{"id":"WURZ2008-001","label":"Orange Springs painted trance-dance bullroarer","people_or_site":"Orange Springs I 46 rock shelter (San rock art)","country_current":"South Africa","historic_region":"Eastern Free State / Caledon River valley near Modderpoort and Ladybrand","macroregion":"Africa / Southern Africa","local_name":"!goin !goin","source_term":"bullroarer ... or !goin !goin","source_language":"English","object_description":"A San trance-dance scene painted in an overhanging rock shelter on the Caledon River, in which one lower figure stands apart with both arms raised, holding an elongated pale object above the head; surrounding implements are discussed as sticks or possible medicine-people's equipment. The scene is known through Helen Tongue's watercolour copy titled 'The Dance', made after her 1906 field visit and published in 1909, now in Iziko Museums' Pre-colonial Archaeology Section. No object was recovered.","function_summary":"Twirled on a string during a San trance dance.","attestation_type":"rock_art_depiction","source_key":"wurz_keene2008_orange_springs_the_dance","source_type":"conference_poster","source_url":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284414159_Poster_THE_DANCE_A_Rock_Art_Reproduction_The_Dance_Orange_Springs_Sound_and_Rock_Art","page_or_plate":"Wurz and Keene 2008 ASAPA poster, unpaginated; Bradfield 2024 report, caption to the Tongue reproduction","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"candidate_only","coordinate_basis":"Published coordinate for Modderpoort, eastern Free State, the mission locality from which Tongue and Dorothea Bleek were directed to the shelters in 1906; the Orange Springs I 46 farm coordinate is not published in the sources consulted.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In 1906 Helen Tongue travelled to the eastern Free State and copied in watercolour a dance she found painted on the wall of a shelter above the Caledon River: ranks of people clapping, dancers doubled over, one man flung out horizontal in the air. Low in the composition, set apart from the rest, a small figure stands with both arms lifted and an elongated pale thing held above his head. Sarah Wurz and Petro Keene identify it as a bullroarer, a !goin !goin, the whirring blade the |Xam described. The scene cannot be dated within the roughly 3,000-year span of surviving Maloti-Drakensberg San painting, but it was already on the rock by 1906.","pull_quote":"The image depicts a San trance dance in which men and women are clapping and dancing, while one person at the bottom of the image twirls a bullroarer on a string.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Justin Bradfield, report of Sarah Wurz's lecture 'Musicking and human development', South African Archaeological Society, 2024","term_gloss":"!goin !goin (|Xam): the bullroarer, a blade whirled on a cord to produce a buzzing sound.","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":true,"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. 1000 BC–AD 1906","date_qualification":"Regional Maloti–Drakensberg San painting horizon; the exact scene remains undated.","date_basis":"broad_context","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"wurz_keene2008_orange_springs_the_dance, Wurz and Keene 2008 ASAPA poster; Tongue reproduction published 1909; Mazel and Watchman 2003 pp. 59–73; Wits RARI rock-art chronology","sources":[{"citation":"Sarah Wurz and Petro Keene, 'The Dance: A Rock Art Reproduction by Helen Tongue, 1909', poster, Association of Southern African Professional Archaeologists conference, 2008; Justin Bradfield, 'Musicking and human development' (report of a lecture by Sarah Wurz), South African Archaeological Society, 2024","url":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284414159_Poster_THE_DANCE_A_Rock_Art_Reproduction_The_Dance_Orange_Springs_Sound_and_Rock_Art"}],"source_citations":"Sarah Wurz and Petro Keene, 'The Dance: A Rock Art Reproduction by Helen Tongue, 1909', poster, Association of Southern African Professional Archaeologists conference, 2008; Justin Bradfield, 'Musicking and human development' (report of a lecture by Sarah Wurz), South African Archaeological Society, 2024","source_display":"Sarah Wurz and Petro Keene, 'The Dance: A Rock Art Reproduction by Helen Tongue, 1909', poster, Association of Southern African Professional Archaeologists conference, 2008; Justin Bradfield, 'Musicking and human development' (report of a lecture by Sarah Wurz), South African Archaeological Society, 2024","date_citation_display":"Wurz and Keene 2008 ASAPA poster; Tongue reproduction published 1909; Mazel and Watchman 2003 pp. 59–73; Wits RARI rock-art chronology","object_display":"A San trance-dance scene painted in an overhanging rock shelter on the Caledon River, in which one lower figure stands apart with both arms raised, holding an elongated pale object above the head; surrounding implements are discussed as sticks or possible medicine-people's equipment. The scene is known through Helen Tongue's watercolour copy titled 'The Dance', made after her 1906 field visit and published in 1909, now in Iziko Museums' Pre-colonial Archaeology Section. No object was recovered.","function_display":"Twirled on a string during a San trance dance.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"rock art depiction","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"orange springs","display_name":"Orange Springs painted trance-dance bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_rounds123_2026_10_30/wurz2008-001_wurz2008_orange_springs.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_rounds123_2026_10_30/thumbs/wurz2008-001_wurz2008_orange_springs.jpg","alt":"Red-brown painted figures dancing, bending and clapping in a row, one with a cord-swung object.","credit":"Helen Tongue, Bushman Paintings (1909)","source_page":"https://www.archaeology.org.za/node/1472","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Helen Tongue’s 1909 copy of the Orange Springs trance-dance painting."},"slug":"wurz2008-001-orange-springs-i-46-rock-shelter-san-rock-art"}