Lightning in the Andes and Mesoamerica: Pre-Columbian, Colonial, and Contemporary Perspectives by John E. Staller and Brian Stross (review)

Given all that has been written on the relationship between culture and the cosmic forces of nature—earthquakes, volcanoes, comets, eclipses, meteors, etc.—it seems surprising that so little has been compiled on what might be described as the most feared and unpredictable of all sky deities, namely lightning. Lightning in the Andes and Mesoamerica brings to light a much needed body of literature on the New World hurlers of the bolt, coupled with original work by the authors, one an Andean archaeologist, the other a Mesoamerican linguistic anthropologist. The presentation is lucid, well documented, and logically arranged. It begins with a chapter on lightning lore in western culture from Marduk to Thor, and includes a scientific explanation of lightning and its effects. This is followed by lengthier chapters on lightning in the Andean and Meosoamerican traditions, each offering a strong linguistic and etymological analysis and rich discussion of how Hispanic intrusion affected its understanding. A pair of discussion chapters on lightning in each of the culture areas, stressing similarities and differences, and a chapter of general conclusions round out the text, which includes a 500+ reference bibliography.

Reading the section on the nature of lightning understood from a scientific perspective—which focuses on the process of separation of electronic charge, convective transport, and the production of oxides of nitrogen—then considering it alongside the place of lightning in Pan-American universes teeming with life, the energized, animated landscape, and its role in gender relations, helps one realize the stark contrast between two radically different ways of knowing the natural world.

Both the Andean and Mesoamerican chapters begin with overviews of cosmogony, each commencing with a useful table of lightning association. In the Andes, sexual metaphors explain the connection to agriculture via the rain portended by lightning and thunder. In the Huarochiri Manuscript (Salomon and Urioste 1991), the negative Yunca lowland deity Huallallo Caruincho flashes his lightning and creates forest fires and volcanic eruptions as he fights a losing battle with Yauyo highland mountain god Paria Caca. Later, Paria Caca wrests the power of lightning from his foe. One of the principal animating agents is the god Illapa, the “great transformer,” who delivers messages from the great spirits. His bolts create child deformations in utero and determine the gender of the unborn. Illapa’s impregnating influence also played a role in the syncretic conversion process when his powers were acquired by St. James, whose “sons of lightning” cult were thought to have been conceived immaculately.

In many parts of the Andes, particularly in mining communities and areas dotted with caves, the stroke on the landscape is regarded as the agency of metallogenesis. In a forthcoming study of the imagery on a colonial Aymara coat-of-arms from a mining community in Potosí, Tristan Platt (2015) implicates evening star Venus, or lucero, which also names a form of lightning. Like the stars that fall to Earth (meteorites), which are associated with the sowing and germination of minerals in the body of Pachamama, so too does the evening star, often prominently visible low in the west after late afternoon thunderstorms, descend to earth. This association is reminiscent of the connection between the Lacandon Maya deity Mensabak-Venus and lightning, discussed in the Mesoamerican chapter. The connection between lightning rituals and thorny oyster shells (mullu) is more difficult to forge. The red color along shell rims may be the visual cue that connotes female menstrual blood/fertility; also, the shell profile resembles the vagina dentata. “Cacap cacap” is the thunder-like sound made by the five men who munch on thorny oyster shells as they are liberated from Huallallo’s rule in Chapter 8 of the Huarochiri Manuscript (Salomon and Urioste 1991:66–69). Its prominent appearance (alongside rainbow) in Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui’s colonial diagram of the Coricancha suggests that lightning was important in Inca ideology, particularly when it...