Among the Mapeli, the first person to see the star would begin ululating loudly enough to be heard in the next village, which would then join the noisemaking to warn other villages, each in turn until all knew Canopus had been seen. If Canopus is seen in May with a very intense light, the frost would be very hard. If dry dusty air made it appear dim, famine was to be expected. The bright stars of the pointers and the southern cross were often seen as giraffes, though different tribes had different ideas about which were male and which were female. The sky is stone, and the earth is flat.
Water is beneath the earth and above the sky.
The waning moon spills diseases. Its markings are a woman carrying a child, who was caught gathering wood when she should have been at a sacred festival. Some believed that after sunset the sun traveled back to the east over the top of the sky, and that the stars are small holes which let the light through. Others said that the sun is eaten each night by a crocodile, and that it emerges from the crocodile each morning. The small constellation of Delphinus may have been seen by the Tswana as a mopane worm.