The Rain and Its Creatures: As the Bushmen Painted Them - Bert Woodhouse

1992 first edition large hardcover with dust jacket in good condition.  Rock art, rock paintings.

Over the years a number of excellent books have been written about rock art in general. In this, as with his earlier book When Animals Were People Bert Woodhouse chooses a particular theme and takes the reader on a journey through the rock art sites of Southern Africa.

The theme that runs through the paintings of this region is that of rain, water and rainmaking, together with the Bushman folklore associated with them. The abundant and expressive paintings are explored and the author examines the links between the rain and the mythical animals perceived to influence it - the creatures of the rain.

It would seem that this line of investigation and study reveals one of the main motivations for the art and explains a great many of the paintings which were previously enigmatic. The Bushmen saw the rain clouds as rain animals which each artist depicted in a different way as his imagination conceived them. The result is a body of prehistoric art unsurpassed anywhere in the world and an expression of the environment that is greatly appealing to the contemporary viewer.