The Giver and the Taker of the Rains

Tlaloc is the Aztec god of rain, of water, of lightning and of fertility, the giver of the life-bringing rains that make the crops grow, and at the same time the fearsome sender of floods, hail, drought and the lightning-stroke. On him, more directly than on almost any other god, the survival of the people depended, and his worship reaches back long before the Aztecs: rain gods of his type are among the oldest and most constant deities of Mesoamerica. He is recognised by his distinctive mask-like face, with great round goggle-eyes and long fangs, formed in the old imagery from the coils of serpents. He rules a paradise, Tlalocan, a lush and verdant land of abundant water and flowers, to which go those who die by water or by the powers associated with him, the drowned, the lightning-struck, those who die of dropsy, who are received into his green and well-watered realm rather than into the ordinary underworld.