lightning bird, noun phrase

Forms:
Also with initial capitals.
Origin:
So named because, according to Zulu lore, the bird is left behind on the ground when lightning strikes.
impundulu.
1870 H. Callaway Religious System of Amazulu (1884) 383When it thunders and the lightning strikes the ground..the bird remains where the ground was struck...‘Is it not really that bird which it is said exists, the lightning-bird which goes with the lightning?’
1894 E. Glanville Fair Colonist 289A streak of summer lightning darted across the horizon...Then darkness ensued blacker than before. ‘It is Mpundulu, the lightning bird,’ muttered Makanna.
1930 I. Schapera KhoiSan Peoples 167When..a ‘hammerkop’ (Scopus umbretta, the ‘lightning bird’ of other South African tribes) flies, calling out, over the camp, the people know that someone belonging to them has died.
1934 P.R. Kirby Musical Instruments of Native Races (1965) 100He calls it the ‘Flute of Heaven’ because the doctors used it to ward off lightning. It was made from a bone (supposed to be from the ndlati or ‘lightning bird’ itself).
1939 J.K. Godfrey in Outspan 24 Nov. 71They hold in dread the fatal lightning bird; they believe that any wandering hammerhead bird or bromvoël that settles on their huts must be a messenger of evil sent by a wizard.
1950 A.W. Burton Sparks from Border Anvil 174Witchdoctors and people associate with lightning an evil and hideous monster known as the ‘Lightning Bird’ or ‘i’Impundulu’.
1970 B. Davidson Old Afr. 243The effigies vary..because the ‘lightning birds’ vary: the Southern Sotho imagine the lightning bird as a hamerkop, the Venda imagine it as an eagle, and the peoples of the north-western Transvaal imagine it as a flamingo; but the cult is in any case widespread.
1975 Evening Post 2 Apr. 7Three brothers charged with the desecration of their father’s body..were acquitted..because the court accepted that they believed it was an evil spirit (a lightning bird) in their father’s coffin and not his body.
1982 Sunday Times 21 Feb. (Mag. Sect.) 1The queen agreed the mixture did include the lightning bird’s feathers and that horns filled with the mixture were put on the ground to bring rain and lifted to stop it.
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Traditional African Religion and Culture
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lieg, verb intransitivev.lighty, nounn.
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