Our recent ancestors had numerous methods for rainmaking and putting an end to drought. In this gem of an article published in 1911, we learn some of these old Pagan-esque methods used in Russia, Romania, and Serbia.
Odd Rainmaking Customs
Besides the use of bad languages as a popular means of procuring rain, there are various other tricks to which members of the human race have recourse in time of drought.
There is a village in Russia, for instance, where three men used to climb certain fir trees in seasons of drought, one of the three having a vessel of water which he would sprinkle all around. One of the other two hammered on a kettle or made some similar noise in the hope of thereby producing thunder, and the third scattered sparks from firebrands as a warning to the lightning to make haste.
In Romania, Serbia, and other countries the charm for rain is more picturesque.
Here a troop of girls, the leader of whom is naked save for a covering of leaves, herbs, and flowers, goes in procession from house to house through the village, and as they pass singing for rain the householders drench them with buckets of water.
The ceremony, says a writer in the London Daily News, regularly takes place all over Romania on the third Tuesday after Easter, but it may be expected at any time of drought during the summer.
There is yet another wetting Romanian custom described. Sometimes when rain is needed the Romanians make a clay figure to represent drought, cover it with a pall, and place it in an open coffin.
Girls crouch round the coffin and lament, saying: “Drought is dead! Lord, give us rain!”
Then the coffin is carried by children in funeral procession, with a burning wax candle before it, while lamentations fill the air.
Finally, they throw the coffin and the candle into a stream or well.
In unspoiled parts of Russia the popular methods of influencing the weather are less funereal. Sometimes, for instance, after service in church the priest in his robes has been thrown down on the ground and drenched with water by his parishioners.
In Kursk, a province of southern Russia, when rain is much wanted the women seize a passing stranger and throw him into the river or souse him from head to foot.
Source: The Grenada sentinel. (Grenada, Miss.), 06 Oct. 1911.
