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--- chaak [2023/02/08 09:16] – merytnebthut
+++ chaak [2024/02/14 20:57] (current) – [In Popular Culture] lan
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 <sup>(Also //Chaac, Chaahk//)</sup>
-**Chaak** is the primary [[rain]] [[kuloob|God]] of the [[lowland Maya]]. Like His [[Aztecs|Aztec]] counterpart [[Tlaloc]], Chaak's [[cultus|cult]] is ancient and is attested to at least the [[Olmec]] period, and likely earlier. He and Tlaloc share a common origin before they branched off into separate Deities in the [[rain Gods|rain]] [[god-complexes|god-complex]].
+**Chaak** is the primary [[rain]] [[kuloob|God]] of the [[maya#lowland|lowland Maya]]. Like His [[Aztecs|Aztec]] counterpart [[Tlaloc]], Chaak's rain-God [[cultus|cult]] is ancient and is attested to at least the [[Olmec]] period, and likely earlier. He and Tlaloc share a common origin in [[Teotihuacan]] before they branched off into separate Deities in the [[rain Gods|rain]] [[god-complexes|god-complex]]. Because Chaak is a Deity of the Maya, His cultus pre-dates the named Aztec Tlaloc by hundreds of years.
-Because Chaak is a Deity of the Maya, His cultus actually pre-dates the Aztec Tlaloc by hundreds of years.
+Chaak's name derives from the Proto-Mayan word for "thunder." The Deity's name had become distinct from the words for "rain" or "thunder" used in common speech relatively early in the development of the language family. The first iconographic appearance of Chaak only dates to the Late Preclassic (approx. 350BC to 250AD), while the first logographic, or written evidence, comes from the Early Classic.[(//Who are the oldest known Mayan gods? I know Chac, K'awil and Itzamna go pretty far back//, https://www.reddit.com/r/Mayan/comments/10bxw8y/who_are_the_oldest_known_mayan_gods_i_know_chac/)] He is known as God B in the [[Schellhas Zimmermann Taube classification]] system.
+Unlike Tlaloc, Chaak's dwelling places are more subterranean: [[cenote|cenotes]], or limestone wells, caves, and the interiors of mountains.
+Like other Mayan gods, Chaak is both one and manifold. Four Chaaks are based on the cardinal [[directions]] and wear the directional colors. In 16th-century Yucatán, for example, the directional Chaak of the east was called Chac Xib Chaak, or 'Red Man Chaak'.[(Landa, in Tozzer 1941: 137–138)]
+Contemporary Yucatec Maya farmers distinguish many more aspects of the rainfall and the clouds and personify them as different, hierarchically-ordered rain deities. The [[Chorti]] Maya have preserved important folklore regarding the process of rain-making, which involved rain deities striking rain-carrying snakes with their axes.
+The rain deities had their human counterparts. In the traditional Mayan (and Mesoamerican) community, one of the most important functions was that of rainmaker, which presupposed an intimate acquaintance with (and thus, [[initiation]] by) the rain deities, and a knowledge of their places and movements.[(Braakhuis and Hull 2014)] According to a Late-Postclassic Yucatec tradition, Chac Xib Chaac (the rain deity of the east) was the title of a king of [[Chichen Itza]],[(Roys 1967: 67–68)] and similar titles were bestowed upon Classic rulers as well (see below).
+=====Rain Rituals=====
+Among the rituals for the rain deities, the Yucatec Chʼa Cháak ceremony for asking rain centers on a ceremonial banquet for the rain deities. It includes four boys (one for each cardinal point) acting and chanting as frogs. Asking for rain and crops was also the purpose of 16th-century rituals at the cenotes of [[Yucatan]]. Young men and women were lowered into these wells, so as to make them enter the realm of the rain deities.
 ===== Iconography =====
+Chaak is usually depicted with a human body showing reptilian or amphibian scales, and with a non-human head evincing fangs and a long nose. In the Classic style, a shell serves as His ear ornament. He often carries a shield and a lightning axe, the axe being personified by a closely related deity, [[God K]], called [[Kawiil|Bolon Dzacab]] in [[Yucatec]]. The Classic Chaak sometimes shows features of the Central Mexican (Teotihuacan) precursor of Tlaloc.
+====Rain====
+A large part of one of the four surviving Maya codices, the [[Dresden Codex]], is dedicated to the Chaaks, Their locations, and activities.[(//The Dresden Codex//, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667917)] It illustrates the intimate relationship existing between the Chaaks, the [[Bacabs]], and the aged Goddess, [[Ixchel]]. The main source on the 16th-century Yucatec Maya, [[Bishop Diego de Landa]], combines the four Chaaks with the four Bacabs and [[Pauahtuns]] into one concept. The Bacabs were aged Deities governing the subterranean sphere and its water supplies.
+====Warfare====
+In the Classic period, the king often impersonated the rain Deity (or an associated rain serpent) while a portrait glyph of the rain deity can accompany the king's other names. This may have given expression to his role as a supreme rain-maker. Typically, however, it is the war-like fury of the rain Deity that receives emphasis (as is also the case in the myth mentioned above). The king personifying the rain Deity is then shown carrying war implements and making prisoners,[(García Barrios, 2009)] while his actions seem to be equated with the violence of a thunderstorm.
 ===== Timeline =====
+====Classic Period ====
+About Chaak's role in Classic period mythological narrative, little is known. He is present at the resurrection of the Maya maize god from the carapace of a turtle, possibly representing the earth. The so-called 'confrontation scenes' are of a more legendary nature. They show a young nobleman and his retinue wading through the waters and being approached by warriors. One of these warriors is a man personifying the rain Deity. He probably represents an ancestral king, and seems to be referred to as Chak Xib [Chaak].[(García Barrios 2009: 18-21)] Together with the skeletal Death God (God A), Chaak also appears to preside over an initiate's ritual transformation into a [[jaguar]].
 ===== Myths =====
+Chaak, the ancient Maya rain god, wields a large axe marked with the hieroglyphic symbol for shiny objects in His left hand, and an animate stone object (perhaps as a weapon) in his right, 7th–8th century.
+The rain Deity is a patron of agriculture. A well-known myth in which the Chaaks (or related Rain and Lightning deities) have an important role to play is about the opening of the mountain in which the maize was hidden. In [[Tzotzil]] mythology, the rain deity also figures as the father of nubile women representing maize and vegetables. In some versions of the [[Qʼeqchiʼ]] myth of [[Sun]] and [[Moon]], the rain deity Choc (or Chocl) 'Cloud' is the Brother of Sun; together they defeat Their aged adoptive Mother and her lover. Later, Chaak commits adultery with His Brother's Wife and is duly punished; His tears of agony give origin to the rain. Versions of this myth[(Thompson, 1970: 364)] show the rain deity Chaak in His war-like fury, pursuing the fleeing Sun and Moon, and attacking them with His [[lightning]] bolts.
 ===== Community Gnosis =====
+=====In Popular Culture=====
+Chaak is featured in Marvel Comics as part of the Ahau (a pantheon of gods worshipped by the Maya people).[(Thor & Hercules: Encyclopaedia Mythologica #1. Marvel Comics)] In //Black Panther: Wakanda Forever//, he is revered as a god by Namor and the inhabitants of Talokan.
+Chaak is a playable warrior in SMITE.
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-{{tag>stub k'ulo'ob rain_gods creator_gods}}
+{{tag>deities kuloob review }}