Rainmaking is a weather modification ritual that attempts to invoke rain. It is based on the belief that humans can influence nature, spirits, or the Ancestor worship who withhold or bring rain.
Among the best known examples of weather modification rituals are North American rain dances, historically performed by many Native American tribes, particularly in the Southwestern United States. Some of these weather modification rituals are still implemented today.
American Rainmakers
Julia M. Buttree (the wife of Ernest Thompson Seton) describes the rain dance of the
Zuni people, along with other Native American dances, in her book
The Rhythm of the Redman.
[Julia M. Buttree (Julia M. Seton) The Rhythm of the Redman: in Song, Dance and Decoration. New York, A.S. Barnes, 1930.] Feathers and
turquoise, or other blue items, are worn during the ceremony to symbolize wind and rain respectively. Details on how best to perform the Rain Dance have been passed down by oral tradition.
In an early sort of
meteorology, Native Americans in the midwestern parts of the modern United States often tracked and followed known weather patterns while offering to perform a rain dance for settlers in return for trade items. This is best documented among the
Osage Nation and
Quapaw tribes of Missouri and Arkansas.
In April 2011, Texas governor Rick Perry called the Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas, asking that Texans prayer for "the healing of our land Texas" and for an end to the drought.
In the Ozarks, multiple methods of attempting to call rain have been documented:
African Rainmakers
Rain is a central concern of low-rainfall African societies outside Equatorial Africa, which depend on it for their sustenance and that of their animals. The power to make rain is usually attributed to African kings. In a number of African societies, kings who failed to produce the expected rain ran the risk of being blamed as scapegoats and killed by their people.
[Simonse, Simon. 1992. Kings of Disaster: Dualism, Centralism and the Scapegoat King in Southeastern Sudan. Brill. Lw]
Maghreb
Tunisia
Omek Tannou is an ancient
rainmaking ritual traditionally performed by rural communities during periods of drought. Children parade a wooden doll representing the goddess
Tanit, singing supplications for
rain.
which was inherited from
Punic and
Berbers traditions
involving invocations of the goddess
Tanit.
It is now all but extinct though traces of the ritual survive in some
Folk music and oral
Tradition in northern
Tunisia.
Southern Africa
San people
Among the
San people,
Shamanism enter a trance-often induced by rhythmic dancing and hyperventilation-to access the spirit world and spiritually capture mythical "rain animals", notably the eland antelope.
Lobedu people & the Mashona people
A famous rain making monarch is the
Rain Queen of
Balobedu,
South Africa.
Queen Modjadji, or the
Rain Queen, is the hereditary
Queen regnant of
lobedu people, a people of the
Limpopo Province of
South Africa. The Rain Queen is believed to have special powers, including the ability to control the clouds and rainfall.
She is known as a mystical and historic figure who brought rain to her allies and drought to her enemies.
The
Lozi people are closely related to the Balobedu and therefore also have rainmaking abilities. Queen Modjadji is believed to have ancestral ties to the
Shona people people of present-day zimbabwe, a culture renowned historically for their rain shrines and ceremonies involving ancestral spirits.
The
Shona people have some of the most powerful rainmaking abilities of the
Southern Bantu as it was mainly practiced there until the late 1500s.
Mbukushu people
The
Mbukushu are renowned for their rain-making abilities in the
Okavango Delta, earning them the title "The Rain-makers of Okavango."
Lozi people
The
Lozi people of Zambia also conduct rainmaking ceremonies, often led by royal figures and spiritual mediums who invoke Nyambe (their high god) to bless the land with rain.
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Asian Rainmakers
In Thailand and Cambodia, various rites exist to obtain rain in times of drought. The most peculiar of these is probably the procession of Lady Cat, during which a cat is carried around in procession through the streets of villages while villagers splash water at the cat, in hope that as water has come on the cat, water will fall on humans as well.
China
Wu Shamans in ancient China performed sacrificial rain dance ceremonies in times of drought. Wu anciently served as intermediaries with
nature spirits believed to control rainfall and flooding.
[Schafer, Edward H. 1951. "Ritual Exposure in Ancient China", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 14:130-184.]
"Shamans had to carry out an exhausting dance within a ring of fire until, sweating profusely, the falling drops of perspirations produced the desired rain."
[Unschuld, Paul U. 1985. Medicine in China: A History of Ideas. University of California Press. pp 33–34.]
European Rainmakers
Roman religion had a ceremony called the aquaelicium (Latin: "calling the waters") which sought to produce rain in times of drought.
[Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough ch. 5, "" (Abridged edition, MacMillan, 1922)] During the ceremony, the pontifex]] had the
lapis manalis ("Water-flowing stone". Festus
[Sextus Pompeius Festus, De verborum significatione, sub. tit. manalis (Latin and French text)] distinguishes it from another lapis manalis, "stone of the Manes") brought from its usual resting place, the Temple of Mars in Clivo near the
Porta Capena, into the
Roman Senate. Offerings were made to Jupiter petitioning for rain, and water was ceremonially poured over the stone.
[Cyril Bailey, The Religion of Ancient Rome, ch. 2 (Archibald, Constable & Co., London, 1907)]
Caloian, Dodola and Perperuna, among other terms, refer to a family of Slavs and rainmaking rituals, some of which survived into the 20th century.
See also
External links
