Steve (13 Apr 14 - 11:24 AM), that is the problem that you do not see the context. In this case, it said: "Your conclusion has no flaws beyond grammar."

Al, my point was that beliefs in rain gods etc. are often misinterpreted by people from modern societies who are used to different ways of thinking (not only believing!) and therefore of interpreting language (however exact and literal its translation).

Lighter, I think the example of wrong rumo(u)r does illustrate the effect well enough: at least one person in the chain must have got it wrong, and the more of them are involved, the higher the probability that it happens. Each is an ear witness to the previous one, processing the news by interpretation.

Interpreting news (in other words guesswork) can be a very useful skill - we just should not mistake it for certainty.