Dead custom: As the effects of climate change continue to ravage the world with both flooding and drought, communities around the world are struggling to cope.

In some parts of Africa, droughts have become the norm as once cyclic weather patterns have been disrupted and even the once revered rainmakers cannot help. This is the subject of a documentary by Ugandan filmmaker Dominic Dipio.

Dipio explores the custom of rainmaking among the Ma’di of northern Uganda. In June 2015, Dipio, an associate professor at Makerere University, led a field research to Ma’di sub-region to document on video, the tradition of rainmaking among the Ma’di.

According to Dipio, rainmaking, like other traditional customs, is a disappearing practice in Uganda, although it appears to be more active among the Ma’di of South Sudan.

The 66-minutes long film launched early this year tells the story of a sedentary agrarian community of the West Nile district of Moyo and Adjumani. The rainmaker was once a revered hereditary chief among the Ma’di, and he made rain by using a special set of white rain stones called eyi kwe in the Ma’di language. To make rain, he smeared the stones with special herbs and python oil and depending on how he handled them, he could regulate the amount of rainfall or so it was believed.

Stephen Moini Pau, a Ma’di rainmaker says the rainmaker intervened during a long drought. “The ritual involved a peculiar way of slaughtering a black sheep at the ritual ground. Then the rain stones are brought out and smeared with the herbs and python oil. A short ceremony later, there would be rain called obu that goes on for long hours. This was followed by white ants harvest and the fishermen would also make a big catch.”

The community punishes rainmakers who fail to make rain by forcing them to either sit in the sun for long hours or get put on an anthill, and suffer ant-bites until they beg for mercy.