======Cocijo======
<sup>(Also //Cociyo//)</sup>

**Cocijo** is a lightning deity of the pre-Columbian [[zapotec people|Zapotec]] civilization of southern [[Mexico]]. He has attributes characteristic of similar [[mesoamerica|Mesoamerican]] deities associated with [[rain gods|rain]], thunder and lightning, such as [[Tlaloc]] of central Mexico, and [[Chaak]] of the [[Maya]] civilization. In the Zapotec language, the word cocijo means "lightning", as well as referring to the deity.

Cocijo was the most important deity among the [[pre-Columbian]] Zapotecs because of his association with rainfall. He is commonly represented on ceramics from the Zapotec area, from the [[mesoamerica#pre-classic_period|Middle Preclassic]] right through to the Terminal Classic. Cocijo is said to be the great lightning god and creator of the world. In Zapotec [[myth]], he made the sun, moon, stars, seasons, land, mountains, rivers, plants and animals, and day and night by exhaling and creating everything from His breath.

=====Iconography=====
In Zapotec art Cocijo is represented with a [[zoomorphic]] face with a wide, blunt snout and a long forked serpentine tongue. Cocijo often bears the Zapotec glyph C in his headdress. A similar glyph is used in [[mixtec people|Mixtec]] codices as the [[day sign]] 'water' and it is likely that its meaning in Zapotec is identical, therefore being the appropriate glyph for the rain and storm god.

Representations of Cocijo combine elements [[jaguar|earth-jaguar]] and [[serpent|sky-serpent]], which are associated with [[fertility gods|fertility]]. His eyebrows depict the heavens, his lower lids represent clouds, and his forked serpent's tongue represents a bolt of lightning.

=====Timeline=====
====Classic Period====
At the Late Classic Zapotec archaeological site of [[Lambityeco]] in [[Oaxaca]], the stucco busts of Cocijo are depicted holding a jar spilling water in one hand and bolts of lightning in the other. During the Classic Period the jaguar was associated, at least partly, with Cocijo.

====Postclassic Period====
Among the Zapotecs of the Postclassic period, the four 65-day divisions of the [[calendars|260-day calendar]] were named cocijos, which implies that there was a different Cocijo associated with each cardinal direction. Religious rites, including [[autosacrifice|bloodletting]], were performed to each of these four Cocijos. As payment for bringing rain Cocijo frequently received [[human sacrifice]], mostly in the form of children but also, less frequently, adults.

====Colonial Period====
The worship of Cocijo continued into early Colonial times. In the late 1540s, three community leaders of [[Yanhuitlán]] were accused of making sacrifices to the deity, including human sacrifices, by the inhabitants of hostile neighboring villages and were tried by the inquisitor Francisco Tello de Sandoval.