May 16, 2008

Rainmakers vs. Georgia drought

Native Americans aim to end Georgia's drought

Weekend ceremony at Stone Mountain Park will seek to bring back rain, heal EarthGov. Sonny Perdue prayed. The rain came. But the drought stayed. So now an Eastern Shoshone wise man will give it a shot.

On Saturday morning, a couple of hours before sunup, Bennie "BlueThunder" LeBeau will lead a group of Native Americans in a Stone Mountain Medicine Wheel Ceremony at Stone Mountain Park to wrest rain from a dry sky and finally break Georgia's historic drought.

LeBeau, 58, is an elder with the Eastern Shoshone tribe and lives on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Fort Washakie, Wyo. He was invited to Georgia by members of the Cherokee and Muscogee nations to lead the ceremony.

"This is not a rain dance," LeBeau emphasized in a telephone interview Wednesday. "And please don't call me a Shaman because people think we're devil worshippers. We are not. We are just trying to heal the Earth and bring back the rain and fill the streams and stop the tornadoes."

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