This certainly looks like a personification of nature-powers, which seems more probable than the suggestion that _mpambe_ only came to mean thunder or lightning because these were the work of the being to whom the name was originally applied. It is worth noticing that in Yao the rainbow is called _Mulungu_, or _ukunje wa Mulungu_ (‘the bow of Mulungu’) and an earthquake _chilungu_, which is the same word with another prefix. _Chiuta_ (which is treated by the Rev. D. C. Scott as synonymous with _Mulungu_ and _Mpambe_) is perhaps derived from the Nyanja word _uta_, ‘a bow,’ and connected with the rainbow (called in this language _uta wa Lezi_). _Lezi_, or _Leza_, meaning ‘lightning’ in the Kotakota dialect, is another synonym.[10] I have never heard it used except in the above compound. _Chiuta_ is the word used by the Atonga, and, according to the Rev. A. G. MacAlpine, ‘is very difficult to derive with certainty, but whatever its root may be, it now denotes one who inspires wonder and awe.’ If, however (as is quite possible), the name was borrowed by the Atonga from the Anyanja, this may be a secondary meaning imported into it. We shall see, later on, that a distinction seems to be made between deaths ‘by the act of Mpambe,’ and from other causes. Before leaving this part of the subject, we may note that, according to the Yao belief, Mulungu ‘arranges the spirits of the dead in rows or tiers,’ and some mysterious beings called ‘the people of Mulungu’ figure in their fragmentary legends of creation.