Rainmaking is an ethnographic

Ethnography

Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...

 term for ritual

Ritual

A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....

s intended to invoke rain

Rain

Rain is liquid precipitation, as opposed to non-liquid kinds of precipitation such as snow, hail and sleet. Rain requires the presence of a thick layer of the atmosphere to have temperatures above the melting point of water near and above the Earth's surface...

.

Among the most well known examples of rainmaking rituals are North American rain dances, historically performed by many Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 tribes, particularly in the Southwestern United States

Southwestern United States

The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...

. Some of these traditions have survived to the present day.

North America

Julia M. Butree (a wife of Ernest Thompson Seton

Ernest Thompson Seton

Ernest Thompson Seton was a Scots-Canadian who became a noted author, wildlife artist, founder of the Woodcraft Indians, and one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America . Seton also influenced Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting...

) in her book, among other Native American dances, describes the "Rain Dance of Zuni." Feathers and turquoise

Turquoise

Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrous phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula CuAl648·4. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gem and ornamental stone for thousands of years owing to its unique hue...

 (or any sort of blue shade) are worn during the ceremony to symbolize wind and rain respectively. Many oral traditions of the Rain Dance have been passed down In an early sort of meteorology

Meteorology

Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...

, Native Americans in the midwestern parts of the modern United States often tracked and followed known weather patterns while offering to perform a rain dance for settlers in return for trade items. This is best documented among Osage

Osage Nation

The Osage Nation is a Native American Siouan-language tribe in the United States that originated in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their historic lands in present-day Arkansas, Missouri,...

 and Quapaw

Quapaw

The Quapaw people are a tribe of Native Americans who historically resided on the west side of the Mississippi River in what is now the state of Arkansas.They are federally recognized as the Quapaw Tribe of Indians.-Government:...

 Indian tribes of Missouri and Arkansas.

Eastern Europe

Paparuda

Paparuda

Paparuda is a Romanian and Bulgarian rain ritual, probably of pagan origin, performed in the spring and in times of severe drought.A girl, wearing a skirt made of fresh green knitted vines and small branches, sings and dances through the streets of the village, stopping at every house, where the...

, Caloian

Caloian

Caloian is a rain ritual in Romania, similar in some ways with Paparuda. It is mostly found in Wallachia . The origin of this ritual, as many other local popular beliefs and practices, precedes the spreading of Christianity, although it was in time associated with the period of the Orthodox...

, Dodola

Dodola

Dodola , Perperuna or Preperuša is an old Slavic tradition....

and Perperuna, among other terms, refer to a family of Slavic and Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

n rainmaking rituals, some of which survived into the 20th century.

In popular culture

In hacker slang, "rain dance" refers to "any ceremonial action taken to correct a hardware problem, with the expectation that nothing will be accomplished." In search and rescue

Search and rescue

Search and rescue is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger.The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, mostly based upon terrain considerations...

, a rain dance is a method of estimating how far apart searchers in a line search should be spaced so as not to miss clues and not to waste searchers' effort.