Toad

Scholars agree that the toad has played an important role in Mesoamerican religious symbolism since late Preclassic times (c. 300 BCE to 250 CE). Stone sculptures, in the form of reliefs on stelae, large 3-D renditions a metre or more in length (see main picture above) and so-called ‘toad-altars’ have been found at Izapa, Chiapas, that may have acted as ‘platforms’ for performances ‘in which the stelae themselves were featured as the “performer”... stelae rose above the toad altars at their feet just as rulers were “reborn” from the altars at their feet’ (Kappelman 2004: 116).
There appears to be plenty of evidence that Mesoamericans have used toads in their rituals from very early on in their history (Hellmuth 2011: 3), aware as they were of a unique feature of certain toad species (in particular, in one of the most toxic, the marine/giant toad, Bufus marinus, whose range now extends from Brazil up to Florida) - the production of powerful chemicals in its skin glands, some of which are poisonous, even deadly (Benson 1997: 94).

Pic 1: A seated giant toad is carved on Stela 6 at Izapa, with a line drawing to show its features; the large scrolls may indicate the hallucinogenic bufotenine found in the glands on the back

As well as (like bats) controlling damaging insect populations and hence protecting valuable crops, toads, like frogs, may croak and dance (hop) at the onset of the rainy season, ‘when the newly planted cornfields are filled with toads singing and mating in the first spring showers’ (Morris 1987: 30); not surprisingly they have long been universal messengers of seasonality, associated with moisture, the earth (which their skin resembles), agricultural fertility, and with the moon through its control of tides and all bodies of water on earth (Milbrath 1999: 119). Even today, these creatures are vital to rain ceremonies, in some of which ‘young boys at the corners of altars imitate frogs “croaking” for rain’, reflecting an ancient ritual depicted in the Madrid Codex (pic 3) (Kristan-Graham 2023: 140, 143; Benson 2001: 421).
Seasonality is also linked to metamorphosis: ‘Toads are transformative, changing from eggs to tadpoles to toadlets to toads at the beginning of the rainy season... Their appearance as transformed creatures welcomed the time of planting’ (Rote 2019: 128). For good reason the Zapotecs call the toad xini cocijo - ‘son of the rain god’ (Seler 2008: 285).

Pic 3: An ancient Maya rain ritual: frogs heralding rain occupy four directional corners surrounding rain deity Cha’ak; Madrid Codex p. 31 (detail)

Of course it wasn’t just the Maya who saw profound symbolism in the toad’s strong connections with both earth and water realms. The Mexica earth deity Tlaltecuhtli was sometimes portrayed as a toad with fangs and claws (Benson 2001: 421); Baquedano suggests the position of Tlaltecuhtli’s head facing skyward on the largest Mexica monolith yet discovered ‘may emulate the pose adopted by toads in the dry months, in the “dead months”, with its head facing skyward’ (2023: 163). Reflecting their remarkable attention to botanical detail in their sculptures of creatures, ‘the jade symbols on the underside of Aztec toad images [see pic 5] symbolise the toad’s seat patch, which allows it to “drink” in a puddle or spring’ (Milbrath 2023: 407). The toad’s ability to survive underground in the dry months made it a symbol of strength and resilience (Baquedano 2023: 163-4) and for Mesoamericans in general a guardian of the ‘portal between the worlds’ (Morris 1987: 108).

Pic 5: Aztec stone toad with carved paws and ‘chalchihuitl’ (precious jade sign) underneath. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico

Sure enough, we find Nahua toponyms incorporating a toad in at least two manuscripts drawn after the Spanish invasion: the all-important Codex Mendoza (in the Bodleian Library) and the Tlaxcala territorial rights plan Mapa de Santa Barbara Tamasolco (in the British Museum) - see pic 7.
The toad continues to feature strongly in modern Maya folklore, as guardian, musician and shaman of the Earthlord’s house (often represented as a cave, traditionally a Mesoamerican entrance to the underworld); the earth and its portals were regularly depicted as quatrefoils (Morris 1987). Earthlord, toad and saint - three designs significantly all very similar in shape - have been woven into Maya textiles, largely unchanged, for generations. Yet when Maya weavers are queried on the ancestry of these symbols, until very recently the answer to ‘Why a toad?’ was simply ‘It’s custom, that’s the way it’s always been’ - weavers recognised the antiquity and value of the motifs, yet something of the meaning had been lost (Morris 1987: 116).

Pic 7: Nahua toponyms with a toad theme: Tamazolapan, Codex Mendoza fol. 43r (detail) (top); Tamasolco, Mapa de Santa Barbara Tamasolco (detail) (bottom)

The toad plays the role of witch’s familiar in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and is described by the bard in As You Like It as ‘ugly and venomous’. The devil was believed to lurk in graveyards in the form of a toad, and the poor creatures even ended up being ‘valued instruments of torture’: Thomas of Monmouth wrote that, in the reign of Stephen (1135–54), the King’s enemies were thrown into dungeons, where they suffered ‘cold, hunger, stench and attacks of toads’ (Country Life 02/12/2017).
Ironically, by contrast, on the other side of the ocean the toad’s status has long been very different: ‘The amphibious toad remains a symbol of the fertility of the earth, and of the waters that gave it birth’ (Morris, 1987: 108).
But was it simply a powerful portent of life-giving rain? Baquedano (2023: 170-172) has pointed out that both Aztec and Maya ritual garments often bore representations of toads, in contexts linked to rain deities.

Pic 9 : The Devil’s coat of arms, bearing three toads (L); toad as assistant to the Maya earthlord, brocade on woven huipil (R)

More significantly, eminent scholars, including Eduard Seler, Elizabeth Benson and Karl Taube, have drawn attention to the role played by the toad as symbol/zoomorphic form of the all-important twenty-day period in the Mesoamerican calendar, known as uinal or winal. Why a toad? It’s long been known that the calendar has a base of twenty reflecting the number of digits on human beings, and the words in Yucatec Mayan for ‘twenty’ and for ‘person’ are virtually identical. Taube (1993: 168) suggests the choice of toad to represent the winal probably ‘derives from the fact that toads, like people, possess 20 digits’. But do they?! To the lay person, a toad has four digits on each ‘hand’ and five on each ‘foot’, making 18 in total.

Pic 13: The toad features in several glyphs representing the ‘winal’ 20-day calendar period; the main one is from a monument at Copán. From Seler (2008)

So the cane toad, so often undervalued until recently in academic research, proves to be, in Carey Rote’s words, ‘a powerful force in organic farming, functioning as a deterrent to destructive pests. In addition, the cane toad produces powerful hallucinogenic substances for humans, while at the same time, repelling predators with its bitter taste, acrid smell and poison. This bufo-toxin is a powerful substance that links the toad with the Underworld origins of maize’ (2019: 123). Give me five, Mr. Toad!

Pic 15: Common toad, Surrey, England