Illapa vs Tlaloc

The Thunder of the Inca state cult, imagined as a man in the sky with a sling and club who draws rain from the heavenly river; after the conquest he was widely identified with Saint James (Santiago).

No birth narrative survives; the Thunder appears in the chronicles as one of the great powers of the sky, ranked after the Creator and the Sun.

Illapa was one of the principal powers of the Cusco state cult, with his own chamber in the Coricancha according to Garcilaso and his own image, lands, and servants according to Molina and Cobo. Bernabé Cobo (1653), summarizing earlier reports, says the Andeans imagined him as a man in the sky with a club in one hand and a sling in the other: the crack of the sling was the thunder, the flash of his clothing the lightning, and he drew water from the river of the sky, the Milky Way, and poured it down as rain.

The Aztec god of rain, fertility, and water. Tlaloc's distinctive goggled eyes and fanged mouth make him one of the most recognizable deities in Mesoamerican art. He shared the summit of the Templo Mayor with Huitzilopochtli.

Tlaloc was one of the primordial deities who existed before the current creation. He presided over the Third Sun before its destruction by a rain of fire.

Tlaloc is one of the most ancient and important deities in Mesoamerican religion. His name derives from the Nahuatl word *tlalli* (earth) and may mean "He Who Makes Things Sprout." He controlled the **rain** essential for maize agriculture.