In ancient Roman religion, the Manes or Di Manes are chthonic deities sometimes thought to represent souls of deceased loved ones. They were associated with the Lares, Lemures, Genii, and Di Penates as deities (di) that pertained to domestic, local, and personal cult. They belonged broadly to the category of di inferi, "those who dwell below", the undifferentiated collective of divine dead. The Manes were honored during the Parentalia and Feralia in February.
Weather modification is the act of intentionally manipulating or altering the weather. The most common form of weather modification is cloud seeding, which increases rainfall or snowfall, usually for the purpose of increasing the local water supply. Weather modification can also have the goal of preventing damaging weather, such as hail or hurricanes, from occurring; or of provoking damaging weather against an enemy, as a tactic of military or economic warfare like Operation Popeye, where clouds were seeded to prolong the monsoon in Vietnam. Weather modification in warfare has been banned by the United Nations under the Environmental Modification Convention.
Cloud seeding is a type of weather modification that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation, mitigate hail or disperse fog. The usual objective is to increase rain or snow, either for its own sake or to prevent precipitation from occurring in days afterward.
The Okavango Delta in Botswana is a vast inland delta formed where the Okavango River reaches a tectonic trough at an altitude of 930–1,000 m in the central part of the endorheic basin of the Kalahari Desert.
Dodola and Perperuna are rainmaking pagan customs widespread among different peoples in Southeast Europe until the 20th century, found in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia. It is still practiced in remote Albanian ethnographic regions, but only in rare events, when the summer is dry and without atmospheric precipitation.
Rainmaking, also known as artificial precipitation, artificial rainfall and pluviculture, is the act of attempting to artificially induce or increase precipitation, usually to stave off drought or the wider global warming. According to the clouds' different physical properties, this can be done using airplanes or rockets to sow to the clouds with catalysts such as dry ice, silver iodide and salt powder, to make clouds rain or increase precipitation, to remove or mitigate farmland drought, to increase reservoir irrigation water or water supply capacity, to increase water levels for hydropower generation, or even to solve the global warming problem.
Makobo Modjadji VI was the sixth in a line of the Balobedu tribe's Rain Queens. It is believed by her people that Makobo Modjadji had the ability to control the clouds and rivers. Makobo became queen on 16 April 2003 at the age of 25, after the death of her predecessor and grandmother, Queen Mokope Modjadji, and she reigned until her own death just two years later. This made her the youngest Queen in the history of the Balobedu tribe.
The Lobedu or Balobedu(also known as the BaLozwi or Bathobolo) are a southern African ethnic group that speak a Northern Sotho dialect. Their area is called Bolobedu. The name "balobedu" means "the mineral miners," lobela or go loba, - to mine. Their ancestors were part of the great Mapungubwe early civilization. They have their own kingdom, the Balobedu Kingdom, within the Limpopo Province of South Africa with a female ruler, the Rain Queen Modjadji.
Queen Modjadji, or the Rain Queen, is the hereditary queen of Balobedu, a people of the Limpopo Province of South Africa. The Rain Queen is believed to have special powers, including the ability to control the clouds and rainfall. She is known as a mystical and historic figure who brought rain to her allies and drought to her enemies. She is not a ruler as such, but a powerful rainmaker and a traditional healer (ngaka).
The Kingdom of Mapungubwe was an ancient state located at the confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo rivers in South Africa, south of Great Zimbabwe. The capital's population was 5000 by 1250, and the state likely covered 30,000 km².
Queen Modjadji was the hereditary female ruler and queen of Balobedu, South Africa. She is known to be mythical and historical, and she is believed to have had powers that let her control the clouds and rainfall by bringing rain to her friends and drought to their enemies.
A lapis manalis was either of two sacred stones used in the Roman religion. One covered a gate to Hades, abode of the dead; Sextus Pompeius Festus called it ostium Orci, "the gate of Orcus". The other was used to make rain; this one may have no direct relationship with the Manes, but is instead derived from the verb manare, "to flow".
Thomas N. Huffman was Professor Emeritus of archaeology in association with the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He specialised in pre-colonial farming societies in southern Africa. Huffman is most well known for his identification of the Central Cattle Pattern at Mapungubwe, a pre-colonial state in southern Africa. This, in turn he argued as the main influence in the formation of the Zimbabwe Pattern at Great Zimbabwe. Arguably his seminal contribution to the field was A Handbook to the Iron Age: The Archaeology of Pre-Colonial Farming Societies in Southern Africa (2007), which has contributed to the understanding of ceramic style analysis and culture history focusing on these groups.
Wu is a Chinese term translating to "shaman" or "sorcerer", originally the practitioners of Chinese shamanism or "Wuism".
The Mbukushu people, also known as the Hambukushu, are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group indigenous to Southern Africa. They are part of the larger Lozi ethnic group and have significant populations in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, and Zambia, numbering around 120,000.
A snow dance is a ritual that is performed with the hopes of bringing snow in the winter months. This ritual is often performed with the goal of avoiding school or work the next day. Specific snow dance rituals vary from person to person, but commonly include sleeping with silverware under one's pillow, flushing ice cubes down a toilet, or wearing pajamas inside out and backwards. Snow dancing is often performed outside in sunny or rainy conditions as the participating dancer would want it to snow that day or week, rather than be rainy or sunny. Considered by many to be an urban legend, the Snow Dance is often referred to in jest.
Maselekwane Modjadji I was the first Rain Queen of the South African Balobedu nation. Maselekwane reigned from 1800 to 1854. She was succeeded by Rain Queen Masalanabo Modjadji II.
Ga-Maphalle is a village situated along the R81 road between Mooketsi and Giyani towns in Bolobedu area. It is one of the villages under the reign of Her Royal Highness Queen Modjadji revered for her alleged ability to bring down rain.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chief Makgoba</span> [[Bakgalaka]] chief](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Statue_of_Chief_Makgoba_20220911_091607_432.jpg/320px-Statue_of_Chief_Makgoba_20220911_091607_432.jpg)
Chief (Kgoshi) Mamphoku Makgoba was a Lobedu Chief who ruled Makgobaskloof in the Soutpansberg, former Northern Transvaal, Mopani district, South Africa. His tribal totem is the Tlou of BaTlou tribe.
The ceremony of Hae Nang Maew is a traditional folklore rainmaking ritual cat procession which can be seen in Cambodia as well as Central and Northeast Thailand in times of drought, from May until August.
