Rain

Rain, as a form of water, is intimately and ultimately associated with notions of fertility in African religion. Fertility, the process that enables the transmission and regeneration of life, is of the utmost importance to African people. Fertility is not [Page 559]to be understood as a phenomenon restricted to human beings only because, in reality, it encompasses land and animal fertility as well. All over Africa, one finds a pervasive association of the sky with male reproductive powers and of the Earth with female reproductive powers. Rain, in the African religious context, may then be thought of as cosmic sperm, with the sky fertilizing the Earth thanks to rain.

In Africa, rain is sacred and gready desired because it is an indispensable blessing to the many communities who rely on agriculture and cattle rearing for their subsistence. Rain clouds are greeted with joy. Rain is thought of as God's gift to human beings to ensure their welfare. The Chewa (a people in southern and central Africa) creation story illustrates this quite clearly because it links the beginning of human life on Earth (as a result of God's act of creation) with the advent of the first rain. According to the Chewa story, indeed, as the first woman and man fell from the sky to the barren ground, torrential rains, accompanied with thunder and lightning, covered the land, thus forming in certain places rivers and lakes, and turning the arid soil into humid clay, which, in turn, allowed plant and animal life to be and prosper.

Africans have long celebrated the start of rain together, and they have collectively engaged in many rituals to propitiate the falling of rain. Indeed, most Africans believe that, through appropriate rites, one can make rain come. The San people, for example, would bury round stones and would have children born during a rainstorm walk alone in the forest. This was believed to enable the coming of rain. Furthermore, there are, throughout Africa, rain specialists, known as rainmakers, who are among the most important members of their communities. Rainmakers, it is commonly said, derive their ability to control rain from God. Again, given the importance of rain, it is easy to understand the prestige enjoyed by rainmakers. Rainmakers will preside over the sacrifices, offerings, and prayers that may be made by the community, thus acting as intermediaries between the world of the living and the world of the spirits. When there is no appointed rainmaker, an elder or the king may play the same role.

The Manyika people of Zimbabwe provide an interesting example of this, with rain ceremonies that are held in November every year under the authority of the Manyika king. The latter is seen as an incarnation of the ancestors and the symbol of sexual potency and fatherhood. He initiates the rain ceremonies, which are centered on the brewing of beer made with finger millet by post-menopausal women. The process takes 7 days. On the seventh day, the beer is carried to the mountains and offered to the ancestors by a small group of men and women of royal blood.

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