Tláloc

Traditional sources and modern summaries present Tláloc as one of the oldest and most ubiquitous figures of worship in ancient Mexico, representing a longstanding class of rain and fertility powers in Mesoamerican cosmology. He is integrally tied to sacred landscape features—mountains, caves, and springs—with a particular sacred mountain (Cerro Tláloc) identified as his residence and focal point for ritual activity. While detailed mythic birth-narratives are not provided in the supplied materials, Tláloc's cultural origin is rooted in agricultural societies' need to control and petition forces that govern rainfall and earthly fertility, and his cult was institutionalized through specialized priestly rites and sacrifices documented in scholar summaries and ethnographic overviews.

Iconographically Tláloc is commonly identified by ringed eyes and fangs (reported variously as two, or three to four of the same size) often paired with a bifurcated tongue; his lips are described as shaped like a mustache and are a defining feature. He is frequently depicted with water-associated accoutrements such as a ritual water jar or a water-containing vessel, and impersonators are described as wearing a distinctive mask and a heron-feather headdress while carrying a cornstalk or a symbolic lightning-bolt wand. Associated imagery includes butterflies, jaguars, serpents, heron and quetzal feathers, shells, water lilies, spiders, and the "eye-of-the-reptile" motif; the sources also note that many sculptures and images have been variously misidentified as Tláloc, reflecting a plurality of regional forms and scholarly uncertainty.

Tláloc controls rain and water and is the divine source of earthly fertility and sustenance; his powers extend to meteorological phenomena including rain, hail, thunder, and lightning. He is linked to particular landscape features—mountains (especially Cerro Tláloc), caves, and springs—where his presence was ritually located and where offerings were deposited. A reciprocal, ritualized relationship obtained between humans and Tláloc: costly offerings, including jaguar skulls and at least one complete jaguar skeleton at Tenochtitlan, and human sacrifice performed on Cerro Tláloc, were made to obtain favorable weather and avert drought or destructive storms. While feared for his capacity to unleash destructive weather, the sources do not portray him primarily as malevolent but as an ambivalently powerful provider whose favor had to be secured by ritual.