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Between our two visits to Alexander Spring there had evidently been a considerable gathering of blacks, and, considering the droughty appearance of the country, it seems feasible that on this occasion every available rain-making board was brought into use. We were unfortunately unable to carry the Empress Spring boards, owing to their bulk and unwieldy shape.
I now wish to point out that a process exactly parallel is simultaneously carried on by which arts beneficent to society are supposed to be evolved. Rain-making may be taken as an art socially beneficial.
"How do you bring it? Are you a rain-maker?" "I don't keep mine in bottles, but I have a houseful of thunder and lightning," he most coolly replied; "but if you can bottle lightning, you must understand rain-making. What do you think of the weather to-day?" I immediately saw the drift of the cunning old Katchiba; he wanted professional advice.
Khama would have nothing to do with the horrible ceremonies by which the boys of the tribe were initiated into manhood; nor would he look on the heathen rain-making incantations, though his father smoked with anger against him. Under a thousand insults and threats of death Khama stood silent, never insulting nor answering again, and always treating with respect his unnatural father.
He had fancies about a lot of things connected with the work of the rain-making expedition, and his fancies were practicalities. He proved invaluable to his superiors in office when came the experiments the reports of which at first declared that rain-making was a success, and later admitted something to the contrary.
If we turn to things, such as rain-making, which are socially beneficial, we find a similar growth in the belief that some men have extraordinary power to work wonders on behalf of the tribe. A further stage of development is reached when the man who uses his personal power for nefarious purposes undertakes by means of it to control spirits: magic then tends to pass into fetichism.
Among some tribes of North-western Australia the rain-maker repairs to a piece of ground which is set apart for the purpose of rain-making. There he builds a heap of stones or sand, places on the top of it his magic stone, and walks or dances round the pile chanting his incantations for hours, till sheer exhaustion obliges him to desist, when his place is taken by his assistant.
One woman believed she had heard Pundjel, the chief supernatural being, descend in a mighty rushing noise, that is, in the sound of the turndun, when boys were being 'made men, or initiated. On turnduns the Australian sorcerers can fly up to heaven. Turnduns carved with imitations of water- flowers are used by medicine-men in rain-making.
When the guard came, the Captive was thrown into bonds, and he was gelded, and his tongue was torn out, and he was given for a slave to the Rain Princess. The country of the Aztecs to the east was tormented by thirst, and their king, hearing much of the rain-making arts of the Princess, sent an embassy to her father, with presents and an offer of marriage.
McLean; "I've got maturity, Doc, since I seen yu' at the rain-making, and I'm a heap older than them hospital days when I bust my leg on yu'. Three or four glasses and quit. That's my rule." "That your rule, too?" inquired the Governor of Shorty, Chalkeye, and Dollar Bill. These gentlemen of the saddle were sitting quite expressionless upon their horses.
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