Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 5, 2025
Put down your water-cask, close it properly, that not a drop may fall out." While he utters this prayer the sorcerer looks upwards, burning incense the while. So among the Toradjas the rain-doctor, whose special business it is to drive away rain, takes care not to touch water before, during, or after the discharge of his professional duties.
Then I fell to reflecting on the extraordinary adroitness old Indaba-zimbi had shown in saving my life. It appeared that he himself had lived among the Umtetwa Zulus in his earlier manhood, and was a noted rain-doctor and witch-finder.
The chief Sechele was himself a noted rain-doctor, and believed in it implicitly. He has often assured me that he found it more difficult to give up his faith in that than in any thing else which Christianity required him to abjure. I pointed out to him that the only feasible way of watering the gardens was to select some good, never-failing river, make a canal, and irrigate the adjacent lands.
There we often heard in the dead of the night the shrill whistle of the rain-doctor calling for rain that would not come, while here we listened to the rolling thunder by night, and beheld the swelling valleys adorned with plenty by day. We have rain almost daily, and every thing is beautifully fresh and green.
N. Found at Empress Spring hidden away with two similar to M. With reference to these queer and rudely carved boards I received a letter from Mr. W. H. Cusack, of Roebourne, North-West Australia, in which he says: ". . .The implement you allude to is used by the "Mopongullera," or Rain-doctor, at their ceremony which they hold annually when they are making the rain.
Although you disbelieve their efficacy in charming the clouds to pour out their refreshing treasures, yet, conscious that civility is useful every where, you kindly state that you think they are mistaken as to their power. The rain-doctor selects a particular bulbous root, pounds it, and administers a cold infusion to a sheep, which in five minutes afterward expires in convulsions.
However this did not chance, since the drought went on as fiercely as before. Menzi was, of course, a rain-doctor, a "Heaven-herd" of the highest distinction; one who, it was reputed, could by his magic cause the most brazen sky to melt in tears. His services had been called in by neighbouring tribes, with the result, it was rumoured, that those tribes had been rewarded with partial showers.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking