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He existed before the Sun and was owner of all the waters, except the rainwater ironically enough. He lived in the "great water" at the end of the sea and skies to the east, where he acted as the eastern pillar holding the world, his abode has also been described as underground where he creates wooden animals to act as his servants. In accordance to mesoamerican duality; Aktzin was both life giving and life taking, keen to drown the world as those who died by drowning became his servants; the men forced to dig the Stream bed, and women forced marry him. Aktzin is seen as a hunter, drinker and very noisy. It is he who is heard bellowing like a jaguar when rain comes. Stories credit him as the inventor of and friend of animals
A story of him as Saint John tells how he slayed a giant python called "seventeen heads", who lived in Chicontepec and devastated the population. John tricked the snake and made him fall head first into the sea, where he was chained with the hair of the Virgin, where he remains, only able to move his head and scream.
Aktzin was typically depicted as a male figure wearing some form of headdress and rings over his eyes, similar to spectacles. In one hand he held a hammer or axe which would produce thunder and lightning as it struck the clouds. Water poured from his other hand, either from his palm or from a vessel which he held. These elements represented the life-giving and sometimes destructive forces of the weather.
The Spain conquerors led by Hernán Cortés encountered the Totonac civilization in 1519, after their initial contact with the Mayas of the Yucatán Peninsula. The Totonac territories were located near the Gulf coast in what is today the state of Veracruz. The city of El Tajín (City of the Thunder God), is an archaeological zone with the remains of the Totonac capital city dating back over 1,000 years.
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