Entangled lives, relational ontology and rock paintings: Elephant and human figures in the rock art of the Western Cape, South Africa

Abstract

From the form and composition of painted images of humans, elephants and ‘elephanthropes’ (elephant human therianthropes) from the northern Cederberg, we propose that elephants were considered as ‘other-than-human-persons’ by painters. This is supported by the role of elephants in San stories, the ethnography of relational ontologies among hunter-gatherer communities in southern Africa and beyond, and the selective choices of painters in constructing images. We argue that paintings and stories of deliberately associated elephant and human subjects from a range of San expressive contexts are evidence for this ontological position, derived from ecological entanglement in ‘real life’. Painters considered their and elephants’ lives to intersect at conceptual as well as ecological levels. From the contexts in expressive culture, elephants were viewed as intelligent and socially coherent beings, occasionally difficult neighbours, and sensitive affinal relatives, needing respect and careful treatment. Paintings of elephants reference these relationships.