My Father was a Failed Rainmaker But He Raised a Rain-Girl

Everything you need to know about rainmaking

My father was a rainmaker and I am the daughter of her father; the rain-girl.

This is not a fiction. This is the story about my father.

My father made rain.

My father invoked rain.

My father drove the rain back to the sky. He drove rain away from one community and caused it to rain in the neighboring community.

My father spoke to the heavy cloudy sky, it listened and brightened with smiles.

He raised a rain-girl but he failed as a rainmaker.

RainMaking

My father was very popular and skilled in rainmaking in his time. The popular slogan in the community about him was;

“Sort Danda and see no rain in your ceremony”.

It means that anyone who settled other rainmakers and excluded my father would have to swim under the rain during the ceremony.

My father’s rain-making property were: the fresh leaves from sacred trees which he harvested from thick forests; his goatskin bag which he inherited from his father; firewood and dry yam tendrils for making fire, and rain-stone which was half-buried to the earth.

Making rain and driving the rain back to the sky was like a snipe of fingers to my father.

He made smoking fire around his rain making stone. He made the fire with dry yam tendrils. When the fire made flames, he would add fresh herbs batch by batch.

Due to the freshness of the leaves, the fire would no longer make flames. It produced smokes; thick smokes, and that was what all the rainmakers needed.

The thick smoke from the fire ascended to the cloud and let out strange and heavy smells in the air. Once it began to ascend, the cloud would change. It induced rain in the sky

The neighbors who were familiar with the herbal aroma would scamper around their compound looking for preserved items that were kept under the sun.

“Who is in there? Bring the goats and the birds in! Danda is invoking the rain.”

These were always the words of our neighbors.

Although the rain had not begun, they knew that soon it would. They had seen the thick smoke and had perceived the heavy scents of the rain herbs.

The cloud was heavily pregnant with the rain. Just another pinch from my father, the sky would cry water.

What was remaining for the rain to come?

Drops of tears.

Yes. Father needed to cry for the rain to start. Tears were part of rain making property.

A drop of tear from the rainmaker’s eyes equaled to drops of rain.

My father must look for a way to let out tears from his eyes in order to be able to bring down the rain.

But that was no big deal. His tobacco box was there. A deep sniff into his two wide nostrils would force the tears to drop.

The tobacco gave him bouts sneezes as he scooped some snuff into his nostrils. While he sneezed uncontrollably, he batted his eyelids and let out tears.

Usually, when tears rolled from my father’s eyes, hell would let loose from the sky. The more he cried, the more it rained.

My father was highly skilled in rainmaking and he pronounced himself the king of the rain.

My father wasn't born with any disability. But he had been severally disabled.

He was disabled by the thunder and the flashes of lightning.

He limped because thunder had struck his both legs. He walked with the support of a walking stick.

He lost his left eye too to the wind. It happened at his rainmaking fire.

The wind came from nowhere and blew away the smoking fire. It lodged the hot ashes into his eyes and the left eye never opened afterwards.

The beasts my father aroused hunted him but he failed to realize that he did not have the sole power over the rain as he had claimed.

The Journey of no Return

No rainmaker has been able to rise in our community to replace my father after his disappearance. People say he disappeared with rainmaking skills.

I don’t think so. He didn’t. He raised me. But no one knew.

Rainmaking runs in my vain, although I did not become a renowned rainmaker like my father.

I refused to carry his mystic rain bag because of my love for city life. I am sold away into city life, into the world of technology where mystics power is branded useless and myths.

But I may be miles away from the rainmaking stone. I may be miles away from the rain herbs, I may be miles away from my father's rainmaking mystic bag but am still a rain-girl.

I perceive rain from the sky and predict its nearness to the earth. I forecast rainfalls for my neighbors in the city and I have never failed in any.

The rain has an aroma. The more it is closer to the earth, the more the aroma becomes thicker and heavier. I predict the days of rainfall by the heaviness of the rain scent from the sky.

It is been more than 20 years since my father left in search of rain herbs and did not return.

On that fateful day, he made me sat on his rain chair, beside the rainmaking stone. He gave me his mystic rain bag and left instructions on how to induce rain when it slowed.

I did as he instructed but he never returned to take over from where he stopped.

My father invoked rain on that fateful day but he was drowned by the same rain he had invoked.

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