Namzeze, Malawi

Namzeze, one of the most emblematic sites in the Chongoni rock art area, is currently one of the three that can be visited and is open to the public. Unlike many of the other sites, which are grouped together, the Namzeze shelter is isolated in the centre of the protected area. Located in a position overlooking the valley towards the Chongoni Hill, the impressive rock face of Namzeze contains some of the best examples of both traditions of Malawian rock art, the red schematic and white paintings. The site also has a strong symbolism for the Chewa people who still inhabit the area and for whom the white paintings of the later period still have deep spiritual implications.

The superimpositions in the panel above show that the red, schematic paintings covering most of the rock face are undoubtedly older than those made in white. Representations include a multitude of geometric signs: series of parallel lines, grid-style shapes, concentric ovals and circular shapes made with series of dots. In some cases the red signs were infilled with series of tiny white dots, a feature uncommon in the red schematic rock art depictions but with the best examples represented here in Namzeze. Its interpretation, as with most geometric depictions, is a challenging issue, but these types of paintings have been traditionally related to ancestors of Batwa people, hunter-gatherers, who inhabited the region until the 1800s. Studies of Batwa ethnography and cosmology point to these places as related to fertility and rainmaking ceremonies. It is difficult to establish the chronology. The oldest occupation documented in the region is dated to the mid-first millennium BC, and the red images precede the arrival of the Chewa people in the 2nd millennium AD, responsible for the white paintings style, but there is no datable evidence for the paintings.

The second type of painting found in Namzeze is radically different and depicts mainly quadrupeds and birds, as well as some geometric symbols and a car, proof of a relatively recent date for some of these paintings. Quadrupeds have a very characteristic rectangular body and hooves that in some cases are represented as feet. The technique is very different too, consisting of white clay daubed on the wall with the fingers. These white figures usually appear surrounding the previous depictions, in some rare occasions overlapping them. In this case, the authorship, chronology and interpretation of the paintings are more straightforward. Researchers agree that these types of paintings have been made by the Chewa, a group of farmers that arrived to the region around the 16th century and have maintained rock art painting traditions until the 20th century (as the car represented in this shelter proves).

Regarding the interpretation of the paintings, they are directly related to the nyau, a secret society of the Chewa and other neighbouring groups in Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique which plays a significant role in funerary and girl’s initiation ceremonies. The nyau rituals include dancing and rely heavily on the use of masks, including face masks as well as other mobile structures carried by one or two people. These masks are central for the nyau secret society and are kept in secret, hidden from non-initiates. The white paintings of Namzeze and many other sites have been interpreted as representations of masks, depicted during initiation ceremonies that took place in these isolated shelters where secrets of the nyau were explained to the new initiates.

In fact, some of the more than 100 types of masks can be easily identified in the rock shelters. The most common is the kasiyamaliro, a big structure representing an antelope, with a rectangular shape and meant to be carried by two people (an excellent example can be seen in Room 25 in the British Museum), but others, such as the Galimoto (a car structure) and birds are also documented. Some of the features of the animals depicted in this panel corroborate with this interpretation: the shape of the hooves which is more similar to feet, and the fact that in some cases the feet of the forelegs and the hind legs are facing each other, as if they corresponded to two different people. Some researchers have interpreted this feature as a pictorial tool to teach people the proper way of wearing and using the structure to avoid stumbling, which would expose the men hidden in the structure and thus the secret of the mask would be revealed.

Paintings associated to the nyau secret society were used during a very specific period of time (before that other styles of white paintings were used), when the secret society was persecuted first by Ngoni invaders in the 19th century, then by missionaries and colonial governments in the 20th century. With their traditional practices and places forbidden, the members of this society had to look for alternative ways to teach the secrets of the secret society secrets, with the paintings starting to represent nyau objects, to be used as a didactic tool. The Namzeze paintings show very explicitly the adaptability of societies to their different challenges and historical contexts. Either as a tool to summon the rain or as a coded message to transmit sacred secrets, the painted symbols depicted in Namzeze show the incredible complexity of rock art meanings throughout time, and their importance for the communities that painted them.