The Rain and Its Creatures: As the Bushmen Painted them

Published by William Waterman Publications, 1992, hardcover, large landscape format, illustrated, index, 100 pages, condition: new.

The Book explores the spiritual and mythological significance of "rain animals" in San (Bushman) rock art across Southern Africa.

Woodhouse posits that the enigmatic animals often found in rock paintings are not always literal creatures, but rather mythical manifestations of rain clouds. Through his work, he examines how these "creatures of the rain" were central to San folklore and rainmaking rituals.

The San often depicted rain as large, powerful quadrupeds. These figures could resemble known animals like hippos or antelopes, but they frequently possessed mythical features like tusks or fish-like attributes.

San folklore distinguishes between the "Rain-Bull" (fierce thunderstorms, often seen as dangerous or violent) and the "Rain-Cow" (soft, soaking rain that renews the land).

Many of these paintings represent the spiritual journeys of shamans who believed they could enter the spirit world to "capture" a rain animal. Once caught, the animal would be led across the sky, and its "blood" or "milk" would fall as rain.

The paintings are often positioned around natural cracks or bumps in the rock, which the San viewed as a thin "veil" between the physical world and the spirit realm.

Woodhouses research builds on the foundational work of Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd, who recorded thousands of pages of /Xam San lore in the late 19th century. Their informants, such as //Kabbo and Dia!kwain, provided the first historical explanations for these "rain animals," allowing later researchers to decode the spiritual code hidden in the art.

The book serves as both a journey through Southern African rock art sites and a deeper look into a culture that saw the environment as deeply intertwined with the supernatural.