"If you lived here you would—or else you’d be dead," Michael retorted. "Take the Rain Queen for starters. Xhosa myth says she protects them against their great enemy, the Zulus. She sends torrential storms to ruin their crops, to make it impossible for their armies to march on the Xhosa. In her earlier manifestations as a woman, she played the Boers and Brits off against each other too."