What has been lost in previous chronicling of the European pursuit of a European-style unicorn in southern Africa, according to Witelson, is the actual representation and meaning of unicorns to the local San people. While it may be an accurate confusion in some other historical contexts, the rhinoceros theory seems out of place in rock art that does represent the rhino accurately and distinctly from unicorn paintings. When antelope are represented, they are always painted with both horns, as most artistic renderings of local animals are accurately detailed.
However, there are many depictions of unicorns in South African rock art, so it was unlikely that anyone was making up the discovery of rock art. And of course, there is the possibility that the world's best known unicorn impersonator, the rhinoceros, is to blame for the confusion. Others have pointed to overzealous interpretations of poorly rendered representation by the rock artists, failing to depict both horns of an antelope in profile. Some claim outright fraud by the initial discoverers of the rock art, claiming they made it up to create an excuse to fund frivolous search campaigns. Over the past few hundred years, the reasons for the unicorn rock art and ensuing failure to find the creature have been assigned multiple causes. It was biblical passages that led to the unicorn being adopted as a royal symbol, and any question of the creature's reality was, especially in light of new evidence, necessarily so. What followed were concerted search efforts fueled by a desire to capture a creature of both biblical importance and interest to natural history scientists. Then the discovery by colonists of ancient rock art-depictions of unicorns as commonplace animals-caused imaginations to race. The British were likely amazed that the locals were aware of unicorns, and could even describe them in detail. They wore symbols on their uniforms of familiar animals, the lion and the unicorn. Locals must have noticed something interesting about the British when they first arrived. Witelson of the Rock Art Research Institute School of Geography at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, details the by chance cross-cultural translation of culturally distinct unicorn concepts and connects stories of Indigenous oral tradition to literal interpretations by colonists. In the article, "Revisiting the South African Unicorn: Rock Art, Natural History and Colonial Misunderstandings of Indigenous Realities," David M.
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