which nothing can be known for certain. He
speaks in words such as these:
Munyankali, you who come from your large house
in the east and are on the way to your smaller one
in the west, you have passed through Ihanzu and
have seen that we are carrying out an ancestral
offering, an offering in the case. We have an offer-
ing for rain. We are offering you water. We are
offering you beer and a lamb that was born at
night. Take good news to the place you are going;
and the bad, toss it into the waters of the great lake.The grandchildren then address the spirits
while giving an offering of meat to them (kuta-
gangila). They take several pieces of roasted meat
and turn to the four cardinal points, throwing a
piece of meat in the direction of each point while
addressing the spirits. The grandson speaks first as
always and then the granddaughter. When the
sequence of addresses is completed, the priest or
diviner reads the entrails that have been gathered
in a bowl (ntua). The bowl is always oriented
toward the east–west direction. When the priest
completes the reading and tells the spirits of the
gratitude of the Ihanzu, he then tells of the spirits’
gratitude for the offering made by the Ihanzu.
Now the great rain dance takes place in
earnest. All has been leading to the moment when
the women gather to dance and sing their way to
the main ritual cave. The grandchildren, both of
them, join the dancers. The grandson and then
the granddaughter address the spirits and toss the
chyme of the sacrificial lamb around the entrance
of the cave. The grandson goes back toward a
large clearing; all the while the music is playing
and the people are dancing. At this point, the
granddaughter, female ritual leader, takes the lead
in dancing toward the cave and is followed by
elderly royal women who remove their clothes
and carry a half-gourd of castor seed oil inside
the cave. There the women take the oil and
anoint old drums in the cave. They move to a sec-
ond cave and anoint with oil a python that lives
in the cave. When they have done this, they put
their clothes on again and enter the opening of
the cave and follow the grandson’s path back
toward the mass of people.
There is a great feast of the sacrificial food. The
people eat, sing, dance, and make their way back
to the village to the house of the male ritual leader,
who sprinkles water to the east, west, south, and
north. There is more dancing, and, in the end, the
priest or diviner says in a great voice that the
spirits have heard and seen the offering that was
made by the people.
In other parts of Africa, rain dances are prac-
ticed to appease the spirits and create fertility, pro-
ductivity, and harvest in the land. Drought is seen
as something out of balance, a function of chaos in
the universe, and every person’s responsibility is to
make things right again with the spirits. Although
the practices vary among groups, the idea is essen-
tially the same all over the continent: make offer-
ings so that the spirits will remember to bring rain
to those who have shown their gratitude.Molefi Kete AsanteSeealsoCeremoniesFurther Readings
Larson, T. J. (1966). The Significance of Rainmaking for
the Mbukushu.African Studies, 25 (1), 23–36.
Ntudu, Y. (1939). The Position of Rainmaker Among the
Wanyiramba.Tanganyika Notes and Records, 7 ,
84–87.
Shapera, I. (1971).Rainmaking Rites of Tswana Tribes.
Cambridge, UK: Centre of African Studies.
Vijfhuizen, C. (1997). Rain-Making, Political Conflicts
and Gender Images: A Case From Mutema
Chieftaincy Zimbabwe.Zambezia, 24(1), 31–49.
Weatherby, J. (1979). Raindrums of the Sor. In J. B.
Webster (Ed.),Chronology, Migrations and Drought
in Interlacustrine Africa(pp. 317–331). London:
Longman and Dalhousie Press.RAIN QUEEN
Every month of October, more precisely, on the
22nd day of that month, a ceremony is conducted
among the Lovedu people of South Africa to
ensure that rain falls in abundance and that the
community is spared the dreadful experience of
droughts. The people approach their queen with
gifts, dances, and songs, and they organize this
elaborate ceremony, known as the Rainmaking
Ceremony, to appeal to her benevolence. The562 Rain Queen