Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/254

 232 Collectanea.

bring it back to your room and distribute alms — it doesn't seem to matter much which of these methods you adopt, all are pro- nounced to be immediately effective. But, after all, the only ones to dabble in rain-stopping are the grain-hoarders who always hanker after drought, and the women who get bored with a few days" ram. Two other Pathan ideas about rain are perhaps worth adding. Pathan lasses are fond of scraping up the last titbits on the dish with their fingers and licking them off, much to the dis- gust of the old ladies, who know well what the consequences will be. "For the hundredth time of asking," they will say, "don't lick the pot, or there will be a downpour of rain on your wedding day." And any Pathan can tell you that if you want to change your sex, all you have to do is to go and roll under a rainbow" (p. 67).

Rain-making by holy men. — " In almost every locality throughout the land there is a holy man who receives a share of the produce known as tuk as a retaining-fee to produce rain, ward off locusts and mildew, and otherwise control nature for the good of the community. In the more civilised parts the tuk-khor or fee- receiver is a Sayyid, but in the wilder parts any holy magic-monger can be found playing the part with apparently equal success. They go to work in various ways. In Baghbana a Shekh reads some charm and lures distant clouds to the valley by \yaving his turban in their direction. . But if there has been some hitch about his ink, he is quite capable of driving the clouds over the hills and far away. Not that a tuk-khor has always the best of the matter. If rain holds off, the people seek to spur his flagging efforts by stopping his payments. If this fails, and their distress is great, they bind him hand and foot with a rope and leave him to swelter in the blazing sun the livelong day, holy Sayyid though he be, in the pious hope that he will repent him of his slackness, and call in his frenzy upon God and his sainted forefathers to save his honour by sending rain. There is nothing like this, I am told, for bringing a lazy tuk-khor to his senses^ instance could be piled on instance to prove that rain has fallen wnthin a few hours of his punishment" (p. 67).

W. Cro3KE.