00:00.00 Alan Welcome to episode None of your rock art podcast. This is your host Dr Allen Garfinkel and'm really blessed and honored to have a tremendous rock art enthusiast her name is Anne Norman and she's going to. Spend the hour with us and talk about some of her adventures and the direction. Her life is taking her following her passion for rock art and are you with us. Well, it's such a pleasure to to talk to you on a podcast. 00:26.79 Ann I Am hello. 01:14.88 Alan And the million dollar question is always this first first segment and you you probably have heard this a few times. Ah what? what brought you to an interest in rock guard and tell us a bit about your background and how you came to be interested. In indigenous cultures their religion perhaps their subject of shamanism and other such related matters. 01:41.67 Ann Thank you so much for that kind introduction and I would love to talk about that. Um, when I so I grew up in Northern Utah and a lot you know we went to yellowstone in Jackson on weekends all the time and. There are native americans all over. But I and I always wanted to like touch them. But they're they're you know the ancient ones are gone and I just I always had these daydreams of indians and I go play in the river bottoms behind my house and I grew up in a literal village in. I've never told you this in Paradise Utah and it really is paradise and when I was a little kid my grandfather taught us how it taught me how to ride a horse indian style and I didn't know and I I don't know if it's okay to say indian or not. But um. I he taught me how to ride a horse and they don't use bridles. They don't use. You know it's hand signals. No saddle and he basically said when you can ride like this. You know you're good to go on anything so I learned all these handss I had no idea that was really cool I just thought it was normal. And fast forward to when I was in high school I went on this five day backpacking trip down in Southern Newtah and the very none time I saw petroglyphs they were Petoglyphs. We were hiking through the narrows you know in the middle of nowhere and you're hiking to water sources and you think you're gonna die and you know you're a teenager and I remember coming we came to a spring and we were all so thirsty and we got to this spring and it was a high school trip so there were teachers and. And we spent the night at this spring and I looked up after I quenched my thirst and saw for the none time in my life real petroglyphs and I stopped and I almost I almost started to cry I'm like oh my gosh and I went up and I'm ashamed to say I touch them. But I put my hand. There was a handprint and then there was I can't remember exactly what the image was but I remember putting my own hand in that handprint and becoming like almost melted into that rock like someone. Was here a long long long long time ago and they feel me like it just was this incredible experience and then my teacher his name was Mr. Weiberg coolest guyll ever meet had a flute a native american flute and I don't know what tribe or what kind, but he could play it incredibly well. 07:07.85 Ann And we sat in this canyon that had these petroglyphs on them and there were just a few There was a source of water so clearly, it's you know we're in the right space now that I know a little more about this and there was a rock shelter. Not very far away. Um because we slept in that rock shelter. And he played that flute as the evening came on and then he woke us up to that flute. So the day the you know the dawn comes and you hear this music and I just thought okay okay i. There is some otherworldly thing happening here. Wow and it it left such an impression on me never saw petroglyphs again until I I grew up and I'm an adult and I've worked in oil and gas well before I get to that i. I have spent the last like since 2004 in various parts of Africa sometimes I've lived there for years sometimes I just go back and forth. But I've been incredibly engaged in Africa for and the Middle East for well over twenty years and I spent a year living in South Africa and South Africa as you know it's the sand tribe. It's that I mean so many rock art just so much rock art and just beautiful. Amazing stuff and there's. Continuity of history there because these tribes have been there for who knows how long no, we really have no idea and I discovered the vitz voddersand and I discovered the Rari and the museum there and you know worked with. Are spent a lot of time there and got to know some of the archeologists there. But in particular Ben now I can't remember his last name not Ben Lewis yes so I spent a lot of time with. 11:35.62 Alan Smith Smith 11:23.57 Ann Ben Smith and he would send me and I would go up to Mappumalonga and I he sent me on this adventure with and I am ashamed to admit and I need to ask Ben who this man's name was but he was like the fourth grade grandson of the. Chief and and I'm probably slaughtering that because he's not a chief but the guy that painted the big really famous um train panel with the monster head and the guys there's little people in cages and the cages or the belly of this big long monster. And it's in a raw. It's in a shelter and there's totems everywhere and it's it's a panel that's been there for longer than any of them know their oral history. But it's it's a very significant place and um. We traveled through you know we had to hike for like four or five hours to get there. Ben sent me up there. Um Dr Smith sent me up there and he actually sent some equipment with me because this gentleman who is now like the chief you know he was the. The elder and he was quite young. He was probably like in his mid 20 s um and we went on this hike out to see this panel and I just remember the second time ever in my life this time it's paintings and I stood there and I touched them again and he taught me what these things mean and. 14:48.18 Alan Blow. 14:25.97 Ann Just this whole into I there were hundreds I don't even know how many pieces of art are on that in that rock shelter but he taught me so many things and along the way we had like this 4 hour hike through their tribal lands and we Met. You know the herders and the I mean I was in the heart of Sand Territory with the guy that knows all about it and could tell me the cold here I just thought okay I could die in this like rock shelter and be happy right now because oh my goodness. 15:45.94 Alan Ah. 16:01.54 Alan Right? Could you could you could you could you perhaps deconstruct or share some sound bites of what you learned about that panel. 15:41.45 Ann Head back to romley. 15:56.93 Ann Yes, it dates to sometime around the Boer War probably before Well it dates to when white people came into their territory. So I don't actually know when is. 16:55.68 Alan Sure right? um. 16:36.35 Ann But they didn't understand who these people were and they looked funny at a very different skin color than what the you know the Sand people had and they didn't understand what these guys or who they were and they made friends with them. You know it's almost. 17:27.20 Alan E. 17:10.61 Ann This story as I recall is almost like the Spanish conquistadors that come in and and the natives the native Americans were kind and welcoming and here they are you know they they think these guys are gonna be nice in their friends and they you know, kind of. They weren't and sometime later a train was built and this train went through their territory and then they had these sticks that blew fire and they killed people and all they knew was the sticks blue fire that they killed people and the. 18:35.44 Alan Wow. 18:28.90 Ann See There's a phone hold on that's not mine. Ah. 19:02.38 Alan It's okay, yeah, but this this can be excised out of the program. 18:42.91 Ann Um, the sticks of the blue fire killed people and then there was this big monster and the panel is very long I don't know I'm a terrible judge of distances but it's probably like 20 long. Yeah, and. 19:39.46 Alan Many feet. Yeah. 19:22.29 Ann It has the head of the train. You can clearly tell if you know what a train is you can tell that it's a train but they didn't know he said we didn't know what this thing was we thought it was a monster and the head of the train is a big dragon looking monster looking thing. 19:56.86 Alan Yes. 20:12.22 Alan Right. 20:24.90 Alan Sure. 20:00.79 Ann And there's smoke coming out of its ears and he said that's the smokestack and the Monster's mouth open and then there were little figures that were getting chomped by the monster and fallen out of his mouth and then you saw little figures flying behind the monster into the cages and then you saw in. 20:38.90 Alan Aha. 20:39.87 Ann You know there were probably 5 or 6 train cars that were cages that were the belly of the monster and these people would you know, get chomped and then they'd end up in the belly of this monster and then the tail was the caboose and then all around it. 21:35.32 Alan Okay. 21:15.41 Ann Were guys on horses with these fire sticks shooting you know shooting and killing and maiming these guys getting chomped and and then totems there were also animal totems near the cars and all around um, explaining the families. 21:46.32 Alan He. 21:55.35 Ann And that and I you know I who would have known that That's what those meant except that this this gentleman. 22:32.70 Alan And so they these these So these mean the various families that were adversely affected by the train. 22:21.49 Ann Exactly and the totems I just remember that I have very clearly in my mind the monkey one and there was one that I believe was a baboon as well. But that there were you know layers of animals and a totem on a you know Drew drawn so vertically. 23:02.50 Alan Ah. 23:01.25 Ann And that showcased it's this Try. It's this clan and the tribe I don't know the vernacular that they use because I it's not English and um, he was trying to explain that to me but he said these are essentially the families that are like chomped and thrown in here and then. There was a chief in there. You know this guy represented as most things. The bigger figure is the chief and. 24:15.56 Alan Were they were they cap were they capturing the native people or were they was that what was going on or were they being killed by the okay. 24:02.41 Ann Yeah, both of them but they were both capturing and um, killing them just slaughtering those people and historically they did slaughter those people and they did capture. Yeah. 24:45.66 Alan Okay, and so this is a historical account. So This is a very elaborate long. Got you? okay. 24:41.57 Ann It's a very. 24:49.17 Ann Go ahead. Yeah, it's it's real history. It's the actual history as portrayed by the leader of the san at that time in this area which is near Mapuma Longa I can't even tell you polowani. I can't even tell you where exactly it is because I have no idea we I went up to mapumma longa which is about a 3 maybe 4 hour drive from Johannesburg up to Map Puma Longa and then you take off on this road that turns into a gravel road and you get to Polo Qua and then I spend the night in a little tiny guest housing I met and then I I broke out to this village and left the car at his home slash hut and then we walked for another you know four or five hours into the Bush. That's where it is. 26:32.80 Alan Um, ah. 26:56.20 Alan Oh my word. Wow but this is a very well-known panel as you're saying is it a it's a paint. It's a painted panel correct. 26:39.90 Ann Find that. Right. 27:03.59 Ann Yes, yep. 27:32.14 Alan Is it painted? Okay, okay so I didn't mean to interrupt the flow of your thinking but let's continue this this sort of biographical story I Love it. 27:27.53 Ann So after that experience and and and I I got to and I was toying around this was in 2010 and I was toying around with doing a ph d and kind of just doing a major career shift and I kind of. Regret that I did didn't do it then but I actually don't regret it because I'll get to that in a minute but got to so with Dr Smith you know he'd say come on. Let's get in the archives and let's find a project. Well so we started. Digging through the archives of Ferrari the rock art research institute in South Africa that's just incredible and found all these old photos from the early nineteen hundreds 1920 of some sites in Congo again I can't even tell you where they are. But they're somewhere deep in the jungle. We. We do know where they are It's documented but no, but since the the adventure or I don't even know what to call him. Um the gentleman that had taken these photos. No one had been there since from the west. From our part of the world and he had to like hack his way through the jungle of the Congo um up from the south. all you know all I understood was it was if you went to the southern border of the Congo and then hacked your way through the jungle maybe on a north kind of western trajectory. Somewhere 8 hours into machete hiking through http://tarzanvines you would get to this site and it was a but this is out yes in Southern Africa so so ben 31:17.48 Alan Ah, ah and this is all in Africa at all in South Africa correct okay 31:14.57 Ann Said I have been obsessed with this site and I also speak french fluently and I so I've spent I've just I've been in the most intrepid places in Africa I lived in Sierra Leone for many years during the war in South Sudan so I'm not scared of these places that everybody's scared of and Ben said. You've got you can you can speak in french I'm like you really think anybody in like 8 hours in the jungle is gonna speak french he said well it's better than what we've had take this project and I thought okay I'm going to and then I didn't end up doing my ph d and so that. Is still there somewhere in the jungle and I still I I am going to go out to the jungle and find this site and I I'll come back to that as well. But what was fascinating about the photos documented in this site and they I don't. Even know nobody really knows how this guy found this site because they're on rocks. They're petoglyphs and they're concentric circles and they're weird and they're not just your normal spiral. They're just weird and he said these are so weird look at him and like well I don't. 33:37.46 Alan Me. 33:48.20 Alan Okay. 33:44.15 Ann Know enough to know if they're weird or not but he said they're weird and I thought it he's like we we wanted. You know there's well tribal people. Yeah, that's what there's and super interesting and there's there's trib. 34:19.54 Alan Ah, well if Ben fit if Ben thinks if then thinks they're weird I guess they're weird. Yeah. 34:44.36 Alan Sure and and and let me let me let me stop you right here? Um, we've used up the None segment but I want to continue this this bio biopic of an Norman. Ah. 34:21.88 Ann People around. So the continuity of history is not. 35:22.52 Alan Professional rock art enthusiast and beginning rock art scholar and to see where this this amazing adventure leads us see in the flip flop gang.