234. The Godhardunneh Cave Decorations of North-Eastern Somaliland Author(s): I. M. Lewis Reviewed work(s): Source: Man, Vol. 58 (Nov.

, 1958), pp. 178-179 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2795856 . Accessed: 25/01/2013 15:03
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Nos.

232-234

MAN

NOVEMBER,

I958

Galloway, A. (I937a), 'The Characteristics of the Skull of the Boskop Physical Type,' Am. J. Phys. Anthrop., Vol. XXIII
(I937), pp. 923-34.

(I937b), 'A Contribution to the Physical Anthropology of the Ovambo,' S.A.J. Sci., Vol. XXXIV (I937), pp. 35I-64. Gear, H. S., 'A Further Report on the Boskopoid Remains from Zitzikama,' S.A. J. Sci., Vol. XXXIII (I926), pp. 923-34. Haughton, S. H., 'Preliminary Note oln the Ancient Human Skull Remains from the Transvaal,' Trans. Roy. Soc. S.A., Vol. VI, Part I (I9I7), pp. I-I0. Jones, T. R., 'Human Skeletal Remains from the Mumbwa Cave, Northern Rhodesia,' S.A. J. Sci., Vol. XXXVII (I940),
pp. 3I3-I9.

Musiker, M., 'Facial Features of Southern Angolan Bantu,' S.A. J. Sci., Vol. LI, Part I (I954), pp. 4-9. Orford, M., and L. H. Wells, 'An Anthropometric Study of a Series of South African Bantu Females,' S.A. J. Sci., Vol. XXXIII Pycraft, W. P., 'On the Calvaria Found at Boskop, Transvaal, in I9I3, and its Relationship to Cromagnard and Negroid Skulls,' J. R. Anthrop. Inst., Vol. LV (I925), pp. I79-98. Tobias, P. V., 'Physical Anthropology and Somatic Origins of the Hottentot,' African Studies, Vol. XIV, No. I (I955), pp. I-22. Wells, L. H., 'Fossil Bushmen from the Zuurberg,' S.A. J. Sci., Vol. XXVI (I929), pp. 806-34. , 'A Further Note on Human Skeletal Remains from the Natal Coast,' Trans. Roy. Soc. S.A., Vol. XXII, Part 3 (I934),
pp. 23 5-43. (I936), pp. IOIO-36.

Keen, J. A., 'Report on a Skeleton from the Fish Hoek Cave,' S.A.J. Sci., Vol. XXXVIII (I942), pp. 30I-9. Keith, A., The Antiquity of Man, London (Williams & Norgate),
I929.

, 'Human Crania of the Middle Stone Age in South Africa,' in Procs. I Pan-Afr. Cong. Prehist., 1947, published in I952,
pp. I25-33.

Krogman, W. M., 'The Morphological Characters of the Australian Skull,'J. Anat., Vol. LXVI (I932), pp. 399-4I3. Lowe, C. van Riet, 'An Artefact Recovered with the Boskop Calvaria,' S.A. Archwol. Bull., Vol. IX (I954), pp. I35-7.

, 'Fossil Man in Northern Rhodesia,' in Stone Age Cultures of Northern Rhodesia, by J. D. Clark, Cape Town (S.A. Archaxol.
SoC.), I950.

ROYAL

ANTHROPOLOGICAL
PROCEEDINGS

INSTITUTE

The Group as the Unit of Social Evolution. By Dr. MWargaret other,in whichboththe gifted-afterwhom a significant change Mlead.Summaryof a communication the Institute, is likely to be named-and also the stubborn,the stupid,the to 20 January,I958 unimaginatively executive-play a role. A detailedstudyof the 233 The renewed interest in cultural evolution of composition such groups,the exact natureof the network, presentsus with the problem of selecting the appropriateunit for of and of the properties eachindividual the situation interaction gives us the kind of detailnecessary answersuch questions the study of the process. Historically, the units chosen have been to as dependentupon the subjectmatter under discussion,e.g. developthe conditionsunderwhich a nativisticmovementappears in ment of systems of irrigation or designs on bark belts or Eskimo and in one tribeandnot in another, succeeds oneplaceandnot in needle cases. Meanwhile, it has been customary in historical another. The recent book, The Trumpet studiesto use individualgreatmen as markersof significantchange. Shall Sound,by Peter Worsley Julian Huxley, relying on Kroeber's type of discussion of the is an excellent statement the widerconditions of withinwhicha unimportance of individuals, still conceded some influence to rashof nativistic cultsappear; of but, like the theories Marxon individualsof the statureof LeonardoDa Vinci! which it is based,it has no theoryof the detailedrelationships The following discussion is based upon my own fieldwork, throughwhich specificindividuals-in one place and not in where I have always specifiedevery individualin every household of another-becomethe executors a changewhichis historically within the closed community or communities where I did my The basedon a broadsocio-economic situation. introduction of of smallhuman fieldwork, but particularly on my restudy of the Manus village details specific groups-asthemediators change of of Peri, in the Admiralty Islands,in I953 and the work of my -preserves the link betweenman'shereditary constitution and the changes which occurin his culture, so makesit possible and associates,Theodore and Lenora Schwartz, in the adjacentcomin posite village of Bunai on the Paliau movement and the nativto place cultural evolution thecontinuum biological of evolution istic cult which accompaniesit. From this work it seems that the without invoking a complete break between biological and most useful unit of cultural change-whether that change is cultural evolution whicha simple socio-economic super-organic or of interpretation historynecessitates. evolutionary in the narrower sense or not-is not the individual, nor the trait, but a group of individuals interacting witll each

SHORTER
The Godhardunneh Cave Decorations of North-Eastern Somaliland. By Dr. L M. Lewis, UniversityCollege of RhodesiaandNyasaland.With threetextfigures Godhardunneh (literally, 'the decorated hole') is a cave some eight miles to the west of 'El Afweyn ('the well with the large mouth'), a village and watering place on the present (I957) road from Bruao to Erigavo in the east of the British SomalilandProtectorate.The cave is a rock fissurein aridgypseous country. There are two mouths and the cave extends for some few hundred feet between them. The pictures here illustratedare on the steep rock faces at the southern mouth of the cave. Artificial

NOTE
light was not neededto photograph drawings. pictures the The havebeenmadeby percussion the gypseous on wallssomesix feet or so fromthe groundandextending perhaps feet on each for 20 sideof theentrance. Mostof thefigures I2 or moreinches are high andfromsix to eightinches width.The commonest in are figures with verylargehumpswhichmayindicate camels loadedburden camelsor, lessprobably, she-camels. largehumps The pregnant as to mightalsobe interpreted beingexaggerated represent camels in the peak of conditionwhen grazingon fertilerainy-season pasture. long trains camels The of in depicted fig. i areparticularly striking. Amongstotheranimals which areidentifiable comthe

234

I78

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NOVEMBER,

i958

MAN

Nos. 234, 235

founded Somali Muslim Sultanates of the coast and Christian Abyssinia.4 Such historical associations, however, throw little light on the date of the decorations.But since Somali as Muslims have-until the recent teaching of art in government schoolsshown little interest in drawing or painting, the Godhardunneh pictures may antedate the introduction of Islam in the ninth or tenth century. They may even be older, although the relatively

* 4,

FIG. I. THE ROCK PICTURES OF GODHARDUNNEH

I Photographs: M. Lewis monest seems to be the leopard or lion (fig. 2). Human figures, most of them apparentlymales and some with enlarged genitals, are common and not very skilfully depicted. During a short visit to the cave' I could find nothing which suggested the age of the drawings. A brief examination of the boulder-strewn rock floor of the cave revealed no traces of any industry, bones or other remnants. Local Somali (Habar Tol Ja'lo) 2 opinion holds that this and other similarcaves in Northem Somaliland were formerly used as refuges and shelters, as some certainly still are today. Tradition associatesthe cave with the time of the Dir, the earliest Somali clan, and the advent of the immigrant Arabian founders of later Somali clans and clan families.3 My informants also hazardedthe opinion that Somali sometimes took refuge in the caves from maraudingAbyssinian armies during the mediaeval struggle between the Arabian-

FIG. 3. DETAIL OF FIG. I.

on situation the drawings a gypsumbasemakesit unof exposed of Any likelythatthey areof greatantiquity. assignment a dateto As exploration. far will the drawings haveto awaitarchxological fromNorthem reported asI know, the only othercavedrawings and by are Somaliland thosediscovered Burkitt Glover5 in a cave nearGaanLibahin the centreof the British at Tug Gerbakele and execution but Protectorate, thesearelessextensive of cruder here. thanthosereported
Notes attention was first drawn to the cave by Sir T. 0. Pike, Governor of British Somaliland, who with his wife had visited Godhardunneh and noted the drawings. I visited the cave during a visit to the Eastern Protectorate while engaged on a sociological study of the Somali financed by the Colonial Social Science Research Council, London. 2 A large clan of the Ishaaq clan family inhabiting the centre and east of the British Protectorate. See I. M. Lewis, Peoples of the Horn of Africa, Intemational African Institute, London, I955, pp. 23-5. 3 For a brief sketch of Somali population movements, see Lewis, op. cit., pp. 45-9; and 'Population Movements in Somaliland: Current and Projected Research,' communicated to the Second Conference on African History and Archxology, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 1957. 4 See Lewis, op. cit. 5 M. C. Burkitt and P. E. Glover, 'Prehistoric Iinvestigations ill British Somaliland,' Procs. Prehist. Soc., New Series, Vol. XII.
IMy

----------_

FIG

2_

DEAI

OFI.

I.

CORRESPONDENCE
Numbers in Northern Rhodesia. Cf. MAN,I957, I4I, 226 similarto that described SiR,-A form of enumeration by Dr. Colson for the Valley Tonga is also sung by 235 Lunda and Luvale children. The numbers used in these two casesare as follows: Luvale Lunda No.
I.
2.

5.
6. 7. 8. 9. IO.

kukwe
pelewenje kalongolongo kashinye shinyangele kumelyo

mukukwe
peleveche kalongolongo kashinya shinyangilyc kumyolyo

kashe

kashi

3. 4.

kaluwe ketekete chambambe

kaliwa muchekecheke chambamba

The Lunda and Luvale normal enumerationis, like that of the to Tonga, a quinarysystem,and bearsno resemblance the numerals in the songs. Except that most Lundaand Luvale seem to be sure

I79

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