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Thursday 5 May 2016

A Witchdoctor Who Really Could Make It Rain

     If you asked a typical member of a traditional society what three powers would be most desirable in a witchdoctor, he would probably say curing diseases, predicting the future, and making rain. And the last is the most difficult. After all, diseases often get better by themselves, or are improved by suggestion, and some people really do have tenuous psychic powers, or can fake it with cold reading, but how do you control the clouds? One anthropologist claimed that North American rainmakers just keep on dancing till the rain comes. Whether he validated that claim with personal investigation was not recorded. According to other experts, rainmaking is something the average witchdoctor leaves alone, because he knows it can destroy his reputation. But what happens if a person really does summon up just the right amount of rain in the time frame he nominated?  I have previously recorded how the Queen and Prince Philip were the beneficiaries of one such sorcerer. The tale of the Jívaro witchdoctor therefore deserves repeating.