for October 1908 I said I had been unable to find any explanation of the custom. This is supplied by Dr. Francis Buchanan in Asiatick Researches for 1779, vol. vi., p. 193 sq.
In some of the Burma writings it is said, that when the sun is in the path of the goat, these nat do not chuse to leave their houses on account of the great heat, whence there is then no rain. For this reason, the inhabitants of the Burma Empire, in times of drought, are wont to assemble in great numbers, with drums and a long cable. Dividing themselves into two parties, with a vast shouting and noise, they drag the cable contrary ways, the one party endeavouring to get the better of the other: and they think, by this means, to invite the nat to come out from their houses, and to sport in the air. The thunder and lightning, which frequently precede rain are the clashing and shining of the arms of these nat, who sometimes sport in mock-battles.
So in The Shans at Home, p. 207, Mrs. Leslie Milne mentions a poetic fancy of the Shans that thunder is caused by the gods playing polo and galloping their horses over the clouds: lightning flashes from their hoofs as they strike them against the stars.
A less common way of producing rain is to take the image of Shin Upăgôk (Upagupta) and put it in the sun; just as St. Joseph was put in the sun at Palermo and told that he would be kept where he was till rain fell.[1] Upagupta was a Buddhist saint and missionary in India who seems to have been identified with the Burmese rain-god. In Burma his image is sometimes to be found in a Buddhist temple, looking up to the sky. He is said to live in a many roofed pavilion surrounded with water. Anyone who wishes to invoke his aid must send him a message in a golden bowl. There is also a legend of his having been compelled to remain naked as a punishment for having,
- ↑ The Magic Art, p. 300. For Shin Upăgôk see my note in Man for October 1908.
