DIANA'S VOW ROCK PAINTINGS

In the west of Nyanga Park, surrounded by rocks and hills, is an interesting cave fresco, probably done by the San. The central figure represents a lengthened man, to the erect penis. This man wears on the face a black hippotrague mask and holds an object above his head, a half circle surrounds his kidneys. A few men and children, in movement or immobile, stand close to the central figure. According to Peter Garlake, the Zimbabwean authority for archaeology and ethnology, this scene dépeindrait a ceremonial dance: the elongated position symbolizing the loss of consciousness and an advanced state of trance.