Our Namesake: In the U.S.A., a "Rainmaker" can be either a native American Indian who makes it rain... or someone who successfully brings business to a company.  Wavoka (also spelled Wovoca and Wovoka) is the name of a very important Paiute indian rainmaker who lived from 1858-1932. He founded the 1890 Ghost Dance movement which touched the larger Native American population. Wovoka (The Woodcutter) lived his entire life in the Smith and Mason Valleys of western Nevada, though the reverberations from his Ghost Dance religion were felt throughout the Indian world of the late nineteenth century. According to contemporary sources, Wovoka was sick with fever when, while cutting wood in the Pine Grove Hills during the solar eclipse of January 1, 1889, he received his Great Revelation. In his vision he reportedly died and entered heaven, where he saw dead ancestors alive and well and received instructions from God: he was to abstain from fighting; to work for the taivo, or white man; and to dance the traditional Round Dance. If he complied, Wovoka was told, he, and by extension other Indians, would be rewarded in the next life.

- This text from the Encyclopedia of North American Indians published by Houghton Mifflin