Weather Shaman

Rain-makers in Native California and the Great Basin

An article in the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology (Parkman, 1993) summarizes earlier ethnographic records and says that weather specialists in native California were employed to forecast weather changes and to attract or dispel rain. It reports that these rain-makers were often shamans who had Sacred Thunder as an ally, and, citing Kroeber (1925), that rain-makers were common in most California tribes. The article is a synthesis and argues a hypothesis, so its wider conclusions are the author's interpretation of other researchers' field records.

Parkman writes that in the drier southern part of the region rain-makers were usually employed to make rain, while in the wetter north they were also often asked to stop it. Peoples named in his survey include the Pomo, Coast Miwok, Yokuts, Chumash, Wintu, Shasta, Hupa and the Paiute and Chemehuevi of the Great Basin margins. The records he draws on are mostly early twentieth-century ethnographies.

The pawang hujan in Indonesia

A 2023 literature review in an Indonesian cultural and religious studies journal describes the pawang hujan, or rain handler, as a specialist whom communities engage to hold back or move rain so that a celebration or outdoor activity is not disturbed. The review, citing other Indonesian studies, reports that knowledge is said to pass through family inheritance or through dreams attributed to ancestors, and that a rain handler is described as having a prestigious place in the Javanese palace tradition of Surakarta.

The same review cites a source that dates rain-handling in Indonesia to well before the colonial period, but it does not give dated archival evidence for that claim. It is a secondary review of eight studies, drawn from a Google Scholar and web search, rather than fieldwork.

Neo-shamanic weather-working

Contemporary neo-shamanic teaching, represented here by a 1999 article by Nan Moss and David Corbin in the Foundation for Shamanic Studies journal Shamanism, presents weather-working as part of what it calls the shaman's job description in many cultures. The authors describe their own drumming journeys to meet a spirit of weather and call for a renewed relationship with such spirits. These are the authors' statements of the practice's own premises, not independent history.

Rain doctor, rain-maker and weather shaman

Ethnographic and archaeological writing uses several overlapping terms. Parkman uses rain-maker, rain-shaman and weather specialist, and Gilreath and Hildebrandt (2008) refer to Numic rain shamans when describing a theory about Great Basin rock art. The terms are used by outside scholars rather than being a single native category, and which people named which specialists, and how, varies between the peoples recorded.

Gilreath and Hildebrandt cite Kelly (1936) for the point that, among the Chemehuevi, weather shamans had no guardian spirits, which they use to argue against equating weather control with other forms of shamanic vision. Whether weather specialists should be grouped with other shamans is therefore itself a point on which scholars differ.

Indonesian and neo-shamanic usage

Indonesian sources use pawang hujan, which the 2023 review translates as rain handler, and English-language news reports often render it as rain shaman. The review also uses the phrase weather engineering ritual for the practice. Moss and Corbin use weather-working and spirits of weather. General features of shamanic practice, such as journeying and spirit helpers, are described on the Shamanic Healing page and are not repeated here.

Methods recorded in Native California and the Great Basin

Parkman sorts recorded California methods into four related groups that he calls ritual thunder, clouds, wind and rain, and he argues that they rested on a belief that a storm could be brought about by ritually creating one aspect of it. Examples he cites include throwing water into the air (Pomo, Coast Miwok, Yokuts), burning roots or tree splinters to make smoke (Shasta, Wintu) and, for the Wintu, smoking tobacco during the ritual. He describes these as examples of sympathetic magic, which is his analytic label rather than a term the peoples used.

Parkman reports that the Paiute twirled a bull-roarer to bring a warmer wind to melt snow, that the Chemehuevi used a bull-roarer made from mountain-sheep horn for rain-making, and that several California groups linked the bull-roarer with thunder. He also suggests that charmstones, pitted boulders and possibly quartz crystals may have served as thunder-making tools, citing a Southwestern report of quartz crystals called lightning stones. The quartz crystal link is presented as a possibility, not an established record. Gilreath and Hildebrandt quote a Kawaiisu account in which a shaman put tree lichen in a hot spring to bring rain.

The pawang hujan at events

The 2023 review reports that rain handlers use objects, offerings and spoken mantras, that practices differ between handlers, and that in some regions handlers recite Qur'anic verses and perform two cycles of prayer. It adds that handlers are said to sense the shift of wind direction and cloud movement. The best-known recent case was in March 2022 at the Mandalika circuit on Lombok, where, according to studies the review cites, a rain handler named Rara Istiani Wulandari was engaged under the auspices of the state-owned tourism development company for 21 working days at a fee of about 105 million rupiah.

Contemporary neo-shamanic ritual

Moss and Corbin describe methods they regard as typical of harmonious weather-working as song, chant, dance, prayer and offerings such as tobacco, and they describe leading group drumming sessions in which participants journey to seek a spirit of weather. They state that shamans must defer to spiritual forces, knowing that attempts to influence weather may or may not have any identifiable effect. Restricted ceremonial procedures of specific peoples are not described on this page.

Livelihood, forecasting and event protection

In the Native California material, Parkman says rain mattered for subsistence, and that during drought, or when rain was needed to bring fish upriver, the rain-maker was considered important to a community. He also describes weather specialists as forecasting changes in weather. In Indonesia the 2023 review describes rain handlers as engaged so that weddings and other outdoor events are not interrupted, and as seen by supporters as a form of cultural preservation and local wisdom.

The review also reports that the 2022 Mandalika episode was read by some commentators as promoting cultural tourism, and that others regarded it as a marketing device. These are interpretations of public reaction and do not indicate that any weather effect was measured.

Spiritual and ecological purposes in neo-shamanism

Moss and Corbin say the purpose of weather-working is a reciprocal relationship with the spirits of weather, and they describe it as a way to enhance well-being and harmony in oneself, others and the Earth. They also claim that human thoughts, emotions and sense of connection with nature may affect weather. They report that some Colorado ski resorts requested weather-working services for snowfall. All of these are the authors' claims, and the sources reviewed here include no independent confirmation of them.

Tests of ritual weather effects

No controlled trial, systematic review or other formal test of whether weather-working rituals alter weather was found in the sources reviewed. A PubMed search for weather shaman, rain shaman or rain-making ritual returned records, but none of the first ten examined a weather ritual. The 2023 review of Indonesian rain handlers analyzes eight earlier studies, and their stated purposes concern culture, religion and public opinion rather than testing effects.

In the 2022 Mandalika case, the Indonesian meteorological agency BMKG said it had forecast rain for March 18 to 20 and that its forecast for March 20 was fully accurate. Its officials described belief in rain handlers as people's belief and said the agency could only make predictions based on science. A single event without a comparison cannot show whether a ritual had any effect, and the review reports that many Indonesians assumed the rain eased because of the forecast.

Atmospheric science context

A 2025 statement from the World Meteorological Organization on weather modification, which concerns material cloud seeding and not ritual, says recent wintertime glaciogenic seeding of orographic clouds has shown an evidence-based causal relationship for that specific method. It adds that results depend on natural cloud characteristics, that in highly complex clouds such as supercells the seeding signal is largely masked by natural variability, and that scientific proof for hail cannons and ionization methods at the cloud scale is lacking. None of this addresses ritual practice, and it should not be read as support for it.

Scholarly debate over rain shamans and rock art

Gilreath and Hildebrandt (2008) summarize a theory by David Whitley that Numic rain shamans from across the Great Basin made Coso Range rock art on vision quests, and they dispute it, saying that the Chemehuevi sources cited do not link shamanic practice to rock art. Quinlan (2000) likewise reexamines Whitley's ethnographic sources and concludes that they offer poor support for a shamanistic interpretation. This debate concerns the interpretation of archaeology and ethnography, not whether rain-making rituals work.

Safety literature and standards

No safety literature on weather shamanism was found in the sources reviewed, including no adverse-event reports or studies of harms. The sources also describe no training standard, professional register or code of ethics for weather shamans or rain handlers, and no statutory regulation or training standard was found. Neo-shamanic courses and traditional lineages are separate settings, and no source reviewed compares them.

Moss and Corbin themselves caution that attempting to influence weather without wisdom can have disastrous consequences, and they list the ethics of influencing weather as a question for practitioners. This is a statement within the practice and not a finding about actual risk.

Religious and cultural considerations

The 2023 review reports that Indonesian scholars hold differing views. An Islamic study it cites regards using a rain handler as a deviation from Islamic creed, while a Christian study it cites encourages open engagement with local wisdom. Some people in the cited village studies decline rain handlers because they regard rain as a blessing. Readers may therefore weigh religious or personal convictions when considering such services.

Care boundaries

The sources reviewed do not state any risk from relying on a ritual forecast or weather effect in severe conditions, and no study of such reliance was found. Forecasts and warnings from national meteorological services remain the conventional basis for decisions about storms, floods and other extreme weather, and nothing in these sources suggests a ritual replaces them. Ceremonies that belong to particular peoples may carry restrictions, and this page gives only an overview.