RAINMAKERS' PENALTIES.
As described in "The Bakitara or Banyoro," by John Roscoe (Cambridge University Press) the rain makers of the Bakitara, an intelligent people in Central Africa, seem to have been liable to be unpleasantly penalised if their miracles did not succeed. "Should rainmakers fail to bring rain when it was wanted their chiefs had to come to court, where the King ordered to be prepared for them a meal of liver, usually from a sheep or a goat, mixed with blood and fat, and cooked with as much salt as possible. The men had to eat this and sit perspiring in the sun until they were tortured by thirst, but no man dared give them water. Sometimes they were kept like this for several days, fed at intervals with salted meat, but allowed no water; and when they begged for a drink they were told they must get it as rain or die. Their sufferings often caused them to faint, and they have been known to die without any compassion being shown to them." If, on the contrary, too much rain came, they were sent out into the open with huge pots filled with rain water, and they had to go on drinking till the rain stopped.
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Bibliographic details
Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1416, 16 October 1923, Page 8
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208RAINMAKERS' PENALTIES. Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1416, 16 October 1923, Page 8
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