81, 90, 108; Lenape 206, 207; Menominee 209–10; San 57–71; Shoshone 36; Tunican speakers 213; Yuman speakers 120 Shashe-Limpopo Confluence Area (SLCA) 4, 15, 311–13, 315–29; cupules 15, 322, 324, 326–7, 328, 329; hilltops 325–7, 328; history of occupation 315–19; homestead burials 324–5, 328; shelters 319–24; see also rainmaking Shawnee 250 Shona 15, 136, 191, 234, 312, 318 Shoshone 20, 36, 81 Shu 241 Siberia 28 Silver Leaves agriculturists 154 Snorri Sturlason 280, 281

snuff 195–6 Sopris 78, 87, 94–8, 108–9; interaction with Apishapa 98–100 Sotho 11, 15, 148, 185–97, 317, 318, 322; animal classification 186–9; plant classification 189–90; pottery 191–5; tobacco 195–6 Southern Californian medicine people 3, 4 Soutpansberg 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 322, 323, 324 Steward, Julian 1 structuralism 6, 8, 12, 13, 23, 26, 28, 153, 177, 185, 224, 311 taxonomy 78, 80, 185, 186, 197 Tewa 119 Thatcher, Margaret 24, 40 Thonga 234 Tohono O’odham 118–19, 20 totemism 28 trance dances 7, 57–67, 316, 319 Tsonga 166 Tswana 185–97, 314, 317 Tunican speakers 201–2, 211–19 Upemba Depression see Kisalian; Luba Urewe Tradition 156 Vaalpense 319 Venda 8, 15, 192, 312, 314, 315, 318, 322, 324, 325, 327, 328, 329 von Hayek, Friedrich 24, 25 Waterberg 319, 320, 322, 323, 328 Witwatersrand, University of the 6, 10, 13, 14, 21, 52, 153, 247, 311 worldview 79–81 Xhosa 315, 326 Yuchi 250 Zhizo 316, 317, 322, 325, 326 Zulu 11, 154, 156, 161, 162, 165, 175, 326 Zuni 118, 124, 126