Lightning myths and beliefs in South Africa: Their effect on personal safety
Date
2013-02-05
Authors
Trengove, Estelle
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Abstract
Every year, lightning kills and injures people and animals and damages
property in South Africa. Rural people who work outdoors tending the land or
herding animals are particularly vulnerable to lightning strikes. A lightning
awareness effort might help to reduce the annual number of lightning deaths
in South Africa. This thesis describes an attempt at understanding southern
African traditional myths and beliefs related to lightning and to examine how
these could inform lightning awareness and education. Lightning awareness
efforts in other countries are assessed in terms of their suitability with respect
to South Africa. Finally, a model for a mobile lightning warning and awareness
is proposed based on the current African mobile culture. Mobile
telephones have created a revolution in communications in Africa. Millions of
people living in rural areas never had any infrastructure: no fixed-line telephone
infrastructure, not even electrical power, hence no computer
communications, but mobile telephones and the short message service
(SMS) have changed that. The proposal suggests leveraging the exponential
growth of a mobile culture in Africa and gives a high-level outline of what
such a system might look like.