In
Minahassa, a province of North Celebes, the priest bathes as a
rain-charm. In Central Celebes when there has been no rain for a
long time and the rice-stalks begin to shrivel up, many of the
villagers, especially the young folk, go to a neighbouring brook and
splash each other with water, shouting noisily, or squirt water on
one another through bamboo tubes. Sometimes they imitate the plump
of rain by smacking the surface of the water with their hands, or by
placing an inverted gourd on it and drumming on the gourd with their
fingers.
Women are sometimes supposed to be able to make rain by ploughing,
or pretending to plough. Thus the Pshaws and Chewsurs of the
Caucasus have a ceremony called "ploughing the rain," which they
observe in time of drought. Girls yoke themselves to a plough and
drag it into a river, wading in the water up to their girdles. In
the same circumstances Armenian girls and women do the same. The
oldest woman, or the priest's wife, wears the priest's dress, while
the others, dressed as men, drag the plough through the water
against the stream.
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