James Walton, who has illustrated Mrs. How's book, spent thirteen years in Basutoland, during which time he copied paintings from hundreds of rock shelters, often hidden in remote valleys, accessible only after long treks on horseback, and hitherto unknown. In this book author and illustrator have worked together to present a picture of the life and art of the last African rock painters, the Mountain Bushmen. Rock paintings and rock engravings have been recorded from many parts of Africa but it is only in the wild, mountainous country of Basutoland that the rock artists continued to paint within living memory. Marion Walsham How was born in Basutoland and there she met Basutho who had painted with the Bushmen in their rock shelters. From them she learned some of the secrets of the diminutive artists and in these pages she tells of the Mountain Bushmen who were living in Basutoland at the end of the last century. Her story is based on her own personal experiences and on information supplied by people who actually knew the Mountain Bushmen.

Goes to the heart of contemporary arguments about the "primitive" and the "modern" minds, and draws new social, anthropological, and ethnographic conclusions about the nature of ancient societies. How did ancient peoples—those living before written records—think? Were their thinking patterns fundamentally different from ours today? Researchers over the years have certainly believed so. Along with the Aborigines of Australia, the indigenous San people of southern Africa—among the last hunter-gatherer societies on Earth—became iconic representatives of all our distant ancestors and were viewed as either irrational fantasists or childlike, highly spiritual conservationists. Since the 1960s a new wave of research among the San and their world-famous rock art has overturned these misconceived ideas. Here, the great authority David Lewis-Williams and his colleague Sam Challis reveal how analysis of the rock paintings and engravings can be made to yield vital insights into San beliefs and ways of thought. This is possible because we possess comprehensive transcriptions, made in the nineteenth century, of interviews with San informants who were shown copies of the art and gave their interpretations of it. Using the analogy of the Rosetta Stone, the authors move back and forth between these San texts and the rock art, teasing out the subtle meanings behind both. The picture that emerges is very different from past analysis: this art is not a naive narrative of daily life but rather is imbued with power and religious depth.

A comprehensive and fascinating account of all the major groups of southern African hunter-gatherers.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Basutoland: Its Legends and Customs" by Minnie Martin. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

.."". a first-rate piece of scholarship... an invaluable summary and commentary on the multilingual literature on [Bushman] people."" -- Choice The trickster and trance dancer are the guides through Bushman (or San) religion, a world of ambiguity and contradiction, and of enchantment. The two figures, who in Bushman belief are symbolically equivalent and mystically linked, embody these antistructural traits.

No Australian Aboriginal content.

A companion to The Archaeology of Rock-Art (Cambridge 1998), this new collection edited by Christopher Chippindale and George Nash addresses the most important component around the rock-art panel - its landscape. The Figured Landscapes of Rock-Art draws together the work of many well-known scholars from key regions of the world for rock-art and for rock-art research. It provides a unique, broad and varied insight into the arrangement, location, and structure of rock-art and its place within the landscapes of ancient worlds as ancient people experienced them. Packed with illustrations, as befits a book about images, The Figured Landscapes of Rock-Art offers a visual as well as a literary key to the understanding of this most lovely and alluring of archaeological traces.

Lesotho is rather different from most other African countries. For starters, it is a kingdom, which preserves a traditional hierarchy and customs, and its population consists of one fairly homogenous ethnic group, although admittedly there are differences and occasional rifts within it. Then, it is a landlocked country, completely surrounded by South Africa on which is depends heavily. Economically, it has not been doing particularly well, this partly because the country is so poorly endowed by nature, and its people often eke out a living abroad. Politically, there have been ups and downs, the downs fortunately lying in the past, with Lesotho doing somewhat better since the latest elections. Socially and culturally, as hinted, it is quite unique and this can be gathered from reading the book. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Lesotho covers the full scope of Lesotho’s ancient, colonial, and independence eras. It gives greater emphasis to the more recent period and brings the book fully up-to-date. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on civil society, key events, leaders, governmental, international, religious, and other private organizations, policies, political movements and parties, economic elements, and many other areas that have shaped the country’s trajectory. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Lesotho.

Pictures, painted and carved in caves and on open rock surfaces, are amongst our loveliest relics from prehistory. This pioneering set of sparkling essays goes beyond guesses as to what the pictures mean, instead exploring how we can reliably learn from rock-art as a material record of distant times: in short, rock-art as archaeology. Sometimes contact-period records offer some direct insight about indigenous meaning, so we can learn in that informed way. More often, we have no direct record, and instead have to use formal methods to learn from the evidence of the pictures themselves. The book's eighteen papers range wide in space and time, from the Palaeolithic of Europe to nineteenth-century Australia. Using varied approaches within the consistent framework of informed and proven methods, they make key advances in using the striking and reticent evidence of rock-art to archaeological benefit.

Toxicology in Antiquity provides an authoritative and fascinating exploration into the use of toxins and poisons in antiquity. It brings together the two previously published shorter volumes on the topic, as well as adding considerable new information. Part of the History of Toxicology and Environmental Health series, it covers key accomplishments, scientists, and events in the broad field of toxicology, including environmental health and chemical safety. This first volume sets the tone for the series and starts at the very beginning, historically speaking, with a look at toxicology in ancient times. The book explains that before scientific research methods were developed, toxicology thrived as a very practical discipline. People living in ancient civilizations readily learned to distinguish safe substances from hazardous ones, how to avoid these hazardous substances, and how to use them to inflict harm on enemies. It also describes scholars who compiled compendia of toxic agents. New chapters in this edition focus chiefly on evidence for the use of toxic agents derived from religious texts. - Provides the historical background for understanding modern toxicology - Illustrates the ways previous civilizations learned to distinguish safe from hazardous substances, how to avoid the hazardous substances and how to use them against enemies - Explores the way famous historical figures used toxins - New chapters focus on evidence of the use of toxins derived from religious texts