ABSTRACTForty years ago Robert Blust published a comprehensive, comparative analysis of what he called the ‘thunder complex’. Found among linguistically and culturally diverse populations in the Philippines, Indonesia, and peninsular Malaysia, the complex comprises a series of taboos and rites that centre on a belief that certain actions involving a confusion of categories will bring about a punitive storm and the death of offenders in resulting floods, landslides, or lightning strikes. The most typical and widespread of such taboos concern making fun of animals—for example, by dressing them in human clothes, talking to them, or otherwise making them appear ridiculous and so causing people to laugh. The present paper has three objectives. First, I identify a series of rituals performed by adherents of the complex that involve deliberately breaking taboos on animal mockery in order to produce needed rain. Secondly, I introduce a ceremony performed by ethnic minorities in southwestern China for the same purpose. The ceremony has all the hallmarks of the thunder complex and coexists with taboos on making fun of animals. Finally, I discuss what the complex, found among otherwise culturally and linguistic diverse societies, implies for their ontology in regard to human‐animal relations.