Chaac is the name of the Maya

Maya civilization

The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...

 rain deity. With his lightning axe, Chaac strikes the clouds and produces thunder and rain. Chaac corresponds to Tlaloc

Tlaloc

Tlaloc was an important deity in Aztec religion, a god of rain, fertility, and water. He was a beneficent god who gave life and sustenance, but he was also feared for his ability to send hail, thunder and lightning, and for being the lord of the powerful element of water. In Aztec iconography he...

 among the Aztecs.

Rain deities and rain makers

Like other Maya gods, Chaac is both one and manifold. Four Chaacs are based in the cardinal directions and wear the directional colors. In 16th-century Yucatan, the directional Chaac of the east was called Chac Xib Chaac 'Red Man Chaac', only the colors being varied for the three other ones.

Contemporary Yucatec Maya farmers distinguish many more aspects of the rain and the clouds and personify them as different, hierarchically-ordered rain deities. The Chorti Maya have preserved important folklore regarding the process of rain-making, which involved rain deities striking rain-carrying snakes with their axes.

The rain deities had their human counterparts. In the traditional Mayan (and Mesoamerican) community, one of the most important functions was that of rain maker, which presupposed an intimate acquaintance with (and thus, initiation by) the rain deities, and a knowledge of their places and movements. According to a Late-Postclassic Yucatec tradition, Chac Xib Chaac (the rain deity of the east) was the title of a king of Chichen Itza

Chichen Itza

Chichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Municipality of Tinúm, Yucatán state, present-day Mexico....

, and similar titles were bestowed upon Classic rulers as well (see below).

Rain rituals

Among the rituals for the rain deities, the Yucatec Cha-Chaac ceremony for asking for rain was a ceremonial banquet for the rain deities; it included four boys acting as frogs. Asking for rain and crops was also the purpose of 16th-century rituals at the karstic wells, or cenote

Cenote

A cenote is a deep natural pit, or sinkhole, characteristic of Mexico and Central America, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater underneath...

s, of Yucatan. Young men and women were lowered into these wells and left to drown there, so as to make them enter the realm (and possibly, become the escorts) of the rain deities. Alternatively, they were thrown into the wells later to be drawn up again, and give oracles.

Mythology

The rain deity is a patron of agriculture. A well-known myth in which the Chaacs (or related Rain and Lightning deities) have an important role to play is about the opening of the mountain in which the maize was hidden. In Tzotzil mythology, the rain deity also figures as the father of nubile women representing maize and vegetables. In some versions of the Q'eqchi'

Q'eqchi'

Q'eqchi or Kekchi may refer to*Q'eqchi' language, a Mayan language spoken in Guatemala and Belize*Q'eqchi' people, an indigenous Maya people...

 myth of Sun and Moon, the rain deity Choc (or Chocl) 'Cloud' is the brother of Sun; together they defeat their aged adoptive mother and her lover. Later, Chocl commits adultery with his brother's wife and is duly punished; his tears of regret give origin to the rain. Versions of this myth show the rain deity Chac in his war-like fury, pursuing the fleeing Sun and Moon, and attacking them with his lightnings.

Iconography

Chaac is usually depicted with a human body showing reptilian or amphibian scales, and with a non-human head evincing fangs and a long, pendulous nose. In the Classic style, a shell serves as his ear ornament. He often carries shield and lightning-axe, the axe being personified by a closely related deity, god K

God K

God K is the Schellhas-Zimmermann-Taube designation of a codical Maya deity representing lightning . In earlier, especially Classic depictions, his main characteristics are a blade or torch running through his forehead, and a serpent for one of his legs...

, called Bolon Dzacab in Yucatec. The Classic Chaac sometimes shows features of the Central Mexican (Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...

) precursor of Tlaloc.

Rain-making

A large part of the most important Maya book, the Dresden Codex

Dresden Codex

The Dresden Codex, also known as the Codex Dresdensis, is a pre-Columbian Maya book of the eleventh or twelfth century of the Yucatecan Maya in Chichén Itzá. The Maya codex is believed to be a copy of an original text of some three or four hundred years earlier...

, is dedicated to the Chaacs, their locations, and activities. It illustrates the intimate relationship existing between the Chaacs, the Bacab

Bacab

Bacab is the generic Yucatec name for each of the four pre-Spanish, aged Maya deities of the interior of the earth and its water deposits. The Bacabs have more recent counterparts in the lecherous, drunken old thunder deities of the Gulf Coast regions...

s, and the aged goddess, Ixchel

Ixchel

Ixchel or Ix Chel is the 16th-century name of the aged jaguar goddess of midwifery and medicine in the ancient Maya culture. She corresponds, more or less, to Toci Yoalticitl ‘Our Grandmother the Nocturnal Physician’, an Aztec earth goddess inhabiting the sweatbath, and is related to another...

. The main source on the 16th-century Yucatec Maya, Bishop de Landa

Landa

Landa is a Basque surname.Landa may refer to:Places* Landa, North Dakota* Landa de MatamorosPeople* Alfredo Landa* Diego de Landa, fourth bishop of Yucatan* Daniel Landa, Czech musician* Eli Landa* Honorino Landa* Konstantin Landa...

, combines the four Chaacs with the four Bacabs and Pauahtuns into one concept. The Bacabs were aged deities governing the subterranean sphere and its water supplies, corresponding to the Huaxtec Mamlab mentioned above.

Warfare

In the Classic period, the king often impersonated the rain deity (or an associated rain serpent) while the pictogram of the rain deity can accompany the king's other names. This may have given expression to his role as a supreme rain-maker. Often, however, it is the war-like fury of the rain deity that receives emphasis (as is also the case in the myth mentioned above). The king personifying the rain deity is then shown carrying war implements and making prisoners, while his actions seem to be equated with the violence of a thunderstorm.

Narrative

About Chaac's role in Classic period mythological narrative, little is known. He is present at the resurrection of the Maya maize god

Maya maize god

Like other Mesoamerican peoples, the traditional Mayas recognize in their staple crop, the maize, a vital force with which they strongly identify. This is clearly shown by their mythological traditions. According to the 16th-century Popol Vuh, the Hero Twins have maize plants for alter egos and man...

 from the carapace of a turtle representing the earth. The so-called 'confrontation scenes' are of a more legendary nature. They show a young nobleman and his retinue wading through the waters and being approached by warriors. One of these warriors is a man personifying the rain deity. He probably represents an ancestral king, and seems to be referred to as Chac Xib [Chac] Together with the skeletal Death God (God A), Chaac also appears to preside over an initiate's ritual transformation into a jaguar.