Namibia Road Trip – Day #5: Twyfelfontein
Twyfelfontein (“doubtful fountain”) is home to pre-historic rock carvings that are between 5,000 and 6,000 years old. The unusual Dutch name came from the first European to farm the region. (I.e., he “discovered” it, just like Columbus discovered America!) It was a fascinating insight into African (and perhaps our own global) pre-history.
To get to the visitor’s center, we drove through a series of meandering gravel roads and sand strips. The landscape shifted from a parched brown to blood red. Reminiscent of Sedona or the Grand Canyon, the valley was surrounded by mesas and seemingly random piles of massive red boulders.
Our guide (the only way to see the rock carvings) was great. Apart from being incredibly knowledgeable, they guy had a great sense of humor. He had to, as he was the only male staffer working amongst a gaggle of women (including his own wife). With visitors only trickling in during the mid-Summer heat, I expect they fought boredom by creating ways to harass and tease him. As we walked towards the sites, they cackled and clicked after him in their own language. Yet another private joke. He just rolled his eyes and smiled. Having grown up with four sisters, I felt his pain.
We needed a good 90 minutes to hike through the rocks and view the best examples of rock carvings. The carvings are almost exclusively animals: lions, giraffes, rhinos, ostriches, even seals. Man’s only appearance is evidenced by two footprints framing a giraffe.
“Notice how they’re both right feet?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he nodded emphatically. “Even back then, left-handed people were looked down upon. The left side of the body is still looked down upon by many cultures, such as the Arabs. And your own country legally discouraged left-handedness in previous centuries, did it not?”
“Too true,” I affirmed.
“Those beliefs, those laws, and all those sayings like ‘two left feet’ or ‘the wrong side of the bed’ all relate back to this.” He pointed back to the 6,000 year-old carving.
I was impressed.
“Here in Namibia, we now demonstrate our tolerance and support for left-handed people by driving on the left side of the road.”
“Is that right?” I smirked.
“Oh yes.” He nodded again, deadpan. “The British have copied us. Very clever of them, no? But you Americans haven’t learned yet. Maybe your countrymen are a bit slow.”
We both burst out laughing.
“I’m glad you have a sense of humor. I tried that joke with some Germans … hoo, boy! They were not happy. No sense of humor at all.”
“What purpose did the carvings serve?” My wife asked.
“We don’t know yet. Information. Education. Religious purposes. There are many possibilities.”
“Or maybe they were just bored out here.” I squinted. We could see open plain for at least a mile to the next set of red mountains. Nothing moved, and it was dead silent.
Our guide chuckled. “Not likely. If you’re a nomadic hunter-gatherer, you always have plenty to do. Always. Gathering food. Water. Staying warm. Staying alive.”
Another interesting carving was that of an ostrich, but with 7 necks and 7 heads – each at a different position.
“Can you guess why the ostrich was carved this way?” He challenged us.
“Maybe he was going to carve a whole group, and just ran out of time,” my wife offered.
“Don’t be silly,” I countered. “If he was dying, he wouldn’t bother to carve ‘auuugh!’, he’d just say it!”
She her eyes. Perhaps it wasn’t the best moment to quote Monty Python?
“Education,” I finally offered. “To show the movement of the ostrich neck to children.”
“Not bad,” the guide nodded thoughtfully. “Another possibility is that this is a vision that the artist received in a trance.”
“How’d they get into a trance?”
“Sometimes a combination of breathing and dancing. Dancing one’s self into a trance to magnify spirituality was normal for the bushmen and for the Damara. Ingestion of certain plants speeds it up, as some of the plants around us are hallucinogens. It could have helped the artists see things they couldn’t normally see. Not unlike these rave kids on Ecstasy today. Some fundamental things have not changed too much over 6,000 years.”
So was I really looking at someone’s Stone Age acid trip? Cool.
