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When a man is about to give a
great feast in the rainy season and has invited many people, he goes
to a weather-doctor and asks him to "prop up the clouds that may be
lowering." If the doctor consents to exert his professional powers,
he begins to regulate his behaviour by certain rules as soon as his
customer has departed. He must observe a fast, and may neither drink
nor bathe; what little he eats must be eaten dry, and in no case may
he touch water. The host, on his side, and his servants, both male
and female, must neither wash clothes nor bathe so long as the feast
lasts, and they have all during its continuance to observe strict
chastity. The doctor seats himself on a new mat in his bedroom, and
before a small oil-lamp he murmurs, shortly before the feast takes
place, the following prayer or incantation: "Grandfather and
Grandmother Sroekoel" (the name seems to be taken at random; others
are sometimes used), "return to your country. Akkemat is your
country. Put down your water-cask, close it properly, that not a
drop may fall out.


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