152 BULLETIN 139, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



RAIN MAKING 



Fire enters extensively in the many customs connected with rain 

 making. The chief idea here is the association of Hghtning with 

 rain and the similarity of fire and lightning, thus pointing to fire as 

 a valuable agent in producing rain. 



From Junod's thorough work on the Thonga of South Africa, the 

 following extract gives an idea of the working of the primitive mind 

 that by simulating clouds with smoke and lightning by fire, rain may 

 be made to fall. 



"Having come back with the precious charm, when summoned by 

 any chief to act as rain maker Mankhela employed it in the follow- 

 ing way. 



"He first asked the chief to kill a black goat or sheep (a he-goat 

 or a ram if the bones said so) ; the head, at any rate had to be black. 

 The heart was pierced with a puncheon and the blood flowed. He 

 carefully washed the horns with the blood and smeared them later 

 on (horola) with the 'psanyi' found in the intestines of the animal. 

 Then he took liis ntsiko, viz, the two pieces of wood which acted as 

 his flint and steel, poured a little of the powder into the notch of the 

 female stick and made fire by the rapid friction described on page 

 33. In the meantime Mankhelu was praying as follows: 'Here are 

 the drugs Rivimbi of Tsome (Rivimbi's father): Give us rain.' Then 

 he invoked his own gods, saying ' Go to Rivimbi for me and come 

 along here all of you to make the rain fall.' This performance is a 

 'mhamba,' a means of calling the gods, especially Rivimbi, 'the 

 master of this mhamba.' After a while the wood began to burn; 

 leaves of the ' nembe-nembe ' bush {Cassia petersiana) were placed 

 on it and a black smoke rose and ascended to heaven. Then the 

 clouds appeared and soon the thunderstorm broke. A feather of the 

 ndlati bird of lightning was put among the leaves as a protection 

 against thunderbolts."^^ 



From the same source are native beliefs as to why rain is prevented 

 from falling.^2 



The Santa Barbara Indians at San Buenaventura, California, pos- 

 sessed a rain-making charm stone which they placed centrally on a 

 primitive altar, and one of the things they especially prayed for was 

 rain to put out the fires in the mountains. This stone, which is now 

 in the United States National Museum, was thought to be efficacious 

 in bringing rain and other desirable things. It is a waterworn pebble 

 of green jasper. 



The Apache Indians of the White Mountains of Arizona annually 

 burnt off large tracts of forested land under the delusion that the 



" H. A. Junod. The Life of a South African Tribe, vol. 2, p. 299, Neuchatel, 1913. 

 "Idem, p. 293. 



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