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San
(Bushman) art exists throughout the Mpumalanga hills and mountains.
The art represents a window looking into the lives of the San
hunters and gatherers, who inhabited the area centuries before
the arrival of the Nguni people from the north. The San mined
Red Ochre in an area known as Dumaneni. The mine is estimated
to be between 28500 and 46000 years old. The San obtained colour
pigments from the Ochre for their Rock Paintings. Archaeologists
have found stone terraced walls, religious icons and grave sites
in the Mpumalanga area including Barberton that indicate a link
to Hindu culture. These Asian people traveled inland from the
mouth of the Komati River in Mozambique and established cultural
and residential centers. The name "Komati" is the same name
as the name of a well known Indian trading tribe, while the
Nguni and Swahili word for cattle, "Ngombe" is also the word
for horned cattle in the same Indian language. There is evidence
of the Swazi occupying the area of Swaziland as it is currently
known, as well as Barberton and surrounding areas during the
middle of the eighteenth century. The Swazi Chiefs and Priests
painted their bodies with a mixture of Red Ochre powder and
animal fat enabling great power. The Swazi named the Ochre "
ludvumane" meaning power four times the sound of thunder. European
settlers arrived between 1836 and 1845. James Murray found alluvial
gold in June 1882 at the confluence of the Noordkaap river and
Jamestown Creek in Barberton. The town of Barberton is named
after Graham Barber and his cousins Fred and Harry Barber who
discovered gold in a rift at the foot of the Makonjwa Mountains
in 1884.
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