• White lady of long ago

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  Sep 1

  The white lady of Brandberg.
  Readers may or may not have heard of this worldfamous example of rockart deep in the Brandberg mountain in Namibia which was discovered after many centuries by a German traveller in 1913. At the time it was suggested that the white figure in the group of paintings was a woman because of the coloured marking on the body and the flowing hair. Naturally there was much interest in the figure estimated initially to be thousands of years old. Was the woman white, or possibly Egyptian and what could she have been doing in southern Africa? Later anthropologists with greater insight into local history and an awareness of the dating placed the painting at …………… and described the possible history as a ritual celebration.
  That is the aspect that interested me. How much do we, Christians in Africa know about local history, practices and traditions and do we consider this before we make assumptions?

  WHITE LADY OF BRANDBERG
  White lady of Brandberg
  painted thousands upon thousands of years ago in prehistoric times
  discovered but a hundred years ago.
  Are you a symbol of a past and of a present
  To a white lady of today?

  You became famous because you seemed so different
  A curiosity of possible great historical significance.
  Were you white, woman, Egyptian?
  Your body painted and decorated, what was its clue?

  Later understanding has stolen its mystique
  And yet you give us a clue to a deeper significance.
  Those ancient men of aeons ago
  Did practice a religion, did pray
  To whatever gods were their providers
  And in fascinating detail captured for men of our time
  their own sophisticated rituals
  on the walls of this cave hidden deep in this lone mysterious mountain.

  The white lady is recognised now –
  With our own white developing insight –
  As not a woman at all,
  A naked man, a witchdoctor, medicine man, painted white,
  One of a pair
  Their bodies decorated
  Depicting in graphic detail their ritual action,
  droplets and lines of the sweat of their ritual dance in this heated clime.

  What was their faith, their need for a god?
  What is mine, white lady of today?

  Looking at the whole painted scene one gains an insight into the life of these early people of presumably 16000 years ago. Their daily life would have been built around survival needs, rain, food, animals. Their exercise and their relationship with their gods would have been around these. Our life today is so much more hectic with food still a basic need exercise taking a different form and entertainment much higher on the agenda. Where does religion feature? Has sport become not only our entertainment but also our religion?

  Are we forming traditions and rituals and practices that could one day still be meaningful to our offspring or are we playing mindgames that will in no time be superceded by others?
  Tagged as: article, magazine, marriage and family living
  
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