§ 2. The Magical Control of Rain

Of the things which the public magician sets himself to do for the good of the tribe, one of the chief is to control the weather and especially to ensure an adequate fall of rain. Water is the first essential of life, and in most countries the supply of it depends upon showers. Without rain vegetation withers, animals and men languish and die. Hence in savage communities the rain-maker is a very important personage; and often a special class of magicians exists for the purpose of regulating the heavenly water-supply. The methods by which they attempt to discharge the duties of their office are commonly, though not always, based on the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic. If they wish to make rain they simulate it by sprinkling water or mimicking clouds: if their object is to stop rain and cause drought, they avoid water and resort to warmth and fire for the sake of drying up the too abundant moisture. Such attempts are by no means confined, as the cultivated reader might {p248} imagine, to the naked inhabitants of those sultry lands like Central Australia and some parts of Eastern and Southern Africa, where often for months together the pitiless sun beats down out of a blue and cloudless sky on the parched and gaping earth. They are, or used to be, common enough among outwardly civilised folk in the moister climate of Europe. I will now illustrate them by instances drawn from the practice both of public and private magic.

Thus, for example, in a village near Dorpat, in Russia, when rain was much wanted, three men used to climb up the fir-trees of an old sacred grove. One of them drummed with a hammer on a kettle or small cask to imitate thunder; the second knocked two fire-brands together and made the sparks fly, to imitate lightning; and the third, who was called “the rain-maker,” had a bunch of twigs with which he sprinkled water from a vessel on all sides.​[848] To put an end to drought and bring down rain, women and girls of the village of Ploska are wont to go naked by night to the boundaries of the village and there pour water on the ground.​[849] In Halmahera, or Gilolo, a large island to the west of New Guinea, a wizard makes rain by dipping a branch of a particular kind of tree in water and then scattering the moisture from the dripping bough over the ground.​[850] In Ceram it is enough to dedicate the bark of a certain tree to the spirits, and lay it in water.​[851] A Javanese mode of making rain is to imitate the pattering sound of rain-drops by brushing a coco-nut leaf over the sheath of a betel-nut in a mortar.​[852] In New Britain the rain-maker wraps some leaves of a red and green striped creeper {p249} in a banana-leaf, moistens the bundle with water, and buries it in the ground; then he imitates with his mouth the plashing of rain.​[853] Amongst the Omaha Indians of North America, when the corn is withering for want of rain, the members of the sacred Buffalo Society fill a large vessel with water and dance four times round it. One of them drinks some of the water and spirts it into the air, making a fine spray in imitation of a mist or drizzling rain. Then he upsets the vessel, spilling the water on the ground; whereupon the dancers fall down and drink up the water, getting mud all over their faces. Lastly, they squirt the water into the air, making a fine mist. This saves the corn.​[854] In spring-time the Natchez of North America used to club together to purchase favourable weather for their crops from the wizards. If rain was needed, the wizards fasted and danced with pipes full of water in their mouths. The pipes were perforated like the nozzle of a watering-can, and through the holes the rain-maker blew the water towards that part of the sky where the clouds hung heaviest. But if fine weather was wanted, he mounted the roof of his hut, and with extended arms, blowing with all his might, he beckoned to the clouds to pass by.​[855] In time of drought the Tarahumares Indians of Mexico will sometimes throw water towards the sky in order that God may replenish his supply. And in the month of May they always burn the grass, so that the whole country is then wrapt in smoke and travelling becomes very difficult. They think that this is necessary to produce rain, clouds of smoke being, in their opinion, equivalent to rain-clouds.​[856] Among the Swazies and Hlubies of South-Eastern Africa the rain-doctor draws water from a river with various mystic ceremonies, and carries it into a cultivated field. Here he throws it in jets from his vessel high into the air, and the falling spray is believed to draw down the clouds and to make rain by sympathy.​[857] To squirt water {p250} from the mouth is a West African mode of making rain,​[858] and it is practised also by the Wajaggas of Kilimanjaro.​[859] Among the Wahuma, on the Albert Nyanza Lake, the rain-maker pours water into a vessel in which he has first placed a dark stone as large as the hand. Pounded plants and the blood of a black goat are added to the water, and with a bunch of magic herbs the sorcerer sprinkles the mixture towards the sky.​[860] In this charm special efficacy is no doubt attributed to the dark stone and the black goat, their colour being chosen from its resemblance to that of the rain-clouds, as we shall see presently. When the rains do not come in due season the people of Central Angoniland repair to what is called the rain-temple. Here they clear away the grass, and the leader pours beer into a pot which is buried in the ground, while he says, “Master Chauta, you have hardened your heart towards us, what would you have us do? We must perish indeed. Give your children the rains, there is the beer we have given you.” Then they all partake of the beer that is left over, even the children being made to sip it. Next they take branches of trees and dance and sing for rain. When they return to the village they find a vessel of water set at the doorway by an old woman; so they dip their branches in it and wave them aloft, so as to scatter the drops. After that the rain is sure to come driving up in heavy clouds.​[861] In these practices we see a combination of religion with magic; for while the scattering of the water-drops by means of branches is a purely magical ceremony, the prayer for rain and the offering of beer are purely religious rites. At Takitount in Algeria, when the drought is severe, the people prepare a sacrificial banquet (zerda), in the course of which they dance, and filling their mouths with water spirt it into the air crying, “The rain and abundance!” Elsewhere in the course of these banquets it is customary for the same purpose to sprinkle water on children. At Tlemcen in time of drought water is thrown from terraces and windows on {p251} small girls, who pass singing.​[862] During the summer months frequent droughts occur among the Japanese alps. To procure rain a party of hunters armed with guns climb to the top of Mount Jonendake, one of the most imposing peaks in the range. By kindling a bonfire, discharging their guns, and rolling great masses of rocks down the cliffs, they represent the wished-for storm; and rain is supposed always to follow within a few days.​[863] To make rain a party of Ainos will scatter water by means of sieves, while others will take a porringer, fit it up with sails and oars as if it were a boat, and then push or draw it about the village and gardens.​[864] In Laos the festival of the New Year takes place about the middle of April and lasts three days. The people assemble in the pagodas, which are decorated with flowers and illuminated. The Buddhist monks perform the ceremonies, and when they come to the prayers for the fertility of the earth the worshippers pour water into little holes in the floor of the pagoda as a symbol of the rain which they hope Buddha will send down on the rice-fields in due time.​[865] In the Mara tribe of Northern Australia the rain-maker goes to a pool and sings over it his magic song. Then he takes some of the water in his hands, drinks it, and spits it out in various directions. After that he throws water all over himself, scatters it about, and returns quietly to the camp. Rain is supposed to follow.​[866] In the Wotjobaluk tribe of Victoria the rain-maker dipped a bunch of his own hair in water, sucked out the water and squirted it westward, or he twirled {p252} the ball round his head, making a spray like rain.​[867] Other Australian tribes employ human hair as a rain-charm in other ways. In Western Australia the natives pluck hair from their arm-pits and thighs and blow them in the direction from which they wish the rain to come. But if they wish to prevent rain, they light a piece of sandal wood, and beat the ground with the burning brand.​[868] When the rivers were low and water scarce in Victoria, the wizard used to place human hair in the stream, accompanying the act with chants and gesticulation. But if he wished to make rain, he dropped some human hair in the fire. Hair was never burnt at other times for fear of causing a great fall of rain.​[869] The Arab historian Makrizi describes a method of stopping rain which is said to have been resorted to by a tribe of nomads called Alqamar in Hadramaut. They cut a branch from a certain tree in the desert, set it on fire, and then sprinkled the burning brand with water. After that the vehemence of the rain abated,​[870] just as the water vanished when it fell on the glowing brand. Some of the Eastern Angamis of Manipur are said to perform a somewhat similar ceremony for the opposite purpose, in order, namely, to produce rain. The head of the village puts a burning brand on the grave of a man who has died of burns, and quenches the brand with water, while he prays that rain may fall.​[871] Here the putting out the fire with water, which is an imitation of rain, is reinforced by the influence of the dead man, who, having been burnt to death, will naturally be anxious for the descent of rain to cool his scorched body and assuage his pangs.

Other people besides the Arabs have used fire as a means of stopping rain. Thus the Sulka of New Britain heat stones red hot in the fire and then put them out in the {p253} rain, or they throw hot ashes in the air. They think that the rain will soon cease to fall, for it does not like to be burned by the hot stones or ashes.​[872] The Telugus send a little girl out naked into the rain with a burning piece of wood in her hand, which she has to shew to the rain. That is supposed to stop the downpour.​[873] At Port Stevens in New South Wales the medicine-men used to drive away rain by throwing fire-sticks into the air, while at the same time they puffed and shouted.​[874] Any man of the Anula tribe in Northern Australia can stop rain by simply warming a green stick in the fire, and then striking it against the wind.​[875] When a Thompson Indian of British Columbia wished to put an end to a spell of heavy rain, he held a stick in the fire, then described a circle with it, beginning at the east and following the sun’s course till it reached the east again, towards which quarter he held the stick and addressed the rain as follows: “Now then, you must stop raining; the people are miserable. Ye mountains, become clear.” The ceremony was repeated for all the other quarters of the sky.​[876] To bring on rain the Ainos of Japan wash their tobacco-boxes and pipes in a stream,​[877] and the Toradjas of Central Celebes dip rice-spoons in water.​[878] On the contrary, during heavy rain the Indians of Guiana are careful not to wash the inside of their pots, lest by so doing they should cause the rain to fall still more heavily.​[879] In Bilaspore it is believed that the grain-dealer, who has stored large quantities of grain and wishes to sell it dear, resorts to nefarious means of preventing the rain from falling, lest the abundance of rice which would follow a copious rainfall should cheapen his wares. To do this he collects rain-drops from the eaves of his house in an earthen vessel and buries the vessel under the grinding-mill. {p254} After that you shall hear thunder rumbling in the distance like the humming sound of the mill at work, but no rain will fall, for the wicked dealer has shut it up and it cannot get out.​[880]

In the torrid climate of Queensland the ceremonies necessary for wringing showers from the cloudless heaven are naturally somewhat elaborate. A prominent part in them is played by a “rain-stick.” This is a thin piece of wood about twenty inches long, to which three “rain-stones” and hair cut from the beard have been fastened. The “rain-stones” are pieces of white quartz-crystal. Three or four such sticks may be used in the ceremony. About noon the men who are to take part in it repair to a lonely pool, into which one of them dives and fixes a hollow log vertically in the mud. Then they all go into the water, and, forming a rough circle round the man in the middle, who holds the rain-stick aloft, they begin stamping with their feet as well as they can, and splashing the water with their hands from all sides on the rain-stick. The stamping, which is accompanied by singing, is sometimes a matter of difficulty, since the water may be four feet deep or more. When the singing is over, the man in the middle dives out of sight and attaches the rain-stick to the hollow log under water. Then coming to the surface, he quickly climbs on to the bank and spits out on dry land the water which he imbibed in diving. Should more than one of these rain-sticks have been prepared, the ceremony is repeated with each in turn. While the men are returning to camp they scratch the tops of their heads and the inside of their shins from time to time with twigs; if they were to scratch themselves with their fingers alone, they believe that the whole effect of the ceremony would be spoiled. On reaching the camp they paint their faces, arms, and chests with broad bands of gypsum. During the rest of the day the process of scratching, accompanied by the song, is repeated at intervals, and thus the performance comes to a close. No woman may set eyes on the rain-stick or witness the ceremony of its submergence; but the wife of the chief rain-maker is privileged to take part in the {p255} subsequent rite of scratching herself with a twig. When the rain does come, the rain-stick is taken out of the water: it has done its work.​[881] At Roxburgh, in Queensland, the ceremony is somewhat different. A white quartz-crystal which is to serve as the rain-stone is obtained in the mountains and crushed to powder. Next a tree is chosen of which the stem runs up straight for a long way without any branches. Against its trunk saplings from fifteen to twenty feet long are then propped in a circle, so as to form a sort of shed like a bell-tent, and in front of the shed an artificial pond is made in the ground. The men, who have collected within the shed, now come forth and, dancing and singing round the pond, mimic the cries and antics of various aquatic birds and animals, such as ducks and frogs. Meanwhile the women are stationed some twenty yards or so away. When the men have done pretending to be ducks, frogs, and so forth, they march round the women in single file, throwing the pulverised quartz-crystals over them. On their side the women hold up wooden troughs, shields, pieces of bark, and so on over their heads, making believe that they are sheltering themselves from a heavy shower of rain.​[882] Both these ceremonies are cases of mimetic magic; the splashing of the water over the rain-stick is as clearly an imitation of a shower as the throwing of the powdered quartz-crystal over the women.

The Dieri of Central Australia enact a somewhat similar pantomime for the same purpose. In a dry season their lot is a hard one. No fresh herbs or roots are to be had, and as the parched earth yields no grass, the emus, reptiles, and other creatures which generally furnish the natives with food grow so lean and wizened as to be hardly worth eating. At such a time of severe drought the Dieri, loudly lamenting the impoverished state of the country and their own half-starved condition, call upon the spirits of their remote predecessors, whom they call Mura-muras, to grant them power to make a heavy rainfall. For they believe that the clouds are bodies in which rain is generated by their own ceremonies or those {p256} of neighbouring tribes, through the influence of the Mura-muras. The way in which they set about drawing rain from the clouds is this. A hole is dug about twelve feet long and eight or ten broad, and over this hole a conical hut of logs and branches is made. Two wizards, supposed to have received a special inspiration from the Mura-muras, are bled by an old and influential man with a sharp flint; and the blood, drawn from their arms below the elbow, is made to flow on the other men of the tribe, who sit huddled together in the hut. At the same time the two bleeding men throw handfuls of down about, some of which adheres to the blood-stained bodies of their comrades, while the rest floats in the air. The blood is thought to represent the rain, and the down the clouds. During the ceremony two large stones are placed in the middle of the hut; they stand for gathering clouds and presage rain. Then the wizards who were bled carry away the two stones for about ten or fifteen miles, and place them as high as they can in the tallest tree. Meanwhile the other men gather gypsum, pound it fine, and throw it into a water-hole. This the Mura-muras see, and at once they cause clouds to appear in the sky. Lastly, the men, young and old, surround the hut, and, stooping down, butt at it with their heads, like so many rams. Thus they force their way through it and reappear on the other side, repeating the process till the hut is wrecked. In doing this they are forbidden to use their hands or arms; but when the heavy logs alone remain, they are allowed to pull them out with their hands. “The piercing of the hut with their heads symbolises the piercing of the clouds; the fall of the hut, the fall of the rain.”​[883] Obviously, too, the act of placing high up in trees the two stones, which stand for clouds, is a way of making the real clouds to mount up in the sky. The Dieri also imagine that the foreskins taken from lads at circumcision have a great power of producing rain. Hence the Great Council of the tribe always keeps a small stock of {p257} foreskins ready for use. They are carefully concealed, being wrapt up in feathers with the fat of the wild dog and of the carpet snake. A woman may not see such a parcel opened on any account. When the ceremony is over, the foreskin is buried, its virtue being exhausted. After the rains have fallen, some of the tribe always undergo a surgical operation, which consists in cutting the skin of their chest and arms with a sharp flint. The wound is then tapped with a flat stick to increase the flow of blood, and red ochre is rubbed into it. Raised scars are thus produced. The reason alleged by the natives for this practice is that they are pleased with the rain, and that there is a connexion between the rain and the scars. Apparently the operation is not very painful, for the patient laughs and jokes while it is going on. Indeed, little children have been seen to crowd round the operator and patiently take their turn; then after being operated on, they ran away, expanding their little chests and singing for the rain to beat upon them. However, they were not so well pleased next day, when they felt their wounds stiff and sore.​[884] The tribes of the Karamundi nation, on the River Darling, universally believe that rain can be produced as follows. A vein in the arm of one of the men is opened, and the blood allowed to flow into a piece of hollow bark till it forms a little pool. Powdered gypsum and hair from the man’s beard are then added to the blood, and the whole is stirred into a thick paste. Afterwards the mixture is placed between two pieces of bark and put under water in a river or lagoon, pointed stakes being driven into the ground to keep it down. When it has all dissolved away, the natives think that a great cloud will come bringing rain. From the time the ceremony is performed until rain falls, the men must abstain from intercourse with their wives, or the charm would be spoiled.​[885] In this custom the bloody paste seems to be an imitation of a rain-cloud. In Java, when rain is wanted, two men will sometimes thrash each other with supple rods {p258} till the blood flows down their backs; the streaming blood represents the rain, and no doubt is supposed to make it fall on the ground.​[886] The people of Egghiou, a district of Abyssinia, used to engage in sanguinary conflicts with each other, village against village, for a week together every January for the purpose of procuring rain. A few years ago the emperor Menelik forbade the custom. However, the following year the rain was deficient, and the popular outcry so great that the emperor yielded to it, and allowed the murderous fights to be resumed, but for two days a year only.​[887] The writer who mentions the custom regards the blood shed on these occasions as a propitiatory sacrifice offered to spirits who control the showers; but perhaps, as in the Australian and Javanese ceremonies, it is an imitation of rain. The prophets of Baal, who sought to procure rain by cutting themselves with knives till the blood gushed out,​[888] may have acted on the same principle.

The Kaitish tribe of Central Australia believe that the rainbow is the son of the rain, and with filial regard is always anxious to prevent his father from falling down. Hence if it appears in the sky at a time when rain is wanted, they “sing” or enchant it in order to send it away. When the head man of the rain totem in this tribe desires to make rain he goes to the sacred storehouse of his local group. There he paints the holy stones with red ochre and sings over them, and as he sings he pours water from a vessel on them and on himself. Moreover, he paints three rainbows in red ochre, one on the ground, one on his own body, and one on a shield, which he also decorates with zigzag lines of white clay to represent lightning. This shield may only be seen by men of the {p259} same exogamous half of the tribe as himself; if men of the other half of the tribe were to see it, the charm would be spoilt. Hence after bringing the shield away from the sacred place, he hides it in his own camp until the rain has fallen, after which he destroys the rainbow drawings. The intention seems to be to keep the rainbow in custody, and prevent it from appearing in the sky until the clouds have burst and moistened the thirsty ground. To ensure that event the rain-maker, on his return from the sacred storehouse, keeps a vessel of water by his side in camp, and from time to time scatters white down about, which is thought to hasten the rain. Meantime the men who accompanied him to the holy place go away and camp by themselves, for neither they nor he may have any intercourse with the women. The leader may not even speak to his wife, who absents herself from the camp at the time of his return to it. When later on she comes back, he imitates the call of the plover, a bird whose cry is always associated with the rainy season in these parts. Early next morning he returns to the sacred storehouse and covers the stones with bushes. After another night passed in silence, he and the other men and women go out in separate directions to search for food. When they meet on their return to camp, they all mimic the cry of the plover. Then the leader’s mouth is touched with some of the food that has been brought in, and thus the ban of silence is removed. If rain follows, they attribute it to the magical virtue of the ceremony; if it does not, they fall back on their standing excuse, that some one else has kept off the rain by stronger magic.​[889]

Among the Arunta tribe of Central Australia a celebrated rain-maker resides at the present day in what is called by the natives the Rain Country (Kartwia quatcha), a district about fifty miles to the east of Alice Springs. He is the head of a group of people who have water for their totem, and when he is about to engage in a ceremony for the making of rain he summons other men of the water totem from neighbouring groups to come and help him. {p260} When all are assembled, they march into camp, painted with red and yellow ochre and pipeclay, and wearing bunches of eagle-hawk feathers on the crown and sides of the head. At a signal from the rain-maker they all sit down in a line and, folding their arms across their breasts, chant certain words for a time. Then at another signal from the master of the ceremonies they jump up and march in single file to a spot some miles off, where they camp for the night. At break of day they scatter in all directions to look for game, which is then cooked and eaten; but on no account may any water be drunk, or the ceremony would fail. When they have eaten, they adorn themselves again in a different style, broad bands of white bird’s down being glued by means of human blood to their stomach, legs, arms, and forehead. Meanwhile a special hut of boughs has been made by some older men not far from the main camp. Its floor is strewn with a thick layer of gum leaves to make it soft, for a good deal of time has to be spent lying down here. Close to the entrance of the hut a shallow trench, some thirty yards long, is excavated in the ground. At sunset the performers, arrayed in all the finery of white down, march to the hut. On reaching it the young men go in first and lie face downwards at the inner end, where they have to stay till the ceremony is over; none of them is allowed to quit it on any pretext. Meanwhile, outside the hut the older men are busy decorating the rain-maker. Hair girdles, covered with white down, are placed all over his head, while his cheeks and forehead are painted with pipeclay; and two broad bands of white down pass across the face, one over the eyebrows and the other over the nose. The front of his body is adorned with a broad band of pipeclay fringed with white down, and rings of white down encircle his arms. Thus decorated, with patches of bird’s down adhering by means of human blood to his hair and the whole of his body, the disguised man is said to present a spectacle which, once seen, can never be forgotten. He now takes up a position close to the opening of the hut. Then the old men sing a song, and when it is finished, the rain-maker comes out of the hut and stalks slowly twice up and down the shallow trench, quivering his body and legs in a {p261} most extraordinary way, every nerve and fibre seeming to tremble. While he is thus engaged the young men, who had been lying flat on their faces, get up and join the old men in chanting a song with which the movements of the rain-maker seem to accord. But as soon as he re-enters the hut, the young men at once prostrate themselves again; for they must always be lying down when he is in the hut. The performance is repeated at intervals during the night, and the singing goes on with little intermission until, just when the day is breaking, the rain-maker executes a final quiver, which lasts longer than any of the others, and seems to exhaust his remaining strength completely. Then he declares the ceremony to be over, and at once the young men jump to their feet and rush out of the hut, screaming in imitation of the spur-winged plover. The cry is heard by the men and women who have been left at the main camp, and they take it up with weird effect.​[890]

Although we cannot, perhaps, divine the meaning of all the details of this curious ceremony, the analogy of the Queensland and the Dieri ceremonies, described above, suggests that we have here a rude attempt to represent the gathering of rain-clouds and the other accompaniments of a rising storm. The hut of branches, like the structure of logs among the Dieri, and perhaps the conical shed in Queensland, may possibly stand for the vault of heaven, from which the rain-clouds, represented by the chief actor in his quaint costume of white down, come forth to move in ever-shifting shapes across the sky, just as he struts quivering up and down the trench. The other performers, also adorned with bird’s down, who burst from the tent with the cries of plovers, probably imitate birds that are supposed to harbinger or accompany rain.​[891] This interpretation is confirmed by other ceremonies in which the performers definitely assimilate {p262} themselves to the celestial or atmospheric phenomena which they seek to produce. Thus in Mabuiag, a small island in Torres Straits, when a wizard desired to make rain, he took some bush or plant and painted himself black and white, “All along same as clouds, black behind, white he go first.” He further put on a large woman’s petticoat to signify raining clouds. On the other hand, when he wished to stop the rain, he put red paint on the crown of his head, “to represent the shining sun,” and he inserted a small ball of red paint in another part of his person. By and by he expelled this ball, “Like breaking a cloud so that sun he may shine.” He then took some bushes and leaves of the pandanus, mixed them together, and placed the compound in the sea. Afterwards he removed them from the water, dried them, and burnt them so that the smoke went up, thereby typifying, as Dr. Haddon was informed, the evaporation and dispersal of the clouds.​[892] Again, it is said that if a Malay woman puts upon her head an inverted earthenware pan, and then, setting it upon the ground, fills it with water and washes the cat in it till the animal is nearly drowned, heavy rain will certainly follow. In this performance the inverted pan is intended, as Mr. Skeat was told, to symbolise the vault of heaven.​[893]

There is a widespread belief that twin children possess magical powers over nature, especially over rain and the weather. This curious superstition prevails among some of the Indian tribes of British Columbia, and has led them often to impose certain singular restrictions or taboos on the parents of twins, though the exact meaning of these restrictions is generally obscure. Thus the Tsimshian Indians of British Columbia believe that twins control the weather; therefore they pray to wind and rain, “Calm down, breath of the twins.” Further, they think that the wishes of twins are always fulfilled; hence twins are feared, because they can harm the man they hate. They can also call the salmon and the olachen or candle-fish, and so they are {p263} known by a name which means “making plentiful.”​[894] In the opinion of the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia twins are transformed salmon; hence they may not go near water, lest they should be changed back again into the fish. In their childhood they can summon any wind by motions of their hands, and they can make fair or foul weather, and also cure diseases by swinging a large wooden rattle. Their parents must live secluded in the woods for sixteen months after the birth, doing no work, borrowing nobody’s canoes, paddles, or dishes, and keeping their faces painted red all the time. If the father were to catch salmon, or the mother were to dig clams, the salmon and the clams would disappear. Moreover the parents separate from each other, and must pretend to be married to a log, with which they lie down every night. They are forbidden to touch each other, and even their own hair. A year after the birth they drive wedges into a tree in the woods, asking it to let them work again when four more months have passed.​[895] The Nootka Indians of British Columbia also believe that twins are somehow related to salmon. Hence among them twins may not catch salmon, and they may not eat or even handle the fresh fish. They can make fair or foul weather, and can cause rain to fall by painting their faces black and then washing them, which may represent the rain dripping from the dark clouds.​[896] Conversely, among the Angoni of Central Africa there is a woman who stops rain by tying a strip of white calico round her black head,​[897] probably in imitation of the sky clearing after a heavy storm. The parents of twins among the Nootkas must build a small hut in the woods on the bank of a river, far from the village, and there they must live for two years, avoiding other people; they may not eat or even touch fresh food, particularly salmon. {p264} Wooden images and masks of birds and fish are placed round the hut, and others, representing fish, are set near the river for the purpose of inviting all birds and fish to come and see the twins, and be friendly to them. Moreover the father sings a special song praising the salmon, and asking them to come. And the fish do come in great numbers to see the twins. Therefore the birth of twins is believed to prognosticate a good year for salmon.​[898] But though a Nootka father of twins has thus to live in seclusion for two years, abstaining from fresh meat, and attending none of the ordinary feasts, he is, by a singular exception, invited to banquets which consist wholly of dried provisions, and at them he is treated with great respect and seated among the chiefs, even though he be himself a mere commoner. The birth of twins among the Nootkas is said to be very rare, but one occurred while Jewitt lived with the tribe. He reports that the father always appeared very thoughtful and gloomy, and never associated with other people. “His dress was very plain, and he wore around his head the red fillet of bark, the symbol of mourning and devotion. It was his daily practice to repair to the mountain, with a chief’s rattle in his hand, to sing and pray, as Maquina informed me, for the fish to come into their waters. When not thus employed, he kept continually at home, except when sent for to sing and perform his ceremonies over the sick, being considered as a sacred character, and one much in favour with their gods.”​[899] Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia twins were called “grizzly-bear children” or “hairy feet,” because they were thought to be under the protection of the grizzly bear, and to be endowed by him with special powers, such as that of making fair or foul weather. After their birth the parents moved away from other people, and lived in a lodge made of fir-boughs and bark till the children were about four years old. During all this time great care was taken of the twins. They might not come into contact with other people, and were washed with fir-twigs dipped in water. While they were being {p265} washed, the father described circles round them with fir-boughs, singing the song of the grizzly bear.​[900] With these American beliefs we may compare an African one. The negroes of Porto Novo, on the Bight of Benin, hold that twins have for their companions certain spirits or genii like those which animate a kind of small ape, which abounds in the forests of Guinea. When the twins grow up, they will not be allowed to eat the flesh of apes, and meantime the mother carries offerings of bananas and other dainties to the apes in the forest.​[901] Precisely similar beliefs and customs as to twins prevail in the Ho tribe of German Togoland. There the twins are called “children of apes”; neither they nor their parents may eat the flesh of the particular species of apes with which they are associated; and if a hunter kills one of these animals, the parents must beat him with a stick.​[902] But to return to America. The Shuswap Indians of British Columbia, like the Thompson Indians, associate twins with the grizzly bear, for they call them “young grizzly bears.” According to them, twins remain throughout life endowed with supernatural powers. In particular they can make good or bad weather. They produce rain by spilling water from a basket in the air; they make fine weather by shaking a small flat piece of wood attached to a stick by a string; they raise storms by strewing down on the ends of spruce branches.​[903]

The Indians of Peru entertained similar notions as to {p266} the special relation in which twins stand to the rain and the weather. For they said that one of each pair of twins was a son of the lightning; and they called the lightning the lord and creator of rain, and prayed to him to send showers. The parents of twins had to fast for many days after the birth, abstaining from salt and pepper, and they might not have intercourse with each other. In some parts of Peru this period of fasting and abstinence lasted six months. In other parts both the father and mother had to lie down on one side, with one leg drawn up, and a bean placed in the hollow of the ham. In this position they had to lie without moving for five days, till with the heat and sweat of their bodies the beans began to sprout. Then they changed over to the other side, and lay on it in like manner for other five days, fasting in the way described. When the ten days were up, their relations went out to hunt, and having killed and skinned a deer they made a robe of its hide, under which they caused the parents of the twins to pass, with cords about their necks which they afterwards wore for many days. If the twins died young, their bodies, enclosed in pots, were kept in the house as sacred things. But if they lived, and it happened that a frost set in, the priests sent for them, together with all persons who had hare-lips or had been born feet foremost, and rated them soundly for being the cause of the frost, in that they had not fasted from salt and pepper. Wherefore they were ordered to fast for ten days in the usual manner, and to abstain from their wives, and to wash themselves, and to acknowledge and confess their sins. After their nominal conversion to Christianity, the Peruvian Indians retained their belief that one of twins was always the son of the lightning, and oddly enough they regularly gave him the name of St. James (Santiago). The Spanish Jesuit, who reports the custom, was at a loss to account for it. It could not, he thought, have originated in the name of Boanerges, or “sons of thunder,” which Christ applied to the two brothers James and John.​[904] He suggests two explanations. {p267} The Indians may have adopted the name because they had heard a phrase used by Spanish children when it thunders, “The horse of Santiago is running.” Or it may have been because they saw that the Spanish infantry in battle, before they fired their arquebuses, always cried out “Santiago! Santiago!” For the Indians called an arquebuse illapa, that is, “lightning,” and they might easily imagine that the name which they heard shouted just before the flash and roar of the guns was that of the Spanish god of thunder and lightning. However they came by the name, they made such frequent and superstitious use of it that the church forbade any Indian to bear the name of Santiago.​[905]

The same power of influencing the weather is attributed to twins by the Baronga, a tribe of Bantu negroes who inhabit the shores of Delagoa Bay in south-eastern Africa. They bestow the name of Tilo—that is, the sky—on a woman who has given birth to twins, and the infants themselves are called the children of the sky. Now when the storms which generally burst in the months of September and October have been looked for in vain, when a drought with its prospect of famine is threatening, and all nature, scorched and burnt up by a sun that has shone for six months from a cloudless sky, is panting for the beneficent showers of the South African spring, the women perform ceremonies to bring down the longed-for rain on the parched earth. Stripping themselves of all their garments, they assume in their stead girdles and head-dresses of grass, or short petticoats made of the leaves of a particular sort of creeper. Thus attired, uttering peculiar cries and singing ribald songs, they go about from well to well, cleansing them of the mud and impurities which have accumulated in them. The wells, it may be said, are merely holes in the sand where a little turbid unwholesome water stagnates. Further, the women must repair to the house of one of their gossips who has given birth to twins, and must drench her with water, which they carry in little pitchers. Having done so they go on their way, shrieking {p268} out their loose songs and dancing immodest dances. No man may see these leaf-clad women going their rounds. If they meet a man, they maul him and thrust him aside. When they have cleansed the wells, they must go and pour water on the graves of their ancestors in the sacred grove. It often happens, too, that at the bidding of the wizard they go and pour water on the graves of twins. For they think that the grave of a twin ought always to be moist, for which reason twins are regularly buried near a lake. If all their efforts to procure rain prove abortive, they will remember that such and such a twin was buried in a dry place on the side of a hill. “No wonder,” says the wizard in such a case, “that the sky is fiery. Take up his body and dig him a grave on the shore of the lake.” His orders are at once obeyed, for this is supposed to be the only means of bringing down the rain. The Swiss missionary who reports this strange superstition has also suggested what appears to be its true explanation. He points out that as the mother of twins is called by the Baronga “the sky,” they probably think that to pour water on her is equivalent to pouring water on the sky itself; and if water be poured on the sky, it will of course drip through it, as through the nozzle of a gigantic watering-pot, and fall on the earth beneath. A slight extension of the same train of reasoning explains why the desired result is believed to be expedited by drenching the graves of twins, who are the Children of the Sky.​[906] Among the Zulus twins are supposed to be able to foretell the weather, and people who want rain will go to a twin and say, “Tell me, do you feel ill to-day?” If he says he feels quite well, they know it will not rain.​[907] The Wanyamwesi, a large tribe of Central Africa, to the south of the Victoria Nyanza, also believe in the special association of twins with water. For amongst them, when a twin is about to cross a river, stream, or lake, he must fill his mouth full of water and spirt it out over the surface of the river or lake, adding, “I am a twin” (nänä mpassa). {p269} And he must do the same if a storm arises on a lake over which he is sailing. Were he to omit the ceremony, some harm might befall him or his companions. In this tribe the birth of twins is comparatively common and is attended by a number of ceremonies. Old women march about the village collecting gifts for the infants, while they drum with a hoe on a piece of ox-hide and sing an obscene song in praise of the father. Further, two little fetish huts are built for the twins before their mother’s house, and here people sacrifice for them in season and out of season, especially when somebody is sick or about to go on a journey or to the wars. If one or both twins die, two aloes are planted beside the little fetish hut.​[908] Lastly, the Hindoos of the Central Provinces in India believe that a twin can save the crops from the ravages of hail and heavy rain if he will only paint his right buttock black and his left buttock some other colour, and thus adorned go and stand in the direction of the wind.​[909]