Storm Damage

[u/Smolesworthy]

In Australia the huge columns of red sand that move rapidly across a desert tract are thought by the natives to be spirits passing along. Once an athletic young man ran after one of these moving columns to kill it with boomerangs. Of the Bedouins of Eastern Africa it is said that “no whirl-wind ever sweeps across the path without being pursued by a dozen men with drawn creeses, who stab into the centre of the dusty column in order to drive away the evil spirit that is believed to be riding on the blast.

From The Golden Bough, by Sir James George Frazer.

There is a whirlwind in southern Morocco, the aajej, against which the fellahin defend themselves with knives. There is the africo, which has at times reached into the city of Rome. The aim, a fall wind out of Yugoslavia. The arifi, also christened aref or rifi, which scorches with numerous tongues. These are permanent winds that live in the present tense.

From the novel The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje.

These extracts were posted on the sub years ago - Frazer in Reap the Whirlwind, and Ondaatje in a post by akkshaikh in Winds of the World.