Tlaloc
The Aztec god of rain, lightning and the earth’s fertility, one of the oldest gods of Mesoamerica. He is known by the rings round his eyes and the fangs hanging from his upper lip.
Meaning
Guilhem Olivier names the circles round the eyes and the great fangs as Tlaloc’s marks. In the codices his body is painted black, yellow or green, he wears paper spattered with rubber, a headdress of star-eyes with quetzal and heron feathers, and he carries a serpent-shaped staff, often blue, that is the lightning. Sahagún, the sixteenth-century Franciscan, recorded that he gave the rains that watered the earth and also sent hail, lightning and storms. His name is variously read: Rafael Tena gives “he who lies upon the earth” or “he who is made of earth”, and Thelma Sullivan “the earthy one”. Among the Nahua of northern Veracruz, the anthropologist Alan Sandstrom writes, Saint John the Baptist has taken his place. Dictionary.com gives the name as tlah-LOHK.
Origin and history
Tlaloc goes back at least to the Preclassic. Olivier cites a storm-god mask or censer fragment from La Laguna, Tlaxcala, dated 600–400 BC, and murals at Teotihuacan already show him with round goggles and a serpent staff for lightning. INAH notes that some Teotihuacan murals show him beside the feathered serpent, Quetzalcoatl. In Tenochtitlan he shared the summit of the Templo Mayor with Huitzilopochtli: Tlaloc’s shrine on the north side, Huitzilopochtli’s on the south.
His face was drawn from snakes. Eduard Seler showed, from a statue in the Uhde collection in Berlin, that the rings round the eyes are two coiled serpents whose meeting jaws make Tlaloc’s mouth. Nicholson’s guide to deity insignia, abridged by Mexicolore, calls the goggles, the curled “moustache” and the fangs a kind of mask.
The rain and the Tlaloque
In a creation story Olivier retells, Tlaloc made the tlaloque, “many small ministers”, who poured rain onto the earth from clay jars. Jars with Tlaloc’s face were buried in offerings from the Preclassic to the conquest, and some were filled with jade, the stone of water. INAH notes that blue, the colour of water, covers almost the whole of one such jar. Those Tlaloc chose, people killed by lightning or drowned, were buried rather than cremated and went to Tlalocan, a place of abundance. Mexicolore places Mount Tlaloc, his greatest shrine, due east of the Templo Mayor.
Rain and sacrifice
Olivier writes that in exchange for offerings and sacrifices, children in particular, Tlaloc gave people all they needed to live, which is why one of his names was Tlamacazqui, “the Giver”.
The Coatlinchan monolith
The colossal stone known as the Monolith of Tlaloc was found near San Miguel Coatlinchan and moved to the new museum in 1964. INAH calls it generally accepted as Tlaloc, though experts have no complete consensus on the identification.
Tlaloc today
The anthropologist Alan Sandstrom writes that the rain gods live on in many forms in Indigenous communities across Mexico. Among the Nahua of northern Veracruz, Saint John the Baptist, Sahua, has taken Tlaloc’s place, and his helpers the Pilhuehuentsitsij, “Little Old Ones”, carry water to caves on the sacred mountains as the tlaloque did.
See also
Huitzilopochtli, Chaac, Were-jaguar, Quetzalcoatl (the feathered serpent), Tezcatlipoca (smoking mirror), Mictlantecuhtli.
Sources
- La iconografía de Tláloc (Guilhem Olivier, Arqueología Mexicana), Guilhem Olivier, “Tláloc, el antiguo dios de la lluvia y de la tierra en el Centro de México”, Arqueología Mexicana no. 96, pp. 40–43, Arqueología Mexicana (Editorial Raíces / INAH), article text
- Tláloc dios de la lluvia y de la tierra (Guilhem Olivier, Arqueología Mexicana), Guilhem Olivier, “Tláloc, el antiguo dios de la lluvia y de la tierra en el Centro de México”, Arqueología Mexicana no. 96, pp. 40–43, Arqueología Mexicana (Editorial Raíces / INAH), article text
- Naturaleza y funciones de Tláloc: Los mitos (Guilhem Olivier, Arqueología Mexicana), Guilhem Olivier, “Tláloc, el antiguo dios de la lluvia y de la tierra en el Centro de México”, Arqueología Mexicana no. 96, pp. 40–43, Arqueología Mexicana (Editorial Raíces / INAH), article text
- El nombre de Tláloc (Rafael Tena, Arqueología Mexicana), Rafael Tena, “Dioses de la fertilidad agrícola y humana, y del placer. Complejo 6. Tláloc”, Arqueología Mexicana special edition no. 30, pp. 60–69, Arqueología Mexicana (Editorial Raíces / INAH), entry
- Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, vol. 1 (Bernardino de Sahagún, ed. Bustamante, 1829), Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, ed. Carlos María de Bustamante, vol. 1 (Mexico: Alejandro Valdés, 1829), Book 3, Appendix, ch. 1, Internet Archive, Book 1, ch. 4
- Mexica/Aztec deity insignia (Mexicolore, after H. B. Nicholson), Ian Mursell, Mexicolore; abridged from H. B. Nicholson, “The Late Pre-Hispanic Central Mexican (Aztec) Iconographic System” (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1973), Mexicolore, masks
- El enigmático Monolito de Tláloc del Museo Nacional de Antropología (INAH, foto del día), Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, foto del día, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, photo note
- Olla Tláloc (INAH, foto del día), Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, foto del día, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, photo note
- God of the Month: Tlaloc (Mexicolore), Julia Flood, Mexicolore, Mexicolore, article text
- What happened to the Aztec gods after the Conquest? (Alan Sandstrom, Mexicolore), Alan R. Sandstrom, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne, answer in Mexicolore’s “Ask the experts”, Mexicolore, answer text
- Tlaloc (Dictionary.com), Dictionary.com, pronunciation
- Quetzalcóatl en Teotihuacan (INAH, foto del día), Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, foto del día, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, photo note
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Last reviewed October 3, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research
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