Chaac

Chaac is typically depicted in Maya art with a long hooked nose, fangs, and a scaled body, often wielding a stone axe that represents lightning and thunder. In painted codices and stone carvings at sites like Chichen Itza and Uxmal, he frequently appears with a large serpent-like eye and sometimes wears a headdress adorned with maize or water motifs.

Maya communities worshipped Chaac through rituals including the ch'achaac ceremony, in which priests made offerings at cenotes (natural sinkholes) to petition for rain during dry seasons. Archaeological evidence from Chichen Itza's Sacred Cenote reveals that ceremonial objects including jade, gold, and copper were cast into these water features as offerings to Chaac.

While both Chaac and Tlaloc are Mesoamerican rain deities, they belong to distinct religious traditions with different iconography, mythological roles, and geographical centers of worship. Tlaloc was venerated primarily in the Mexican highlands by the Aztecs and earlier Teotihuacan civilization, while Chaac was specific to the Maya civilization of the Yucatan Peninsula and surrounding lowlands.

Chaac's most prominent symbol is the axe, which he uses to strike clouds to produce thunder and release rain. He is also closely associated with frogs and toads, which the Maya believed were Chaac's helpers in announcing the arrival of rainfall, and these animals appear frequently alongside Chaac imagery in Maya iconography.