Lord of the Rain

Otomi/Hñähñu (central Mexico). Muye, 'Lord of the Rain' (hmü 'lord' + 'ye 'rain'), is the Otomi god of rain whom the Nahua worshipped as Tlaloc. His name is preserved in early colonial Otomi-language materials connected with the festival calendar of twenty-day months, and inquisitorial records studied by Méndez Gómez show the rain lord still receiving offerings and self-sacrifice from Otomi devotees of the Mezquital and the Sierra town of Tutotepec long after the conquest. He is a weather god of the first rank in the ancient Otomi pantheon, standing beside the old fire god and the lunar Old Mother.

Domains

• rain

Powers

• to send the rains that water the fields

Sources

• Muye ('Lord of the Rain') is the Otomi rain god, the counterpart of the central Mexican Tlaloc, attested in colonial Otomi-language sources and worshipped by Otomi communities such as Tutotepec into the colonial era.: Wright Carr, David Charles (2007). "Los dioses en las lenguas otomí y náhuatl" (IX Coloquio Internacional sobre Otopames, Xalapa). (secondary); Méndez Gómez, David (2023). "La Inquisición de Tlalhuacpan: el culto a la lluvia entre los otomíes del Mezquital." Cuicuilco. Revista de Ciencias Antropológicas 30(88): 193-214. (secondary); Patrick Encina, Geraldine (2015). "Muye, el Tláloc otomí. ¿Qué papel juega en las veintenas?" (Seminario sobre el culto a Tláloc, IIA-UNAM). (secondary)