I Can't Stand the Rain Trivia Quiz

Answer: Aztec

In Nahuatl, the name of the rain god Tlaloc means "he who makes things sprout". Like all Aztec deities, Tlaloc had both a positive and a negative side - bringing new life to nature in the form of rainfall, and destruction in the form of drought or storms. Depicted with a distinctive mask, round-eyed and long-fanged, Tlaloc was originally a deity of the tribes of central Mexico, and shared some features of Chaac, the Maya rain god. When these tribes were conquered by the Mexica (commonly referred to as Aztecs), Tlaloc was fully adopted into the Aztec pantheon, whose main deity was the sun and war god Huitzilopochtli. The right side of the monumental Templo Mayor ("Great Temple") in Tenochtitlán, painted in red and white, was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, and the blue-and-white left side to Tlaloc.

Five out of the 18 months in the Aztec ritual year were also dedicated to Tlaloc. Children were sacrificed to the rain god on the first month (Atlcaualo) and the third month (Tozoztontli) to ensure that the rains needed for the growth of maize and other crops arrived on time. His consort was Chalchiuhtlicue, the goddess of lakes and streams; he also ruled over a number of other weather-related deities, collectively known as Tlaloques, associated with the four cardinal directions. Tlaloc's paradise, named Tlalocán, welcomed victims of floods, storms, and water-related diseases. The mountain where the god was believed to reside, on the eastern rim of the Valley of Mexico, still bears the name of Mount Tlaloc.

Answer: Yoruba

In Yoruba, the language spoken by the ethnic group of West Africa of the same name, the name Oya means "she tore". She is the "orisha" (a spiritual entity generally identified with a deity) of wind, storms, lightning, death and rebirth, as well as the embodiment of the mighty river Niger that flows through that part of the world. The worship of Oya and other orishas was brought to the Americas by the Atlantic slave trade. In the various African diasporic religions (such as Brazilian Umbanda and Candomblé, and Cuban Santeria) practiced in South America and the Caribbean, Oya is known as Yansan or Iansá, and - like Oya's brother-husband, Shango, the orisha of thunder and lightning - often syncretized with Saint Barbara.

A powerful warrior figure, Oya is associated with the colour red. In Yoruba culture, she is often depicted wearing a mask, with a sword in one hand, and a fan or whisk in the other - the former to cut through obstacles and bring about change, the latter to control the winds. Like other weather deities, she is loved as a bringer of life and renewal, or feared for her ability to wreak destruction through storms and floods. A traditional offering to Oya are bean fritters called "akara" ("acarajé" in Brazil), a popular street food on both sides of the Atlantic.

Answer: Japanese

Also known as Kaminari-sama, Raiden-sama, and Narukami, Raijin ("thunder god") is usually depicted standing on a cloud, surrounded by a halo-like circle set with the traditional Japanese handheld drums called "den den daiko". The three fingers on each of his hands represent the past, the present, and the future. With his muscular, half-naked body, fiercely aggressive expression, and wild mane of spiky hair, Raijin looks much like a demon; his brother Fujin, the god of the winds, usually depicted with him, has an even more frightening appearance. Notable statues of these two powerful deities stand in the Sanjusangen-do temple in Kyoto and the Senso-ji temple in Tokyo.

Like other storm deities, Raijin is an ambivalent figure, a trickster god born in the land of death from the corpse of his mother, Izanami. Although he is a warrior-protector who brings much-needed rain to the fields, he can also wreak chaos and destruction on unsuspecting humans - sometimes without a reason. Besides Fujin, he is often shown in the company of his son Raitaro (also a thunder god) and a "thunder beast" known as Raiju, a creature made of lightning. In medieval legends, Raijin and Fujin were credited with driving away the Mongol invaders on two occasions (1274 and 1281) by unleashing typhoons (the original kamikaze, or "divine wind") that destroyed the enemy fleet.

Answer: Greek

One of the four chief Anemoi ("winds", the Greek gods of the winds and their corresponding seasons), Boreas was the personification of the north wind, associated with winter. According to Hesiod's "Theogony", the Anemoi were the sons of the dawn goddess Eos and her husband Astraeus, god of the stars and planets; their master was Aeolus, the ruler of all winds. Boreas was usually depicted as a bearded man, either winged or wearing a billowing cloak, and holding a conch shell. The harshest of the four winds, chilling the air with his breath, Boreas was known for having carried off an Athenian princess, Orithyia ("mountain gale"), and made her his consort. The two sons born of this union, the Boreads Calais and Zetes, were part of the expedition of the Argonauts, while one of their daughters, Chione, was the goddess of snow.

Because of his marriage to a woman from Athens, the Athenians often prayed to Boreas, who was believed to have destroyed the Persian fleet in 480 BC - like the Japanese gods Raijin and Fujin were believed to have done to the Mongol fleet. In fact, Greek depictions of Boreas are thought to have influenced the iconography of the wind god Fujin through the cultural and commercial exchanges of the Silk Road.

The other three Anemoi were Zephyros (the west wind - spring), Notos (the south wind - summer), and Euros (the east wind - autumn): the latter, however, is not mentioned by Hesiod, because at his time only three seasons were recognized. The "bora", a cold katabatic wind of the Adriatic region, is named after Boreas.

Answer: Canaanite

Living in a region often plagued by droughts, the people of Canaan placed special emphasis on weather deities. In earlier times, the chief deities of the Canaanite pantheon were the supreme god El and his consort, Asherah - who were later supplanted by Ba'al ("Lord"), a god that presided over fertility and the weather. Though the name was also used for other gods, in his capacity as god of rain and thunder, Ba'al was identified with Hadad, a god who was also worshiped in Mesopotamia as Adad. In Canaanite religious texts, Hadad is said to be the son of Dagon (the Canaanite god of agriculture), or of El himself. As the lord of the sky, he governs rainfall and the growth of plants necessary for life; his absence, on the other hand, causes chaos, starvation and death. He is often depicted holding a thunderbolt, and wearing a helmet decorated with bull horns.

Though Hadad is not mentioned in the Bible by this name, there are numerous mentions of Ba'al and the "baals" - portrayed as rivals of Yahweh (God). Some scholars believe that hymns such as Psalm 29 - with its references to God unleashing thunder and lightning - may have originally been hymns to Hadad adapted to the worship of Yahweh.

The practice of child sacrifice in Phoenicia and Carthage is attested in many sources. In times of great difficulty and danger, children were sacrificed to a god named Moloch in the Bible. In a famous episode of Gustave Flaubert's 1862 novel "Salammbô", set in Carthage during the Mercenary Revolt of 241-237 BC, the sacrifice of dozens of children to the terrifying Moloch brings rain to the city exhausted by drought and a long siege.

Answer: Roman

Not all Roman deities had their counterparts in Greek mythology. Many of the deities included in the vast Roman pantheon were personifications of natural objects and phenomena. One of them was Tempestas (also referred to in the plural "Tempestates"), the goddess of storms and abrupt weather. Her name, which later became synonymous with "storm" (as in the English word "tempest"), is related to "tempus" ("time"), and originally meant "season".

Various mentions of this deity and her cult can be found in the works of eminent Roman writers: in his treatise "On the Nature of the Gods", Cicero remarks that storms, like other natural phenomena, had been deified by the Roman people. He also adds that captains used to offer sacrifice to the waves before embarking on a voyage. In his "Fasti", a poem dedicated to Roman festivals, Roman poet Ovid mentions a temple dedicated to Tempestas, built on the Appian Way in 259 BC by consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio to fulfill a vow made to the goddess, who had saved his fleet from a fierce storm off the coast of Corsica. The festival of Tempestas was celebrated on 1 June, and a black sheep was sacrificed to her in her temple. Sailors were frequent visitors to the temple, either to pray for protection before a voyage, or to bring thanks to the goddess for having saved their life.

Answer: Slavic

Although not much is known about the religion of the ancient Baltic and Slavic populations of Eastern Europe, a number of deities and their respective attributes are mentioned in various sources. One of these deities, worshiped as the king of the gods, lord of thunder and lightning, appears in many of these early medieval sources with the name of Perun or Perkunas ("striker" or "lord of oaks"). References to Perun are present in the Russian Primary Chronicle, the 12-century chronicle detailing the early history of Kievan Rus'. A large shrine dedicated to Perun (whose remains were discovered in the 1950s) was founded in the late 10th century near the Russian city of Novgorod - a few years before Christianization brutally eradicated the cult of Slavic pagan deities, destroying most of their images.

Perun was often symbolized by an eagle sitting on the highest branch of a tall oak tree, the sacred tree of the world: both the eagle and the oak are also attributes of Zeus/Jupiter. Perun's enemy was Veles, the god of earth and the underworld, who often took the shape of a huge serpent or dragon. Another of Perun's attributes was the battle axe, in whose shape amulets were made (and are still made by adepts of Slavic neopaganism). Stylized symbols known as "thunder marks" were also engraved on the roof beams or entrances of houses and villages to protect them from lightning. The iris, whose shape is reminiscent of the god's weapon, was also associated with Perun: in Serbo-Croatian, the word for iris is "perunika".

Answer: Sumerian

In Sumerian mythology, Enlil (a name often interpreted as "Lord Wind" or "Lord Storm") was regarded as the chief deity. He was the son of Anu, the god of the heavens, and Ki, the goddess of the earth; the wind was the breath that came out of Enlil's mouth. The main centre of Enlil's worship was the temple complex at Nippur known as Ekur ("mountain house"), believed to have been built by the god himself, the "mooring rope" of heaven and earth. In the Sumerian creation myth (found on a single tablet in Nippur, though missing some parts), Enlil created the world and the people who would inhabit it, but later sent a flood to destroy humankind - though not before warning Ziusudra, the king of Shuruppak, to build a large boat. In the later version of the flood myth that appears in the "Epic of Gilgamesh", Enlil caused the flood in order to annihilate humans, whose noise prevented him from sleeping.

Another religious text found in the temple library at Nippur, known as "Hymn to Enlil", describes at length the god's greatness and power, also mentioning his role in producing rain and ensuring the fruitfulness of the earth. Enlil's worship was later adopted by other Mesopotamian peoples, such as the Babylonians. During the reign of Hammurabi, however, he was supplanted as king of the gods by Marduk, who was also regarded as a storm deity.

Answer: Egyptian

Tefnut (a name of uncertain origin, possibly onomatopoeic) was one of the Ennead (nine deities) worshiped in the ancient Egyptian capital of Heliopolis. She and her twin brother and consort Shu, god of dry air and wind, were the children of sun god Ra-Atum, born from a sneeze. Shu and Tefnut's children were the sky goddess Nut and the earth god Geb, who in turn were the parents of Isis, Osiris, Seth, and Nepthys. Tefnut was usually depicted as a lioness, or as a woman with the head of a lioness, bearing the solar disk. Another of her attributes was the ankh, a symbol of life - quite fitting for a goddess of water, whose rains replenished the Nile, the lifeblood of the Egyptian civilization.

Shu and Tefnut were worshiped as life-giving deities, and their association with weather phenomena was a largely positive one. Shu's dry air represented peace and preservation, while Tefnut's moisture represented change and renewal. However, Tefnut also had a wrathful aspect, and by withdrawing her favour she caused droughts, heat waves, and crop failures - much feared in a country like Egypt, with its hot desert climate. As a water goddess, Tefnut was also associated with purification. There were important sanctuaries dedicated to the goddess in Heliopolis and Leontopolis ("city of lions") in the Nile Delta; in the latter city, Tefnut was worshiped alongside other lioness deities such as Sekhmet and Bast.

Answer: Finnish

Also known as Äjiä, Ukko ("old man" or "grandfather" in Finnish) is the chief god of the Finnish pantheon, who presides over weather phenomena; his parallel in the mythology of neighbouring Estonia is named Uku. The Finnish word for "thunder" is "ukkonen", the diminutive form of the god's name. According to some scholars, Ukko as both a weather god and the supreme Finnish deity was influenced by Indo-European patriarchal deities such as Zeus/Jupiter and the Balto-Slavic Perkunas/Perun: in fact, the common Finnish curse word "perkele" (meaning "devil" or "evil spirit") was originally one of the names for Ukko, who was equated with a demon after the country's Christianization.

Like the Norse thunder god Thor, Ukko had a hammer-like weapon (known as "Ukonvasara", "Ukko's hammer"), which he used to produce thunder and lightning. He also caused storms by driving his chariot across the sky, or having marital relations with his spouse, Akka ("old woman"), goddess of fertility. The Midsummer festival, now called "Juhannus" and associated with the feast of St John the Baptist, was originally dedicated to Ukko, as was the May festival known as "Vakkajuhlat" ("bushel festival"), during which food and beverages (and sometimes animal sacrifice) were offered to the god. Various plants and animals, such as the ladybird (ladybug) and the rowan tree, were associated with Ukko's worship. Ukko is also prominently featured in the "Kalevala", the Finnish national epic, where he is referred to as the Creator.