Article Title：The white camel of the Makgabeng
Abstract：
Research in the Northern Province of South Africa has revealed a most surprising new rock art find: a painting of a camel. This paper investigates how and why a camel came to be painted in the remote rock art of the Makgabeng hills. Analysis of archival material allows one to attribute the painting to a Northern Sotho artist who was active in the first decade-of the twentieth century. The purpose of the painting is revealed in its context; it forms part of a collection of paintings which ridicule elements of ineptness in the ways of the new white intruders. We argue that this pointed humour helped the Makgabeng community to overcome some of the trauma of the displacement and violence which characterized the era of the first white settlement in northern South Africa.
Keywords: South Africa; archaeology; colonial; arts
DOI: 10.1017/S002185370100799X
Source：JOURNAL OF AFRICAN HISTORY
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