Editing Chaac (section)

== Iconography ==
[[Image:Maya God Chaac.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Rain deity impersonator, Classic period]]

Chaac is usually depicted with a human body showing reptilian or amphibian scales, and with a non-human head evincing fangs and a long, pendulous nose. In the Classic style, a shell serves as his ear ornament. He often carries a shield and a lightning axe, the axe being personified by a closely related deity, [[Kʼawiil|K'awiil]], called Bolon Dzacab in Yucatec. The Classic Chaac sometimes shows features of the Central Mexican ([[Teotihuacan]]) precursor of Tlaloc.

=== Rain ===
[[File:ChacDresden.jpg|thumb|center|reconstructed image of Chac, from the [[Dresden Codex]], Art by unidentified pre-Columbian Maya scribe before C.E.1500.]]
A large part of one of the four surviving Maya codices, the [[Dresden Codex]], is dedicated to the Chaacs, their locations, and activities.<ref name="WDL">{{cite web |url = http://www.wdl.org/pt/item/11621/ |title = O Códice de Dresden |website = [[World Digital Library]] |date = 1200–1250 |access-date = 2013-08-21 }}</ref> It illustrates the intimate relationship existing between the Chaacs, the [[Bacab]]s, and the aged goddess, [[Ixchel]]. The main source on the 16th-century Yucatec Maya, Bishop [[Diego de Landa]], combines the four Chaacs with the four [[Bacabs]] and Pauahtuns into one concept. The Bacabs were aged deities governing the subterranean sphere and its water supplies.

=== Warfare ===
In the Classic period, the king often impersonated the rain deity (or an associated rain serpent) while a portrait glyph of the rain deity can accompany the king's other names. This may have given expression to his role as a supreme rain-maker. Typically, however, it is the war-like fury of the rain deity that receives emphasis (as is also the case in the myth mentioned above). The king personifying the rain deity is then shown carrying war implements and making prisoners,<ref>García Barrios 2009</ref> while his actions seem to be equated with the violence of a thunderstorm.

=== Classic period narrative ===
About Chaahk's role in Classic period mythological narrative, little is known. He is present at the resurrection of the [[Maya maize god]] from the carapace of a turtle, possibly representing the earth. The so-called 'confrontation scenes' are of a more legendary nature. They show a young nobleman and his retinue wading through the waters and being approached by warriors. One of these warriors is a man personifying the rain deity. He probably represents an ancestral king, and seems to be referred to as ''Chak Xib [Chaahk].''<ref>García Barrios 2009: 18-21</ref> Together with the skeletal Death God ([[God A]]), Chaahk also appears to preside over an initiate's ritual transformation into a jaguar.