Replica Engraved floor from Driekopseiland, west of Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa.

These engravings have long been considered mysterious. Recent research (for example, by David Morris) has focused on the site’s physical setting (rather than on focusing solely on the images themselves) - a glacial pavement in the bed of the seasonal Riet River - and in terms of beliefs and practices of indigenous Khoe-San people. In the 1950s it was reported that an angered snake could swell up and prevent a river from flowing. At Driekopseiland the glacially smoothed basement rock, aligned with the flow of the river, ‘bulges’ or ‘dips’, almost like a giant snake, above or below the water according to the season.

Amongst the stories in the Bleek-Lloyd archive, told by |Xam San from the Karoo in the 1870s-80s, pools or rivers and rain are frequently relates to the coming-of-age rites of young women and to the powerful, mythical, Watersnake called !Khwa, or the rain animal !Khwa-ka-goro. In |Xam beliefs, the rain was an animal – a rain bull – which walked on rain’s legs, leaving rain’s footprints. The male rain could be angry with lightning and thunder, potentially harmful to people, while the female rain was gentle, to soak the veld and sustain plant foods. Treating the rain animal ‘nicely’ was essential; failure to observe certain taboos could result in a young girl being ‘taken’ underwater – or turned into stars, or frogs. The beliefs and taboos, linked closely with girls and women, feature strongly in relation to puberty rites.

A |Xam girl (a “new maiden” in the Bleek-Lloyd stories), at that transitional stage in her life, was called “The Rain’s Magic Power” because of the way her demeanour (behaving ‘nicely’ – or not) could influence the reactions of the rain animal or snake. At the end of a period of seclusion, initiates were ritually cleansed, given new clothing, beads, and ornaments, and had patterns painted (or other markings made) on her face/head/body. There followed a traditional dance in which she was guided by older women to the water source or river. There, rites took place including offerings to !Khwa (the water, synonymous with the snake), to appease or ‘tame’ the Watersnake.

The research at Driekopseiland suggests that the site may have been a powerful ritual place where these (or comparable) rituals were practised, and that possibly the images on rock may relate to those made on the faces or bodies of young women, those known in the |Xam context as “The Rain’s Magic Power”.