_Chitowe_ (Siluwi) has not such a good character. He is associated with famine. He is often represented as having one leg, one arm, one side of his nose, and so on—the other half of his body being supplied by beeswax. He is invoked by the women on the day of initiating (kuumbala) their fields. The women of a village form a great procession when the new crop has begun to grow. They chant a hymn to Chitowe, imploring him on behalf of their crops. Chitowe may become a child or a young woman. In this disguise he visits villages, and tells whether the coming year will bring food or famine. He receives their hospitality, but throws the food over his shoulder without eating it. Chitowe is a child or subject of Mtanga, and some speak of several Chitowe who are messengers of Mtanga. _Mpambe_ is often invoked by the Anyasa at great supplications for rain. This Mpambe in the Yao language is “Njasi,” in English “Lightning”. The Yao say that Mpambe is sent by Mtanga with rain. This is a mythological expression of the fact that the lightning in this quarter is always associated with rain. This last example shows how natural it is for man to deify the powers he sees around him. At first he is greatly touched with all the emotions of “wonder, love, and awe,” as he considers how much he is indebted to the shower that makes his food grow. He is ready to fall down and worship. What shall he worship? The mountain whose lofty summit is clothed with the rain cloud, or the lightning that springs from the cloud? He goes over everything he can fairly associate with the rain, and still he is not satisfied—he craves for something that can understand him. He looks back to the days of his youth. He remembers a grandfather who told how he had fled from the face of an oppressor, how he had built his home far up near the mountain top, and there brought up his family in safety. By and by as dangers passed away, this ancestor moved farther down the mountain; gradually he increased in power, and in his old age found himself the chief of a clan. Yet he never forgot the days of his adventure, and ever pointed proudly to the spot where he had first found a shelter; and his children’s children, as they listened to the old man’s tale, counted the ground holy. The days come when they can see the old man no more. “But does he not still exist? Yea—did we not hear his words as we listened to sounds that played about the mountain side? Did we not see him, though it was but for a moment, sitting beside his own home as he used to sit long ago? He wore the very same dress. Did he not appear to us in our dreams? There, too, we saw him moving beside his old home. Yes, he is living on our mountain still.[6] He is taking care of us. He knows when we need rain, and he sends it. We must give him something; when he had corn he always gave us. Now, the poor man has no crop; but perhaps his needs are many. We will give him food, we will give him slaves, and he will not forget us.”