Trains, Tracks, Transition: Ambivalence in Northern Sotho Colonial Contact-Period Rock Art, the Makgabeng, South Africa

Abstract This article explores impacts of, and reactions to, colonial intrusion and migrancy on and among the Northern Sotho on the Makgabeng, South Africa. We reflect on the role rock art sites play as spaces in which the Northern Sotho articulated their agency responding to new colonial objects – wagons, trains, and trucks – and how these objects were re-signified and integrated into Northern Sotho iconography of initiation rock art. A close analysis of this rock art and a close reading of historical sources, as well as examination of ethnography on initiation and migrancy, offer an interpretation of trains, tracks, trucks, and wagons in the rock art repertoire of the Northern Sotho. We draw on Bhabha’s concept of “ambivalence of mimicry” to suggest that the rock art depictions of these trains, wagons, and things associated with migrancy represent subtle resistance to colonial intrusion and negotiation of realities. These experiences were framed by the Northern Sotho within an emic context of initiation.