bank, pursued by the splashing of the women.[1] In these cases the colour of the animal is part of the charm; being black it will darken the sky with rain-clouds. So the Bechuanas burn the stomach of an ox at evening, because they say, “the black smoke will gather the clouds, and cause the rain to come.”[2] The Timorese sacrifice a black pig for rain, a white or red one for sunshine.[3] The Garos offer a black goat on the top of a very high mountain in time of drought.[4]
Sometimes people try to coerce the rain-god into giving rain. In China a huge dragon made of paper or wood, representing the rain-god, is carried about in procession; but if no rain follows, it is cursed and torn in pieces.[5] In the like circumstances the Feloupes of Senegambia throw down their fetishes and drag them about the fields, cursing them till rain falls.[6] Some Indians of the Orinoco worshipped toads and kept them in vessels in order to obtain from them rain or sunshine as might be required; when their prayers were not answered they beat the toads.[7] Killing a frog is a European rain-charm.[8] When the spirits withhold rain or sunshine, the Comanches whip a slave; if the gods prove obstinate, the victim is almost flayed alive.[9] Here the human being may represent the god, like the leaf-clad Dodola. When the rice-crop is endangered by long drought, the governor of
- ↑ A. L. van Hasselt, Volksbeschrijving van Midden-Sumatra, p. 320 sq.
- ↑ South African Folk-lore Journal, i. 34.
- ↑ J. S. C. Gramberg, “Eene maand in de binnenlanden van Timor,” in Verhandelingen van het Bataviansch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, xxxvi. 209.
- ↑ Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 88.
- ↑ Huc, L’empire chinois, i. 241.
- ↑ Bérenger-Féraud, Les peuplades de la Sénégambie, p. 291.
- ↑ Colombia, being a geographical etc. account of that country, i. 642 sq.; A. Bastian, Die Culturländer des alten Amerika. ii. 216.
- ↑ A. Kuhn, Sagen, Gebräuche und Mährchen aus Westfalen, ii. p. 80; Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest, ii. 13.
- ↑ Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, i. 520.
