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Indigenous knowledge about natural phenomena is based on practical and real life experiences of the indigenous people. Sources of the following information are learners, educators, community leaders, community knowledge holders, experts and literature.

Grayson et al. (2005) and Kelder (2006) say that indigenous people used their keen sense of observation and talent of story-telling to explain natural phenomena of lightning and thunder. They knew the dangers of thunder and lightning and their stories often carried warnings.

Kelder (2006) gives the following examples: The /Xam or Khoisan distinguished between violent male rain that was often accompanied by thunder and lightning and soft soaking

female rain. The supernatural being,! Khwa, was able to use the thunder and lightning of male

rain to punish disobedient children. Some African tribes believed that lightning took on the form a bird that they called the lightning bird or chimunga. It was a large black bird with a long curled beak which it could use to cause serious wounds on its victims. (People struck by lightning have wounds on their bodies).

Another tribe believed that thunder was an elderly mother sheep and that lightning was her swift, short tempered son who, when upset, would destroy people and property. Her mother would then raise her voice to shout at him and try to restrain him but she was always too slow for him. (Light travels much faster than sound. It travels at 3 × 108ms-1 compared to the speed of sound which is 340ms-1). It is believed that the mother and her son were banished from the earth by the ruler of the tribe. They went up the skies where they live but visit the earth now and again in the form of lightning and thunder.

According to the experts and the indigenous knowledge holders, the Xhosa people call lightning umbane and they differentiate two types of lightning.

The first type is one they call kuhambele umhlekazi. Kuhambele means a visit while

umhlekazi means honouring or respecting. Lightning would then be seen as a respected visit

from a high level usually the ancestors or God. The ancestors and/or the Almighty would have a purpose when they make that visit. There is a reason why lightning strikes. It is either the ancestors are angry or they want something done for them. Such lightning is not associated with evil. The village elders or those affected (whose homes, property or relatives were destroyed by the lightning) would then consult inyanga or sangoma who would then tell them the meaning of the visit. The inyanga could be igqrrha –the traditional healer who can talk with the ancestors and get their message, or ixhwele -the medicine man, the person who knows the herbs and their functions, or isasuse –who is a combination of the two inyanga above.

A traditional cleansing and preventing ceremony would then be conducted by the inyanga. The cleansing ceremony involves the affected people being given different herbs to drink and lose through forced vomiting and defaecating, a process known as ukugabha or ukuchatha. The whole process is meant to erase (ukucima) the effect of the lightning. However, it was emphasised that the relationship between the living and the ancestors must first be mended before these ceremonies could be done because “Physical treatment will not be effective unless the (broken) relationship is first mended” (Ryan, 2008, p. 668). The preventing ceremony is meant to prevent further attacks by lightning. Even before the lightning, some people would protect their homes from lightning and other evils through a ceremony known as ukuqinisa umzi. Ukuqinisa means to strengthen or protect while umzi means homestead. The second type of lightning is the one that is associated with powerful but evil people who use the lightning bird, umpundulu, to send lightning to their enemies. It is believed that such people need only a few clouds in the sky to create and send their lightning.

To prevent lightning several things could be done. These include:

 When lightning is threatening a village, a diviner, in an effort to protect his village from the lightning would come out of his hut clad in traditional attire with a medicined spear in his hand and do some traditional dances, singing and challenging the lightning to strike. The other villagers could be beating the drums and singing. It is believed that when the lightning bird saw and heard this, it would become afraid and move on to some other place. Folklore has it that sometimes the diviner would get killed by the lightning in this process. When that happened, the explanation would be that the diviner made an error in doing some of the rituals or that the diviner was pompous, not realising that the powers that he had come from the ancestors. The ancestors would be angry and punish him with death.

 A person would hold a thorny branch above his/her head when lightning is threatening. It is believed that when the lightning bird sees the thorns, it becomes afraid to attack and moves on to some place.

 The Xhosa people grow a special plant on the thatch of their huts to divert lightning strikes. They also plant it around their huts for protection. (Science recommends the use of lightning conductors that would take the lightning into the ground rather than into the house.)

 Certain behaviours were prohibited. These include: not playing with or in water during a thunderstorm (Water is a good conductor of electricity and so it is strongly advised to stay away from water sources during a lightning storm.); not to sit near a window or door (Electricity will seek the path of least and lowest resistance), not to sit near a fire place in the kitchen and fire in the hut must be put out (lightning travels more easily through warm air than through cold air and smoke is a good conductor of electricity; (this could also explain why huts, where the cooking is done and hence where heat and smoke are generated are targeted by lightning most of the time at a homestead); to open windows (probably to reduce the warmth in the hut); people must be seated and not standing, they must not take refuge under tall trees, they must not walk alone in a plain field (lightning targets tall objects); switching off electrical gadgets and covering shiny objects such as mirrors.

Stories and beliefs from Zimbabwe about lightning

For this research, I talked with a number of people from various walks of life in my country, Zimbabwe, to find out what they knew and believed about lightning and their experiences with this natural phenomenon. The following are a few descriptions of what I was told. I have no reason to doubt these episodes and stories.

A lecturer in Philosophy of Education at a Teachers College who is doing post graduate studies with UNISA told me his own experiences with lightning. One day lightning struck and burnt a hut in which he had been only a few moments before the lightning bolt. He was the only occupant of the hut at that time. The elders in the village told him that the lightning had been sent to him by his enemy. They advised him to consult a n’anga (an indigenous medicine man) to get protection against possible future lightning attacks on him. He ignored their advice. He was already a teacher at that time and according to him “It was just coincidence that I had left the hut just in time.” Then one day as he was herding his cattle, there was a lightning bolt that killed two of his big oxen. Again the elders pleaded with him to get protection and again he ignored their advice. That was until, according to him, ‘I read for my studies about post modernism which taught me that Science was not the only explanation of natural phenomena.’ I did not ask whether he went to the n’anga for protection after this revelation. (It would have been culturally insensitive for me to ask that question). It is, however, clear that the man is questioning his original beliefs about the cause

of lightning. He seems to think that there could be other causes besides or in addition to the scientific explanation that he was taught at school.

Two men (X and Y) quarrel at a beer party. X threatens Y with unspecified consequences. One day a lightning bolt hits Y’s homestead. Y is not at home at the time of the bolt. He is at some beer party. The people at Y’s homestead at the time of the bolt are not hurt but are very terrified by the enormity of the lightning. Word reaches Y and he rushes back home. A lightning bolt hits the homestead where there was the beer party. Again it terrifies people but does not hurt anybody. Y had left the beer party. Before Y gets home, there is a third lightning bolt that kills Y. The villagers believe that it was X’s lightning that was hunting for and eventually killed Y. (In my discussions with my research participants, we came across similar stories, not from Africa but from Western Europe, written in a Physics book. Lightning had followed certain people, according to that book, and struck them several times before, in one case, the man eventually got killed by it. In that same case, the lightning followed the man even after death and struck his grave. Amazing indeed!) (See Appendix 11

for details on these stories from the Western world).

A man arrives at a police station carrying a small bag. He says to the policeman in charge of the station ’I have come to leave a magic potion that I no longer need because I am now a born again Christian.’ The police officer is curious. He wants to know what the magic potion is for and he is told that it is for causing lightning. The policeman challenges the magic man to prove that his magic potion works to which the magic man quips ‘would you want to be the victim?’ The police officer is terrified. The story then goes on to say that the magic man directed his lightning at a nearby tree which got burnt. I have seen the burnt tree but one cannot tell by looking at it how it got burnt.

Other beliefs from Zimbabwe include: lightning is a hen that lays its eggs in one place. The hen then comes back either to lay more eggs or to check its eggs. (There are some places that are prone to lightning. They are struck again and again.); moving objects are easier targets of lightning than stationary objects; lightning is attracted to red objects or red clothes.