Rainmakers are probably the kind of ǃgiːxɑ (sorcerer) most often mentioned in the Bantu Studies narratives (see Parts 5–8). One likely reason for their pre-eminence is the nature and frequency of rain in |xɑm-kɑ ǃɑũ – the annual rainfall is extremely low, averaging 200 mm a year, and long droughts are common. Rain occurs in the form of localised thunderstorms that bring relief to some parts of the country, but leave others dry. After the rain, the Karoo grasses, shrubs and plants that lay dormant underground sprout rapidly. It was then that the |xɑm people harvested veldkos and hunted the springbok that came to eat the fresh vegetation. The work of the ǃkhwɑː-gɑː ǃkˀe (‘water’s’ or ‘rain's people’) was vital: they were responsible for bringing the rain to the people's ǃxóːë (‘place’) so that they could find food.

Fetching the rain

In Part 5, we saw that in certain contexts people thought of precipitation as a rain animal; the Part 6 narratives describe how the rain's sorcerers ‘worked magic’ upon these ǃkhwɑː kɑ xɔrɔ (‘rain-cattle’) so that rain would fall where the people needed it. Several terms are used interchangeably to describe people who fetch (ǂxɑmmɑ) the rain – ǃgiːtǝn (‘medicine men’), ǃkhwɑː-gɑ ǃkˀe (‘water's people’) and ǃkhwɑː-gɑ ǃgeitji or ǃkhwɑː-gɑ ǃgeitǝn (‘water's medicine men’). Rain sorcerers could ǂxɑmmɑ the rain in several ways. The word ǂxɑmmɑ is given as ‘fetch’ or ‘seek’ (Bleek 1956: 678), but these translations do not convey the nature of ‘fetching’ or ‘seeking’ – it was first translated as to ‘work magic’ (see B.XXVII: 2545 in Narrative 6.1; Lewis-Williams 1992).

One way of fetching the rain animal was to ambush it at the waterhole in which it stayed during the daytime. The rain animal, like a hippopotamus, grazed at night. People waited downwind for its return, slipping a thong (|hãũ) over its neck and pacifying it with the smoke of burning herbs (sɑ̃ː; see Narrative 3.4, note to lines 11–12).

Sound was also an important element of a second technique used to summon rain: in Narrative 6.12, |hɑŋǂkɑssʼo explains that some people brought rain by striking a bow string (|hou-kɑ ǃnũï ). A third method of finding a rain animal was to dream (‖khɑbbo) it. |hɑŋǂkɑssʼo describes an instance when a group of rainmakers dreamt rain to come (Narrative 6.10); shortly afterwards, a thunderstorm arrived.