How Art Made The World 人、艺术、世界 -10

But, how could this help to solve the mystery of the haunting rock paintings created by their ancestors?

Having read the Blake papers and found out about altered state of consciousness or trance on the one hand, and then, knowing the rock paintings on the other hand, the real crunch¹ is putting those two together: How do they dovetail? How do the San beliefs explain the paintings? And that was a real puzzle that kept me in the dark for a long, long time.

When the answer finally came, he realized it'd been literally² staring him in the face.

In those days, I used to have copies of the rock paintings that we had made and I take them home and put them on the mantelpiece, have a couple of ornaments³ holding them in place, and sit and contemplate⁴ them. And there is one painting that was particularly important to me from one of the sites in the Drakensberg.

It was a copy of the same rock painting Lewis Williams had shown me in the mountains.

And then one day, looking at this particular painting, it just clicked what was going on here. On the left hand side of the painting, there is an eland, and it suddenly occurred to me that this eland was dying. We could tell that by the crossed legs, it was stumbling, its head was lowered, its hair was standing⁵ on end. This is what an eland does when it's dying, particularly from the poison or from a poisoned arrow.

Next to it and holding its tail was a man and his legs were also crossed, and he had hoofs⁶ beautifully painted--cloven eland hoofs, and he had hair standing on end. And it's... and it was obvious: he was dying; the eland was dying. And so it became clear that the paintings were not pictures of everyday life. They were about spiritual experience in trance.

This was the true meaning behind the San paintings. The eland is the largest antelope⁷ in Africa. Its grace and power had captured the imaginations of the San and given the animal a magical potency⁸. It was what they saw in their trances. The paintings that the San had made weren't about hunting. Instead, they were recreating their hallucinatory encounters with the animal by painting them onto the rock surface.
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words and usages to remember:

1.dovetail:to connect or combine precisely⁹ or harmoniously¹⁰ 很融洽地吻合

2.eland: Either of two large African antelopes¹¹ (Taurotragus oryx or T. derbianus) having a light brown or grayish coat and spirally twisted horns.大角斑羚

3.cloven: split, devided 裂开的

4.stare sb. in the face: quite near to sb. 迫近某人,明显地表现出

1 crunch   

n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声

参考例句：

• If it comes to the crunch they'll support us.关键时刻他们是会支持我们的。
• People who crunch nuts at the movies can be very annoying.看电影时嘎吱作声地嚼干果的人会使人十分讨厌。

2 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

3 ornaments   

n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The shelves were chock-a-block with ornaments. 架子上堆满了装饰品。
• Playing the piano sets up resonance in those glass ornaments. 一弹钢琴那些玻璃饰物就会产生共振。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 contemplate   

vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视

参考例句：

• The possibility of war is too horrifying to contemplate.战争的可能性太可怕了，真不堪细想。
• The consequences would be too ghastly to contemplate.后果不堪设想。

5 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

6 hoofs   

n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The stamp of the horse's hoofs on the wooden floor was loud. 马蹄踏在木头地板上的声音很响。 来自辞典例句
• The noise of hoofs called him back to the other window. 马蹄声把他又唤回那扇窗子口。 来自辞典例句

7 antelope   

n.羚羊；羚羊皮

参考例句：

• Choosing the antelope shows that China wants a Green Olympics.选择藏羚羊表示中国需要绿色奥运。
• The tiger was dragging the antelope across the field.老虎拖着羚羊穿过原野。

8 potency   

n. 效力，潜能

参考例句：

• Alcohol increases the drug's potency.酒精能增加这种毒品的效力。
• Sunscreen can lose its potency if left over winter in the bathroom cabinet.如果把防晒霜在盥洗室的壁橱里放一个冬天，就有可能失效。

9 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

10 harmoniously   

和谐地，调和地

参考例句：

• The president and Stevenson had worked harmoniously over the last eighteen months. 在过去一年半里，总统和史蒂文森一起工作是融洽的。
• China and India cannot really deal with each other harmoniously. 中国和印度这两只猛兽不可能真心实意地和谐相处。

11 antelopes   

羚羊( antelope的名词复数 )； 羚羊皮革

参考例句：

• One jump, and you're out, and we'll run for it like antelopes.' 你只要一跳就出来了，我们可以像羚羊那样飞快地逃掉。”
• Most antelopes can withhold their young for weeks, even months. 绝大部分羚羊能把分娩期推迟几个星期，甚至几个月。