WHEN RAIN IS ’WANTED
At Samara not many years ago six peasants worn tried and sentenced to imprisonment for digging up a dead body and floating it down the Volga, ihe man had died of delirium tremens, and it is a .widespread belief in Russia that to throw the dead body of a drunkard iiilo the river will bring rain. Consequently tin's type of crime recurs when there is a prolonged drought, lii Southern India tlie gigantic figure of a woman is stretched on a low open fourwheeled carriage, which is dragged round the streets accompanied by ear-splitting tom-toms, drums, and bugles. This performance is thought to bring about (ho breaking of the drought. When rain is wanted very badly iii the Punjab, a native woman will drag a plough across a field hv night, meantime sprinkling it with water. Tn East Africa, among the Momhazziis, the priests bathe as a rain charm, while the aborigines of Australia burn human hair in the hope that it will bring about a downfall.
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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 8 January 1935, Page 3
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171WHEN RAIN IS ’WANTED Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 8 January 1935, Page 3
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