Interpreting San rock art through the informant Qing
Interpretación del arte rupestre san a partir del informante Qing
- Date
- 1873 · confidence high
- Place
- Melikane rock shelter, Quthing, Lesotho
- Credited to
- Joseph Millerd Orpen and his San guide Qing
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
The surveyor Orpen had Qing, a San hunter, explain to him in the rock shelters of the Maloti mountains the paintings of animals and hybrid beings as figures of his mythology. It is a landmark in rock-art study with living informants, published in 1874.
Published in the Cape Monthly Magazine (1874). Its evidential value is much debated: Qing belonged to a southern San group and the explanation came from a single informant. Approximate location; the site is sometimes cited in Quthing.
What it led to
- an ethnographic method for interpreting San art, with Bleek and Lloyd
- the shamanistic interpretation of Lewis-Williams and Dowson in the 1970s
- recognition of the Drakensberg and Lesotho paintings as religious art