The Art of Survival: Mitigating the Impacts of PTSD and Combat Stress through the Manipulation of Moral Status and Identity in the Colonial-Era Rock Art of Southern Africa

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

During the South African colonial period, settler incursion was met by indigenous resistance, sparking a series of brushfire conflicts. In the borderlands of the colony, “Bushman” bandits conducted an insurgency against colonists, facing as they did so significant traumatic stress. Being horse-borne was part of their identity, as was their association with guns, and particular animals (baboons and ostriches) that embodied powers of protection. They included an alloy of identities who practiced trance dances to manipulate these powers and to heal the effects of disease. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) manifests in ways they would interpret as disease: nightmares, flashbacks, and social alienation caused by infection from malevolent spirits. In the trance state, used to heal such disease, the traumatic event itself becomes malleable, able to be shaped by the dimensions of who one is, and who their adversary is. PTSD’s symptomatology, in turn, is shaped by the moral injuriousness of the event—whether it was just or deplorable will decrease or increase its intensity. Using art and trance to manipulate who they were, these bandits mobilized acceptance of violent narratives among themselves, and manipulated who their enemies were, framing violence as a grim necessity enacted against monstrous foes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36248.0