30 May 2025 / 10 House
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Find out moreRaining flowers and flints
30th Mar 2022
Rain deities bringing life and death to crops, Codex Borgia pl. 28
‘To the farming peoples of ancient Mesoamerica, rain was of great importance... [as were] auguries for rain. On page 28 of the Codex Borgia, five Tlaloque rain gods water maize fields with various types of rain. Beneficial rain is marked with flowery jade signs [centre of image, one is arrowed] but the four other forms are depicted as destroyers of corn...’ (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
‘... Specifically fiery rain (possibly drought) [top left], fungus rain [top right], wind rain [bottom left], and flint blade rain [bottom right] the last probably a reference to cutting hail.’
If anyone can enlighten us as to what fungus rain and wind rain could be, please send in suggestions...!
Quote from Miller, Mary and Taube, Karl (1993) The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya: an Illustrated Dictionary of Mesoamerican Religion, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London, pp. 142-143
Image from the Codex Borgia scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1976.
Comments (2)
Acueyapacqui
14th Nov 2024
Hi! I am working on a classical Nahuatl loteria game and I was curious, did the tenochca people use anything like an umbrella or something that was used to cover themselves from the elements?
Mexicolore
Not that we know of! As it happens the ancient Maya used to pour liquid rubber over their capes to keep themselves (relatively) dry during rainstorms.
Tonatiuh
18th May 2022
Very interesting topic. Would love to see an expansion on this!
Rain deities bringing life and death to crops, Codex Borgia pl. 28
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