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https://theconversation.com/kenyas-samburu-warriors-still-practise-a-rock-art-tradition-that-tells-their-stories-186330>
"The Samburu people in northern Kenya’s Marsabit county are pastoralists. They
migrate from place to place in search of pasture and water for their cattle,
goats, sheep and camels. As part of their lifestyle, Samburu boys go through an
initiation period when they live in rock shelters, learning how to take care of
their animals and how to become warriors.
During this time the young warriors – called lmurran – express themselves by
painting images on the rocks. This is one of very few ongoing rock art
traditions in the world, but it has gained almost no attention among rock art
researchers.
Rock art has been made for more than 60,000 years and it exists on every
continent except the Antarctic. Papua New Guinea and parts of Australia are
among the few other places where new rock art is still being created,
maintained or repainted like at the Samburu sites.
Ancient rock art images offer glimpses of human thoughts and beliefs from times
when no written records existed. But it is difficult to interpret these images
since first hand information is lacking. The ongoing Samburu rock art
tradition, therefore, presents a unique chance to know where, when and why rock
art was created.
Linnaeus University in Sweden and the University of Western Australia initiated
a community-led project together with the Samburu to learn about this
tradition. The first outcomes of the project were recently published in our
research paper.
Rock art researchers tend to think about images as representing rituals and
myths. In contrast, our project has revealed that the current Samburu rock art
tradition commemorates real-life events and is made as a leisure activity."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
