Natural and Supernatural Convergences

Abstract

Prehistoric sites with depictions of trees are fewer and farther apart than those exhibiting their animal and human counterparts in southern African rock art. Even so, this arboreal subject matter occupies a unique position in hunter‐gatherer belief and folkloric systems. From extant ethnographic testimonies concerning trees, this report assesses the graphic features and associations of these depictions and recognizes their peculiar ontological and unifying force at the interface of the animal and human worlds. The significance of this oddity is inferable primarily from their generic physical form, which leads to their elevated metaphysical status in hunter‐gatherer folklore, cosmology, and belief. While the outward arboreal appearance may be the most obvious in registering peculiarities that were in turn granted liminal status in hunter‐gatherer cosmologies, it appears that some of this uniqueness may have derived from their invisible chemical properties of which very little is known in southern Africa at present.

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