Ancestor Legends: Cocijo, God of Lightning of the Zapotec People
When suddenly, a ray of lightning appeared, followed by a very loud roar that shook the heavens and the earth; the lightning was born. This is how men were able to obtain fire and Cocijo became the God of lightning.
This story began many ages ago...Pitao, the God who created the universe invited more deities to participate in his great creation and as part of his benevolence, he gave each deity a different power for each element. However, one of the deities did not receive any power from Pitao and that was Cocijo, as he had judged him to be too small a god to be able to carry out any task he gave him.
Once this task was finished, Pitao decided to postpone the creation of fire, since this element would be the one that men would be able to tame. The men had sunlight during the day, but at night they were in complete darkness and felt they lacked something to warm and illuminate them. So they decided to build a very high hill so they could pray to Pitao and that he would listen to them and grant them fire.
Pitao, upon hearing their prayers, put two pieces of wood together and rubbed them together, in this way small sparks began to emerge, which later transformed into large flames, thus illuminating the cold and dark night.
Pitao invited the rest of the Gods so that one of them could take this element, however, seeing that to take this gift they had to throw themselves into the bonfire, none of them wanted to try; until Cocijo, being the last on the list, offered himself, but first, he summoned the rain to soak him with water and the wind to raise the flames, and then he bravely threw himself into the bonfire.
No one knew what would happen when suddenly, a ray of lightning appeared followed by a very loud roar that shook the heavens and the earth; the lightning was born. This is how men were able to obtain fire and Cocijo became the God of lightning.
Source: INPI
