Playing with shadows-2

Playing with Shadows

Shadow Puppet designs

First Prototypes

Puppet making

Eland: Character Design

The Rain-Animal

The Eland or the 'Rain Animal' needs no introduction at this point. The chief of all animals and the most spiritually potent of the Bushman tradition comes to be the fourth and the most powerful inclusion into the team. The harmless and serene antelope metamorphoses into the most formidable force in the spirit world.

The Jackal: Character design (part 2)

Jackal: The Watchful Guardian 

The Jackal: Character Design (part 1)

Jackals in Bushman rock painting

The Jackal was another frequently represented in the Bushman rock art. The Jackal was another that the shamans were believed could transform into. What was the most fascinating fact about the significance of the jackal in bushman culture was the contrasting position the jackal held in Bushman culture. The jackal or the fox is notorious is cultures around the world as the sly and cunning mischief makers. They are seldom the heroes of a story, often playing the antagonist role. For instance the famous story of the Blue Fox/Jackal or the character Tabaqui from the Jungle Book, the mad-cowardly jackal who eats the remains of Sher Khan's food. The Jackal has often played the anatagonist or the negative sidekick in popular fables, but not in bushman folklore. According to a /Xam person, 'the jackal is a sorcerer' who follows people when they are on hunts to ensure their safety. It follows them to make sure they are safely on their way home.  

At night, while are encamped on the way home, he barks, and they know that 'he is asking us whether we are still as well as we were when we left him'. They shout out to him,'There is nothing the matter with me, for I am still feeling as I did when I left you.'                                                                      - Passage from Images of Power, D.L Williams/ T.Dowson

Such stories alleviate the Jackal to almost a guardian figure, always looking out and ensuring the safety of it's children. Possessing powers of a sorcerer, makes the Jackal a very significant mythological figure in bushman culture. This became the inspiration behind the third super-therianthrope in my story.

The Baboon: Character Design (part 2)

The Baboon: Ferociously funny

The Baboon: Character Design (part 1)

Baboons in a San Rock Painting

In my post the 5 most significant Khoi-San animals we saw the strong prominence the baboon plays in the bushman rock art.There is visibly marked difference in the perception of the Baboon as opposed to other animals in Bushman tradition. The reason for their prominence in Bushman culture can be their close resemblance to humans. Anthropologist Dorothea Bleek even found that the Naron do not even hunt a baboon as they are so much like 'people'. The bizarre shamanic powers and the supernatural potency of the baboon makes him the next mythic superhero character in my story.

Next Post: The final character design 'Baboon: The ferociously funny.'

Source: Images of Power, D.L Williams/ T. Dowson.

The Lion : Character Design (part 2)

Strong. Impulsive. Powerful. Stupid

The Lion: Character design (part 1)

The lion, the king of the jungle and of all beasts, hold a very different position in Khoisan culture. Fables around the world depict the lion as the strong and mighty master of the wild. However in Khoisan folklore, the lion is of a rather naive and foolish character. The lion is seldom the one that triumphs at the end of the story. In one bushman folktale, a pack of jackals triumph over a lion through their wits. 

The jackals said that he seemed to be a strong thing,but he was really only a little thing who had not been able to resist a small stone."- The Lion and the Jackal

Lions are also frequently represented in the rock paintings. Knowing the bushman belief of shaman's transforming into various animals during trance, it is not surprising that it was believed that shamans could turn into lions.Lions were "believed to have some of the shamans' accomplishments: they knew things that ordinary people could not possibly know, they could become invisible, and they could cause things to happen by supernatural means." (source: Images of Power, D.L Williams and T.Dowson.)

According to bushman sources, sometimes evil shamans would come prowling in their feline forms. Invisible to ordinary eyes, these evils spirits can only be warded of by another shaman. It is very fascinating to compare the two striking ways the bushman depict the lion. A powerful animal, ferocious and strong yet foolish and naive in behaviour. It has strong shamanic powers yet not as powerful as an eland. The Khoisan understanding of the lion poses a very beautiful juxtaposition that values mind over might. 

Character Designs- initial sketches

Attempts at developing a visual style.

The Mantis and his friends.

The many faces of /Kaggen , the mantis.

Images of Power

Cave paintings from the Drakensburg mountains

Inspired by Saki Mafundikwa's attempt to revive an authentic African visual identity, I decided to explore the possibilities of a Khoi-San visual language. The Bushman cave paintings are one of humankind's first acts of creation and they have been my biggest source of inspiration in this endeavor.
What fascinates me the most about the bushman Rock art are the subtleties of Bushman religion and mythology that's infused in these paintings. Earlier derided as works of a community "once despised and considered by many Westerners to be on the lowest rungs of human evolution"  bushman rock art has been found to have been more complex and advanced than the Upper Palaeolithic art found in French and Spanish caves. Contrary to earlier notions, Bushman cave painting are more than mere decoration and hunting scenes, recent rock art research has found them to have a deeper and a more spiritual role to play in bushman culture. The book 'Images of Power-David Lewis Williams and Thomas Dowson' had been my primary source of information in this regard taking me step by step through the many layers underlying in the works of ancient bushman.
Most of the ancient cave paintings are believed to have been painted by the shamans of the communities, illustrating their experiences during their trance dance. The cave walls were not just seen as blank canvases but as a portal into the spiritual realm. It is seen as a window into a world that exists behind the face of the rock. I was amazed to see the resemblances modern day fantasy has to ancient ideas as reflected in these cave paintings. How different was it from the magical world behind 'Platform 9 3/4' from the Harry Potter mythology?
Bushman mythology is full of such symbols and metaphors that we find reappearing in our modern day fantasy fiction. Below is a mind-map charting out the various features of bushman cave paintings.

Mindmap about bushman rock art

The bushman often refer to their trance experiences as 'dying', just like how in western colloquial terms it is referred to as a 'trip'. The shamans use several metaphors to describe their trance experiences, one of them being 'drowning'. The shamans relate their trance to the feeling of being underwater; blurry vision, difficulty to breathe, weightlessness etc. Some refer to it as flying, very similar to how we often call it being 'high'. Bushman paintings are also full of animal  metaphors and therianthropes, which almost blurs the gap between man and animals. Bushman believe a shaman in trance can embody and harness another animal's potency. To them the Eland is the most potent animal, often referred to as the Rain Animal. Many shamans describe possessing animal features during the trance, which can be understood through the several Therianthropic (humans with animal features) characters in the paintings.

Next post: Top 5 most significant bushman animals.

Therianthropes

Sources: Images of Power: David Lewis Williams and Thomas Dowson.
Bradshaw foundation website: http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/rari/