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Isukha Woman Rainmaker.
Rainmaking was an hereditary profession. Joy
records, "She attracted the element by going to a sacred place where
she waved her ritual staff with the thicker end up. In addition she boiled
medicine in four large pots to which she added the ash of burnt
thatching-grass. If the brew boiled over, then rain would come - but if
there was no spilling, there would be no rain. Should the rainmaker be
annoyed by people and want to stop rain, she would dip her staff with its
thin end in the pot and the turn this end up to the sky. As long as the
staff was kept in this position, there would be no rain. When people
wanted to appease an angry rainmaker and get rain, they usually brought
presents until she was conciliated and turned the staff round - which
apparently produced the desired result".
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