sky is very clearly marked. They call the mother of twins by a name
which means "Heaven" (_Tilo_), and consistently they style the twins
themselves "Children of Heaven" (_Bana ba Tilo_).[72] The mother is even
said to have "made Heaven," to have "carried Heaven," and to have
"ascended to Heaven."[73] The connexion which is believed to exist
between her and the twins on the one side and the sky on the other is
brought out plainly in the customs which the Baronga observe for the
purpose of procuring rain in time of drought. Thus they will take a
mother of twins, put her in a hole, and pour on her water which they
have drawn from all the wells, till the hole is half full, and the water
comes up to her breast. This is thought to make the rain fall.[74] Or
again, in order to get rain, the women will strip themselves naked
except for a girdle and head-dress of grass, and thus attired will go in
procession, headed by a mother of twins, and pour water on the graves of
twins. And if the body of a twin has been buried in dry ground, they
will dig it up and bury it again near a river; for the grave of a twin,
in their opinion, should always be wet. Thus they hope to draw down rain
on the thirsty ground.[75] Again, when a thunderstorm is raging and
lightning threatens to strike a village, the Baronga will say to a twin,
"Help us! you are a Child of Heaven! You can therefore cope with Heaven;
it will hear you when you speak." So the child goes out of the hut and
prays to Heaven as follows: "Go away! Do not annoy us! We are afraid. Go
and roar far away." When the thunderstorm is over, the child is thanked
for its services. The mother of twins is also supposed to be able to
help in the same way, for has she not, as the natives express it,
ascended to Heaven? They say that she can speak with Heaven, and that
she is at it or in it.[76] Among the Kpelle, a negro tribe of Liberia,
twins are regarded as born magicians, and as such are treated with
respect, and people sometimes make them presents in order to ensure
their goodwill; in doing so they are careful never to make a present to
the one twin without the other, and the twin who was born last gets his
present first, for he is regarded as the first-born. Twins are thought
by the Kpelle to do wonders; they even say that "a twin surpasses every
medicine-man."[77] Among the Fan or Fang, a tribe of the Cameroons in
West Africa, there is a curious superstition that a twin ought not to
see a