{"id":"HARDING1973-005","label":"Brandberg rock-painting bullroarer depiction","people_or_site":"Brandberg rock paintings","country_current":"Namibia","historic_region":"Brandberg / Damaraland","macroregion":"Africa / Southern Africa","local_name":"","source_term":"depicted bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"A bull-roarer painted in the hand of a running figure, with a second on a nearby boulder.","function_summary":"","attestation_type":"rock_art_depiction","source_key":"harding1973bullroarer","source_type":"comparative_secondary","source_url":"https://journal.ru.ac.za/index.php/africanmusic/article/download/1657/773/775","page_or_plate":"p. 41; cover illustration","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"representative coordinate for named people, place, site, or region in Harding","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In a frieze painted above and to the right of the famous \"White Lady\" of the Brandberg massif in western Namibia, a running, white-painted figure carries a bull-roarer in its hand. Abbé Henri Breuil, who copied the panels in the 1950s, called this figure the \"Baboon-man\" for the tail and snout that he judged were late additions to an originally human body. J. R. Harding, surveying the instrument's history in 1973, pointed to a second bull-roarer Breuil had found on a boulder some distance from the White Lady, carried by one of three men walking in single file, each wearing a helmet crowned by an enormous ostrich plume. Harding read the \"dressed-up\" character of both groups as a sign that the instrument was being used ceremonially, and set the Baboon-man beside Stow's account of the southern San \"Baboon dance,\" in which dancers costumed themselves as the animal.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"rock_art","date_display":"c. 4,000–2,000 years ago","date_qualification":"Regional tradition; motif undated.","date_basis":"regional_only","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"harding1973bullroarer, p. 41; cover illustration; British Museum, Namibia rock-art chronology","sources":[{"citation":"Harding, 'The Bull-roarer in History and in Antiquity,' African Music 5(3) (1973): 40-42, p. 41 and cover illustration","url":"https://journal.ru.ac.za/index.php/africanmusic/article/download/1657/773/775","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013012332/https://journal.ru.ac.za/index.php/africanmusic/article/download/1657/773/775"},{"citation":"Breuil (1955), cited in Harding (1973)"},{"citation":"Harding (1968), cited in Harding (1973)"}],"source_citations":"Harding, 'The Bull-roarer in History and in Antiquity,' African Music 5(3) (1973): 40-42, p. 41 and cover illustration; Breuil (1955), cited in Harding (1973); Harding (1968), cited in Harding (1973)","source_display":"Harding, 'The Bull-roarer in History and in Antiquity,' African Music 5(3) (1973): 40-42, p. 41 and cover illustration; Breuil (1955), cited in Harding (1973); Harding (1968), cited in Harding (1973)","date_citation_display":"Harding 1973, p. 41; cover illustration; British Museum, Namibia rock-art chronology","object_display":"A bull-roarer painted in the hand of a running figure, with a second on a nearby boulder.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"rock art depiction","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"brandberg rock","display_name":"Brandberg rock-painting bullroarer depiction","image":{"full":"assets/objects/review_2026_10_03/HARDING1973-005_brandberg_figure.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/review_2026_10_03/HARDING1973-005_brandberg_figure_thumb.jpg","credit":"African Music 5(3) cover (1973), Rhodes University; after the Brandberg rock painting","license":"African Music journal (open-access OJS) — license unstated; rehosted for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://journal.ru.ac.za/index.php/africanmusic/issue/view/111","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The Brandberg running figure with its dangling implement, redrawn on the 1973–74 cover of African Music.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/HARDING1973-005_brandberg_baboonman.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/HARDING1973-005_brandberg_baboonman_thumb.jpg","alt":"Cover of African Music, volume 5, number 3 (1973/4), with the red journal title above a black line drawing of a running figure.","credit":"African Music 5(3) cover (1973), Rhodes University; after the Brandberg rock painting","license":"African Music journal (open-access OJS) — license unstated; rehosted for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://journal.ru.ac.za/index.php/africanmusic/issue/view/111","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The cover of African Music 5(3) (1973/4)."}]},"slug":"harding1973-005-brandberg-rock-paintings"}