MISSIONARIES, A RAIN-MAKER, GOAT'S MILK & MURDER
One of the most universal of the countless superstitions of South Africa is the belief in "rain-making," a power attributed to certain famous native sorcerers, who go from tribe to tribe, feasted and rewarded while the illusion lasts, and not unfrequently murdered as soon as it is exploded. One of these impostors gave considerable trouble to the English missionaries Hamilton and Moffat, while at work among the Bakalahiris. Seeing that they were not to be deceived like the rest, he attempted to drive them out by asserting that their white faces scared away the clouds which his art had summoned. On one occasion, a number of chiefs who came to thank him for a slight shower that had just fallen, were astonished to find him asleep ; but the ready-witted knave instantly pointed to his wife, who was churning some goat's milk in a skin bag, and said coolly: "Don't you see my wife shaking the rain out of that sack?" But a prolonged drougnt succeeded, and the people, enraged at being thus trifled with, declared that the rain-maker should die. The sentence was commuted to banishment at the entreaty of the missionaries ; but he was murdered a year after by the Bauangketsis, whom be had similarly deceived.
The New York Times (New York, New York) 05 Apr 1879, Sat Page 4
Robert Moffat, The Missionary hero of Kuruman
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