Ikanti is a triangular block of rock some ten metres high, which broke off the mountain before thudding into the ground at an angle, one of its ridges pointing towards the sky. The equilibrium of its crazy tilt is a challenge to gravity, imparting to the rock a most uncommon dynamism and monumentality. Some 150 figures have been painted on its most sheltered side – these silhouettes march in line along varying, imaginary horizons. Some figures, occasionally dressed in a cloak that flutters like a cape, carry a bag on their backs, often accompanied by a bow and a quiver of arrows. But these few distinctive traits are mere details of a more general theme, namely, the thrust of their forward movement, a clear picture of life being drawn along a mysterious timeline. In short, the theme is the nomadic quality intrinsic to all existence.

The life of the San people, in fact, was a literally nomadic one based on their hunter-gatherer economy. Their movements were dictated by seasonal cycles that themselves governed animal migrations and the germination of the fruits, wild berries and root tubers that constituted the basis of the San diet, even more than the results of hunting. One condition of travel is lightness. So, as seen in this painting, we must envision a life in which a dwelling is a shelter beneath a rock or a hut of branches erected on the plain, where one sleeps on the ground wrapped in a simple cloak fashioned from the hide of an antelope. The San's goods were limited to strict necessities: weapons, tools, cloaks that served as sacks and blankets, net-like carrying bags made from animal sinews, plus a few items of finery that only materialistic civilizations would consider superfluous in baggage composed of so little. They carried water in skin pouches made from the stomachs of antelope or in eggshells that they sometimes buried in desolate locations along their path, so that they could drink while en route during periods of great drought.