Peperouda rain rituals

Image 1: Berber women dancers and musicians of Taroudant, Southern Morocco. The long red fringes of their headscarves connote fertility and rainfall. Photo: Liz Hammer, 2014.

Since ancient times people have danced for rain, the life-giving gift from heaven to earth. Rain rituals were seen as important work and were usually performed by women, traditional bringers of life and fertility. Both bearing and raising children, and cultivating the land to nourish the community, are activities dependent on, and psychically equated to, rainfall. Women’s ability to bring rain when necessary was a key belief of indigenous European culture and is found in many places today. Many women’s dances, songs and rituals in Eastern Europe and the Near East express this connection, and women’s folk costumes often feature long fringes representing water.