In the Lightning house

Abstract

In this work we propose an ethnographic look at a series of ritual practices carried out in Zapotec indigenous communities, in southern Oaxaca, Mexico, through which rain and harvest are requested in sacred places called "lightning houses", which they are found predominantly at the top of some hills. In these places one of the most important sacred entities in the life of these indigenous communities is invoked, the Lightning, who is conceived as the owner of animals, plants and hills, also ruler of rain and harvest , among other things. Both the sacred notion of the Lightning, as well as its invocation in sacred places on the tops of the hills can be traced historically in different sources, both alphabetical, pictographic, and oral. Finally, as part of this complex that links Rayo, his house (high in the mountains), water in its different forms, corn and other plants important for human sustenance and the meteorological phenomena that affect agriculture, are the meteorological knowledge, which is used in the interpretation of weather in general.