Prehistory and symbolism

[If my soul was made of stone]

https://argentear.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Cueva-de-las-manos.jpg

This is a section of the Cueva de las Manos in southern Argentina. The handprint stencils were fashioned by placing hands on the cave wall and blowing pipes filled with earth pigments onto the surface. The reds and browns seen here were fashioned from red ochre, an abundant natural mineral pigment consisting of a mixture of ferric oxide with clay and sand.

Red ochre has been used extensively throughout human history for both decorative, functional, and ritual purposes. Some of the infamous Venus figurines were slathered in it, and the Red Lady (actually AMAB, but who knows how they saw themselves) of Paviland's bones were ritually covered in the substance. The Himba of Namibia and Angola and various Aboriginal Australian groups continue to use it as body paint and hair dye.

In the aforementioned Aboriginal traditions, ochre is symbolically connected to blood, in the form of the metaphorical veins of the living earth, and this is often read backwards to inform readings of the prehistoric use of the substance. Perhaps the Red Lady [sic]'s treatment with the substance was symbolic of the dead's return to the earth. One hypothesis regarding the ochre-painted Venus of Laussel is that the thirteen hatch marks on the horn that she holds indicate an approximation of one's average menstrual cycles per year, an association established by her other hand's position over her crotch, and indeed there is reddish-brown prehistoric art of vulvae. While the second-wave feminist hypothesis of matriarchal prehistory is viewed by most as cherry-picking projection, one wonders if gender dynamics were more favorable to women in a time that seemed to view parts of the feminine experience that are now shunned and compartmentalized outside of one's identity as deeply sacred. Some anthropologists have hypothesized that the use of ochre as a body pigment also originated with menstrual symbolism, as a means of coordinating resistance to male sexual aggression. Others see it as a symbol of bonding with the earth, or with kin, as the handprints of an ancient tribe may indicate in the above image, from a time where it seems that both of those connections were stronger in the collective heart of the species.

It is a marvel to me to look at the art left behind by prehistoric peoples and think that this was us: the same species, contemplating the same eternal questions, trying to find satisfaction and spiritual peace, even in very different material and societal conditions. Personally, I tend to envy what I see as a greater level of spiritual authenticity from what little we can glean from the remains of the time, but I'm sure that my personal biases are obvious to anyone else who's been reading this far and actually cares about my navel-gazing here. I have painted my body with the substance before (unfortunately my supply thereof has been in storage hell for the duration of quarantine) and found it a very spiritually fulfilling, as well as aesthetically pleasing, experience to feel connected to the earth and our collective past in that manner. These are ideas that have been bouncing around in my head for years at this point without any real place to discuss them until now. What do you see when you focus your eyes and mind intently on  cave walls? Is there a resonance with this web of ideas in any of your perspectives beyond mine?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Of course I have read everything and I care about your navel-gazing, even though I'm not at all into this stuff so I don't have much to say besides making my compliments for the effortpost.

Personally all those hands make me think of a crowd cheering or chanting (positive meaning), or otherwise of a group of people desperately asking for help - maybe food, or shelter (negative meaning).
Also, my box of coloured pencils has one called "yellow ochre" and it actually is one of those I use the least; there is no colour called "red ochre" instead, which I find quite unfortunate. However there are pencils named after other pigments, like the colour "raw Sienna".

[vitoNova]

Dayum.

Predates the Altamira hands in Spain by several thousand years.  Being from Charm City, I'm sure you've been to the replicas in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

I wonder if that South American cave art also had animal art nearby?

[If my soul was made of stone]

Of course I have read everything and I care about your navel-gazing, even though I'm not at all into this stuff so I don't have much to say besides making my compliments for the effortpost.

Personally all those hands make me think of a crowd cheering or chanting (positive meaning), or otherwise of a group of people desperately asking for help - maybe food, or shelter (negative meaning).
Also, my box of coloured pencils has one called "yellow ochre" and it actually is one of those I use the least; there is no colour called "red ochre" instead, which I find quite unfortunate. However there are pencils named after other pigments, like the colour "raw Sienna".

As always, my friend, I appreciate you humoring me. Both of your readings of the piece intrigue me, although as I suggested in the OP I'm a bit more inclined towards the former reading. It seems to me a joyous expression of tribal solidarity and connection with the natural environment, and that's where my fancy begins. Often I find myself wishing that I knew the sort of folk that would be willing to do rituals in caves with me...

It's a bit of a common joke that earth-pigment colors of colored pencils and crayons are always the least-used. "Burnt umber" in particular tends to be dunked on frequently, although if I had any confidence in my abilities in the visual arts I'd be using that earth palette all the time in living out my primordial fantasies.

Dayum.

Predates the Altamira hands in Spain by several thousand years.  Being from Charm City, I'm sure you've been to the replicas in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

I wonder if that South American cave art also had animal art nearby?

Unfortunately, I actually haven't been there in recent memory. There are indeed some hunting scenes nearby, though:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cueva_de_las_Manos#/media/File:SantaCruz-CuevaManos-P2210063b.jpg

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Of course I have read everything and I care about your navel-gazing, even though I'm not at all into this stuff so I don't have much to say besides making my compliments for the effortpost.

Personally all those hands make me think of a crowd cheering or chanting (positive meaning), or otherwise of a group of people desperately asking for help - maybe food, or shelter (negative meaning).
Also, my box of coloured pencils has one called "yellow ochre" and it actually is one of those I use the least; there is no colour called "red ochre" instead, which I find quite unfortunate. However there are pencils named after other pigments, like the colour "raw Sienna".

As always, my friend, I appreciate you humoring me. Both of your readings of the piece intrigue me, although as I suggested in the OP I'm a bit more inclined towards the former reading. It seems to me a joyous expression of tribal solidarity and connection with the natural environment, and that's where my fancy begins. Often I find myself wishing that I knew the sort of folk that would be willing to do rituals in caves with me...

It's a bit of a common joke that earth-pigment colors of colored pencils and crayons are always the least-used. "Burnt umber" in particular tends to be dunked on frequently, although if I had any confidence in my abilities in the visual arts I'd be using that earth palette all the time in living out my primordial fantasies.

I have "burnt umber" too! Although the official Giotto translation of it in English is "dark brown" for some reason.
That common joke makes sense, and in my case it is reinforced by the fact that (unsurprisingly) I most often use my coloured pencils for political maps and stuff, and you don't find very many parties or ideologies associated to brownish-yellowish colours.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

The handprints are placed one upon the other, using negative space to create depth.  This may have been a site of an initiation ritual, where one marks one's hand to join on top of those who have gone before. Marking a wall says "I was here," or, "I am part of the 'we' who have been here/ are here."  Being marked, whether by paint, or more permanent marks such as tattoos or circumcision, says "this is my identity, this is who or what I belong to."   

The redness of the ochre is linked intrinsically to blood, as the cave is to the womb.  But from there, cultures will make their own varied web of connections, linking material inspiration to archetype and social purpose.

[If my soul was made of stone]

The handprints are placed one upon the other, using negative space to create depth.  This may have been a site of an initiation ritual, where one marks one's hand to join on top of those who have gone before. Marking a wall says "I was here," or, "I am part of the 'we' who have been here/ are here."  Being marked, whether by paint, or more permanent marks such as tattoos or circumcision, says "this is my identity, this is who or what I belong to."   

The redness of the ochre is linked intrinsically to blood, as the cave is to the womb.  But from there, cultures will make their own varied web of connections, linking material inspiration to archetype and social purpose.

Initiation and liminality are their own fascinating rabbit holes of symbolism and psychology. I was reading the other day from Maria Czaplicka's Aboriginal Siberia where she notes practices of adopting opposite-gender roles among the shamans of certain Siberian tribes, which as a transgender person myself is very reassuring against the litany of cranks who claim that queerness has no historical precedent and is a spiritual abomination; on the contrary, few things are more sacred. There is also the neo-Freudian argument that the pain and humiliation of numerous male initiation rites, as are a universal in almost every culture, are expressions of primordial masculine jealousy as Karen Horney codified in the concept of womb envy. Allegedly various Aboriginal Australian groups had a rite where men would cut themselves and mix their blood to celebrate the creative powers of the womb and the earth, as symbolized by veins of ochre and the deity known as the Rainbow Serpent.