How Rain is Caused

Author: Paul Anthony Kadau

An Ancient Belief

Many hundreds of years ago, the old people believed that rain came in a special way. An old woman in a small village told this story.

She said that one day the sun was shining so brightly that the land, the grass, the trees, and all the plants people grew began to dry up. Everyone was very worried because their crops and animals needed water.

The Goddess's Intervention

In the village lived an old woman who was thought to have special powers. She came out of her home carrying a large jar. She walked to the stream and dropped the jar into the water. As she did this, she said special prayers and words.

That very evening, the sky grew dark and heavy. A strong wind began to blow. Soon the rain started to fall very hard. When the people saw the rain, they were so happy and grateful.

From that day on, the old people believed that putting a jar in the water made the rain come.

This narrative is part of Sabah Stories, a collection of traditional tales and indigenous folklore originally gathered and rendered into English by scholars attending Saint Francis Xavier High School in Keningau, Sabah, North Borneo, throughout 1968–1973. The text presented here has been entirely rewritten using contemporary language and phrasing whilst preserving all factual content, cultural terminology, place names, character designations, and the substantive narrative elements of the original source. This is not a reproduction of the original material.