FABLE AND FOLKLORE 17 



cattle by disease. . . . The Kaffirs have a superstition that if 

 one of these birds is killed it will rain for a long time. I am 

 told that in time of drought it is the custom to take one alive, 

 tie a stone to it, then throw it into a "vley"; after that a rain is 

 supposed to follow. They avoid using the water in which this 

 ceremony has been performed. . . . Only killed in time of 

 severe drought, when one is killed by order of the rain-doctor 

 and its body is thrown into a pool in a river. The idea is that 

 the bird has so offensive a smell that it will make the water 

 sick, and that the only way of getting rid of this is to wash it 

 away to the sea, which can only be done by a heavy rain. 



The ground where they feed is considered good for cattle, 

 and in settling a new country spots frequented by these birds 

 are chosen by the wealthy people. Should the birds, however, 

 by some chance, fly over a cattle kraal, the kraal is moved to 

 some other place. ... It is very weak on the wing, and when 

 required by the "doctor" the bird is caught by the men of a 

 number of kraals turning out at the same time, and a particular 

 bird is followed from one hill to another by those on the look- 

 out. After three or four flights it can be run down and caught 

 by a good runner. . . . The Ovampos [of Damara land] seem 

 to have a superstition [that the eggs cannot be procured because 

 so soft that] they would fall to pieces on the least handling. 



It seems to me likely that the sense of service to men 

 in its constant killing of dreaded snakes — birds and ser- 

 pents are linked together in all barbaric religious and 

 social myths — may be at the core of the veneration paid 

 the hornbill, as, apparently, it was in the case of the 

 Egyptian ibis. This wader was not only a foe to lizards 

 and small snakes, but, as it always appeared in the Nile 

 just as the river showed signs of beginning its periodic 

 overflow, a matter of anxious concern to the people, it 

 was regarded as a prescient and benevolent creature fore- 

 telling the longed-for rise of the water. At Hermopolis, 

 situated at the upper end of the great fertile plain of 

 the lower Nile, the ibis was incarnated as Thoth (identi- 

 fied by the Greeks with Hermes), one of the highest gods 



