Weird or What

The last few days I have been thinking about writing the blog about rain sticks. I have resisted the urge quite well until tonight. I don’t know why I feel this compulsion, but perhaps there is someone out there that for some reason has influenced the universe to cause someone (me) to inform them about rain sticks. It is possible I suppose.

 

I don’t want anyone to confuse rain sticks with Klingon Pain sticks. Klingon pain sticks are a cattle prod like device that are used for rituals in the Klingon Empire. They are used in the Rite of Ascension where a young Klingon must walk between two lines of Klingons bearing Pain sticks to test spiritual and inner strength through physical suffering. They are also used during the wedding ceremony and in some cases, to torture humans. I am assuming that not everyone is as familiar as I am of the Star Trek universe. I guess this is the reason that I want to get a cattle prod from Princess Auto, to test my inner spirituality.

The rain stick we have is about three feet long and three or three and a half inches in diameter. It is made from a type of cactus, don’t ask me which kind, which is hollow or hollowed and then dried in the sun. The spines are removed and then driven back into the cactus like nails. The hollow tube is then filled with pebbles or some other small objects and the ends are sealed. When the stick is turned over, the pebbles striking the spines cause a noise like rain falling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhU2gAlH1iE

I guess that the indigenous peoples would use these sticks to help influence or fool the gods into making it rain. Really? He can make it rain or not, but you are going to trick Him with a hollow stick full of pebbles. If He is that gullible, why not go for gold, women or money. I wonder if there is a “too fucking much rain” stick?

The thing that I find interesting is how and why the first guy did this. He would have had to cut a large length of cactus which wouldn’t be really easy, pull all of the spines out of it and then hollow it out. Then, after a couple of weeks drying in the sun (hoping that it doesn’t rain I would imagine), this guy then takes a rock and drives all of the spines back into the now hollow tube, fills it with small pebbles and then seals the ends so that when he turns it upside down he would hear the sound of rain.

 

That is all well and good if this guy had seen a rain stick before and was just duplicating one. Nope, this guy did all of this work on spec. I wonder what all of the other hunter gatherers thought when this doofus sat around for a couple of weeks watching cactus dry. No one knew that this was going to eventually make the sound of rain and fool the rain god. Not only would this thing have to make a sound like a rain storm, but it would have to work and make it rain the first time it was used. If it didn’t rain, then it would be tossed on the heap of useless inventions and not even looked at until thousands of years later when the peasants were looking for something to make that the gullible white men would end up buying by the truckload.

I turned it over tonight to listen to the sound it makes while I was writing the blog and guess what? It is supposed to rain tonight, is that weird or what?