NAMISINDWA, Uganda (AP) — The farmers who paid David Nabutsilili money to summon rain were angry when they received so much of it that their vegetable gardens were left flooded. They chased him up and down the hills, stopping when he fell upon a rock and broke a femur. That was his punishment.
Sixteen years later, the rainmaker still feels pain in his leg. Many of those who pursued him regularly seek his spiritual help when they need rain, especially during the planting season, but also when they seek to block it. If he fails to meet their expectations, he must temporarily flee his home for his own safety, Nabutsilili told The Associated Press during an interview in his village in eastern Uganda.
"People beat us because sometimes the rain is too much, or there is no rain," he said.
African rainmakers have long served as spiritual leaders in their communities, performing rituals to ask deities to bring rain. But their perceived successes can create enormous expectations among farming communities in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Now they are increasingly targeted for their presumed failure to perform amid the vexations of climate change. In the most extreme cases, they are killed by mobs.
"We have been with these people, and indeed sometimes they have done (rituals) and we have had rain," said Joseph Weyusya, an elder with Inzu ya Masaaba, a traditional institution of the Bagisu people of eastern Uganda.
But sometimes the weather is uncooperative.
"When the rains refuse, people gather around the village and then start looking for them — 'Why are we not having rain?'" Weyusya said. "And most times they have beaten such people to almost near death."
In South Sudan, which neighbors Uganda to the north, at least two rainmakers have been killed in the past two years. In 2024, Solomon Oture was buried alive in the remote mountain village of Lohobohobo during a dry spell. In June, in a southeastern area facing a prolonged dry spell, men abducted a rainmaker named Albino Lobillia and buried him alive, according to witnesses.
"There was no food, and animals began dying in large numbers because of the drought," said Madelina Tito, a relative of Lobillia and a local chief. "They held meetings and decided he should be killed because, according to them, he had refused to command the rain."
A study last year in the International Journal of Environment and Climate Change found that the average annual number of rainy days in the Kapoeta region, which borders Lobillia's home area, had fallen from 90 in the 1980s to 46 by the mid-2010s, the most recent period for which figures were available. When rain does come, it is often sudden and intense.
"Communities in the most flood-prone areas have spent the last few years alternating between losing crops to floods and losing them to drought," said Joris Gasper, a researcher for REACH Initiative, a humanitarian group active in South Sudan.
Unsurprisingly, many farmers blame rainmakers for their misfortune. In Uganda, as in South Sudan, millions depend on subsistence agriculture to feed their families. Erratic weather can destroy livelihoods, putting rainmakers on the spot over their perceived inability to do their work.
"It's becoming worse and worse," said Matthew Oromo, a government official in Lobillia's home area, speaking of violence against rainmakers. "People are not aware of what is happening. They don't understand this issue of climate change."
Although no Ugandan rainmakers have been killed, some have been assaulted and even reported to authorities for allegedly obtaining money under false pretenses.
Nabutsilili, 45, said he was possessed by the rainmaking spirit as a 14-year-old boy when his legs mysteriously developed wounds. His first task came from cabbage transporters who put him atop their truck and asked him to keep the rain away. It did not rain on them, and he went on to become his village's most reliable rainmaker even as erratic weather patterns occasionally confounded him and those he serves.
If things don't work out, he said, that is what God wishes. "In life there are always things that fail," he said of rainmaking. "It doesn't stop (us) from trying again."
Rainmakers in Uganda can be consulted in their homes, or in the bars where they go to drink. Those who need their services are required to pay a fee, which can range from a token as small as $13 to an amount as high as $260, which is what Nabutsilili was paid to block the rain the day President Yoweri Museveni came to the region last year to campaign for reelection. It didn't rain that day.
The quid pro quo is said to contribute to violence targeting rainmakers when they refuse to refund the money after perceived failures. Unlike Christian priests and medicine men, who generally command respect, rainmakers are sometimes seen as malicious people who retaliate against whole communities for quarrels with their neighbors.
"Sometimes when you have grown your crops, like this season, and there is no rain and you give them money to bring rain, they bring rain that destroys our crops," said farmer Paul Boyi.
Some in Namatsokha, Nabutsilili's village, recalled a recent incident when work at a construction site was frustrated by persistent rain only at the scene. The rain reportedly stopped after several rainmakers were paid, fueling suspicions that they had caused it deliberately.
Nabutsilili, who walks barefoot wherever he goes, is widely seen as spiritually strong enough to summon the rain without even going to the waterfall where others perform rituals. Many said his authority was not in doubt.
Yet he was accused of failing to do his work as recently as November, detained in a neighboring village over rainfall that disrupted an important ceremony. "They said bring back the money, because you have failed to deliver," said witness Isaac Watenga. Other punishments include forcing a rainmaker to drink the muddy runoff after it rains.
There are at least four rainmakers in Namatsokha, sometimes leading to rivalries that can only be contained when they unite in associations. As this is not always possible, there can be competition among rainmakers trying to discredit each other, said 30-year-old Kilindon Simiyu, another of the village's rainmakers.
"You can give me money to stop the rain. Then my colleague finds out that they have given me money to stop the rain and the colleague brings rain," he said.
One recent morning, Simiyu and Nabutsilili descended into the depths of a waterfall and appeared to pray as they chewed on some herbs. Namatsokha had not received rain for many weeks, and many locals described the spell as one of the driest they had known. Some seemed skeptical as the men performed the rainmaking ritual.
"We are having difficulties because, sometimes when it is supposed to rain, it doesn't rain," Simiyu said afterward. "So we use our powers to try and bring it, but it doesn't come as it used to come in those days."
Falzetta reported from Nairobi, Kenya.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.