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Updated: May 17, 2025
To make sounds like thunder would therefore naturally call the attention of such a spirit; or he, the rain-maker, might make sounds like rain. "In Mexico the rain god was propitiated with sacrifices of children. If the children wept and shed abundant tears, they who carried them rejoiced, being convinced that rain would also be abundant."
You're a dandy, Mr. Hilbrun! Whoop!" And Lin clapped the rain-maker on the shoulder, exulting. He had been too well entertained to care what he had in his pocket, and his wife had not yet occurred to him.
Further, every precaution is taken to prevent a rain-maker from dying an accidental death, for such an end, though not nearly so serious a matter as death from illness or old age, would be sure to entail sickness on the tribe. As soon as a rain-maker is killed, his valuable spirit is supposed to pass to a suitable successor, whether a son or other near blood relation.
Yet in spite, or rather in virtue, of the high honour in which he is held, no Dinka rain-maker is allowed to die a natural death of sickness or old age; for the Dinka believe that if such an untoward event were to happen, the tribe would suffer from disease and famine, and the herds would not yield their increase.
They gathered in the porch and in the yard and outside the gate, and begged me, if I was a rain-maker, to make it rain there and then to save their crops. They begged me and begged me, but I sat cross-legged and smoked my pipe this same pipe you see here. "Finally I told them that I'd make it rain for the whole settlement on two conditions. The first condition was that every one was to pay toll."
It is always advisable to make friends with the rain-makers, as they are regarded by the natives as priests, and are considered with a certain respect. I therefore give him another glass of wine; or, to be correct, he drank it from a tin that had contained preserved provisions. This caused him to blink his eyes and smack his lips, and the old rain-maker grinned a ghastly smile of admiration.
He grinned till the tears ran down his eyes, and at once suspended the glittering toy around his neck. He now said, "I am a great sheik; there is no rain-maker so great as I; you will travel with me, and this horn shall keep you dry. Don't trouble yourself about the Baris, they won't molest you; but start as soon as you can." We had thus gained a valuable ally and guide.
Yet the office is usually hereditary and passes from father to son. Among the tribes which cherish these beliefs and observe these customs are the Latuka, Bari, Laluba, and Lokoiya. In Central Africa, again, the Lendu tribe, to the west of Lake Albert, firmly believe that certain people possess the power of making rain. Among them the rain-maker either is a chief or almost invariably becomes one.
In order to procure rain the Wagogo sacrifice black fowls, black sheep, and black cattle at the graves of dead ancestors, and the rain-maker wears black clothes during the rainy season. Among the Matabele the rain-charm employed by sorcerers was made from the blood and gall of a black ox.
Africa is only now emerging from the basest fetichism; the negro priest is still a sorcerer and rain-maker. The Egyptian religion, as is well known, provided for the vulgar a suitable worship of complex idolatry, but for those emancipated from superstition it offered true and even noble conceptions.
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