Yopaat- Maya GodDeity"The Striker"
Also known as: Yo'paat
Description
His name means "he strikes." On the temple facades of Copan, Yopaat's stone face stared out at the valley where maize grew or died by his rains. The city's kings carved his name into their royal titles, and the ruler who destroyed Copan bore it too.
Mythology & Lore
The Rains of Copan
The Copan Valley sits at the southeastern edge of the Maya world, surrounded by mountains that funnel rainstorms onto the river bottom where the city was built. Rain here was survival. The maize fields that fed Copan lived or died by the seasonal storms, and the god who controlled them was Yopaat.
His stone face adorned temple facades and stelae, turned toward the valley he was asked to sustain. The carvings show a curved snout and serpent bodies flowing from his headdress. Chaac's masks covered temples across the Yucatán, but at Copan the storm god wore Yopaat's face.
Copan's rulers claimed him for themselves. They wove his name into their royal titles and bound the dynasty to the god who brought the rains. The thirteenth ruler, Waxaklajuun Ub'aah K'awiil, invoked Yopaat in his title string. On specialized temple platforms, the god's carved face served as a permanent petition for the storms that made maize grow. Before planting season, kings performed rituals at these facades. They called on the storm lord to strike.
The Capture of 738
At Quiriguá, a smaller city in the Motagua Valley, another ruler bore Yopaat's name: K'ahk' Tiliw Chan Yopaat, "Fire-Burning Sky Yopaat." In 738 CE, this storm-named king captured and sacrificed Waxaklajuun Ub'aah K'awiil, Copan's thirteenth ruler. The great city's king, taken by the lord of a tributary site. The storm god's name was on the captor's lips.
After 738, Copan faltered. At Quiriguá, K'ahk' Tiliw Chan Yopaat raised enormous stelae to commemorate his triumph. Stela E, carved in 771, stands over ten meters high. Yopaat's name, which had marked Copan's kings as masters of the rain, now marked the dynasty that had broken them.