The jaguar and the rain

By Óscar Cortés Palma

In the world many cultures have the habit of performing rituals to request rainfall from the forces of nature or God.

These rituals for good weather include offerings with meals, ornaments, songs, prayers, dances and theaters that are traditionally performed days before the rainy season begins.

In America, the Native Americans of the United States and Mexico still perform rituals to make it rain.

For example, in the Nahua region of Guerrero, the rain rituals of the villages of Zitlala and Acatlán stand out. In these places the jaguars (also called tigers or tecuanes) are fundamental part of the request of rains.
Atzazilistli, (atzasilistli, atsasilistle) is called in the Nahua language at the request of rains.
The tradition of asking for rains disguised as jaguars is very old. Since in the Mesoamerican cultures the Jaguar represented the rain.

And today, the Tecuanes (jaguars in the Spanish language) still continue being beings of rain.

This is demonstrated by the legends, rituals, myths, caves, hills, bas-reliefs and ancient murals that have to do with jaguars.
An example of this are the murals of Jaguar warrior of Cacaxtla, Tlaxcala.
These murals of jaguar warriors were painted approximately between 650 and 950 BC.
In these murals we can see three different people dressed as jaguars. And even from these people we observed rain.
It is clear that these murals of Cacaxtla evidence the relationship of the jaguar and the rain.
But we find more evidence in the archaeological area of ​​Chalcatzingo, Morelos where there is a bas-relief with a supernatural feline attacking a human. Above this feline are the raindrops.

Further evidence of the relationship of jaguars and rain is found in the figure of Tlaloc. Tlaloc, the mythological being of rain, has fangs like a feline, perhaps a jaguar or a puma.
Another proof that the jaguar represents the rain, we find it in the legend that counts in Zitlala and Acatlán, Guerrero: The legend of the "tecuanes - naguales". This legend tells how the nahual jaguars brought the rains to mankind.

Therefore and since then as a reward is performed the dance and ritual of the tiger fight or tiger fight.

The Tecuan fight consists of fighting disguised as nagual jaguars.
Based on this we can evidence the complicity of the Tecuanes and the rain.

It is also well known that in the Surian lands rituals are carried out in the caves of the hills to request rains currently in at least the states of Mexico, Morelos, Puebla and Guerrero, from this arises a question: Is the fact that Perform rituals to ask for rain in inaccessible caves or because there also usually inhabit ferocious wild beasts like the jaguar (tekuani) or the puma? If so, this would be yet another evidence of the relationship between the jaguars and the rain.

In short, much research is needed on this subject, but it should not surprise us if we continue to find archaeological pieces that have jaguars and raindrops drawn, since everything seems to indicate that in the Mesoamerican era this union was fundamental.

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Book of the Tecuanes
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