Nagualism Part 8

[12-*] See Ch. de Labarthe, _Revue Americaine_, Serie ii, Tom. ii, pp.

222-225. His translation of _naualteteuctin_ by "Seigneurs du genie"

must be rejected, as there is absolutely no authority for a.s.signing this meaning to _naualli_.

[13-*] _a.n.a.les de Cuauht.i.tlan_, p. 31. The translator renders it "palo brujo."

[13-] _Les Anciennes Villes du Nouveau Monde_, pp. 146-148, figured on p. 150. On its significance compare Hamy, _Decades Americanae_, pp.

74-81.

[13-] _The Native Calendar of Central America and Mexico_ (Philadelphia, 1893).

[13--] Eduard Muhlenpfordt, _Mexico_, Bd. i, s. 255.

[14-*] The word is derived from _tlatoa_, to speak for another, and its usual translation was "chief," as the head man spoke for, and in the name of the gens or tribe.

[14-] The interesting account by Iglesias is printed in the Appendix to the _Diccionario Universal de Geographia y Historia_ (Mexico, 1856).

Other writers testify to the tenacity with which the Mixes cling to their ancient beliefs. Senor Moro says they continue to be "notorious idolaters," and their actual religion to be "an absurd jumble of their old superst.i.tions with Christian doctrines" (in Orozco y Berra, _Geografia de las Lenguas de exico[TN-10]_, p. 176).

[15-*] For instance, J. B. Carriedo, in his _Estudios Historicos del Estado Oaxaqueno_ (Oaxaca, 1849), p. 15, says the _nahualt_ was a ceremony performed by the native priest, in which the infant was bled from a vein behind the ear, a.s.signed a name, that of a certain day, and a guardian angel or _tona_. These words are pure Nahuatl, and Carriedo, who does not give his authority, probably had none which referred these rites to the Zapotecs.

[15-] Juan de Cordova, _Arte en Lengua Zapoteca_, pp. 16, 202, 203, 213, 216.

[16-*] Quoted in Carriedo, ubi supra, p. 17.

[16-] _Hist. de las Indias Oc._, Dec. iii, Lib. iii, cap. 12.

[17-*] So I understand the phrase, "figuras pintadas con zifras enigmaticas"[TN-11]

[17-] _Popoluca_ was a term applied to various languages. I suspect the one here referred to was the Mixe. See an article by me, ent.i.tled "Chontales and Popolucas; a Study in Mexican Ethnography," in the _Compte Rendu_ of the Eighth Session of the Congress of Americanists, p.

566, _seq._

[17-] _Const.i.t. Diocesan_, p. 19.

[18-*] _Const.i.tut. Diocesan_, t.i.tulo vii, pp. 47, 48.

[19-*] Rather with the Quetzalcoatl of the Nahuas, and the Guc.u.matz of the Quiches, both of which names mean "Feathered Serpent." Mixcohuatl, the Cloud Serpent, in Mexican mythology, referred to the Thunder-storm.

[19-] In his Tzental Vocabulary, Father Lara does not give this exact form; but in the neighboring dialect of the Cakchiquel Father Ximenes has _quikeho_, to agree together, to enter into an arrangement; the prefix _zme_ is the Tzental word for "mother."

[20-*] Father Lara, in his _Vocabulario Tzendal MS._ (in my possession), gives for medical (medico), _ghpoxil_, for medicine (medicinal cosa), _pox_, _xpoxtacoghbil_; for physician (medico), _ghpoxta vinic_ (the form _vanegh_, person, is also correct). The Tzendal _pox_ (p.r.o.nounced _posh_) is another form of the Quiche-Cakchiquel _puz_, a word which Father Ximenes, in his _Vocabulario Cakchiquel_ MS (in my possession), gives in the compound _puz naual_, with the meaning, enchanter, wizard.

Both these, I take it, are derived from the Maya _puz_, which means to blow the dust, etc., off of something (soplar el polvo de la ropa o otra cosa. _Dicc. de la Lengua Maya del Convento de Motul_, MS. The dictionary edited by Pio Perez does not give this meaning). The act of blowing was the essential feature in the treatment of these medicine men. It symbolized the transfer and exercise of spiritual power. When Votan built his underground shrine he did it _a soplos_, by blowing (Nunez de la Vega, _Const.i.tut. Diocesan_, p. 10). The natives did not regard the comet's tail as behind it but in front of it, blown from its mouth. The Nahuatl word in the text, _tzihuizin_, is the Pipil form of _xihuitzin_, the reverential of _xihuitl_, which means a leaf, a season, a year, or a comet. Apparently it refers to the Nahuatl divinity _Xiuhte cutli_, described by Sahagun, _Historia de Nueva Espana_, Lib. i, cap.

13, as G.o.d of fire, etc.

[21-*] _Hicalahau_, for _ical ahau_, Black King, one of the Tzental divinities, who will be referred to on a later page.

[21-] "Maestros de los pueblos," _Const.i.tut. Diocesan_, i, p. 106.

[23-*] _Historia de Guatemala, , Recordacion Florida_, Tom. ii, p. 44, _seq._

[24-*] Gage, _A New Survey of the West Indies_, p. 388, _seq._ (4th Ed.).

[25-*] _Le Popol Vuh, ou Livre Sacre des Quiches_, p. 315 (Ed. Bra.s.seur, Paris, 1861). In the Quiche myths, Guc.u.matz is the a.n.a.logue of Quetzalcoatl in Aztec legend. Both names mean the same, "Feathered Serpent."

[25-] Baeza's article is printed in the _Registro Yucateco_, Vol. i, p.

165, _seq._

[26-*] "Wird ein Kind im Dorfe geboren, so erhalt der heidnische Gotzenpriester von diesem Ereignisse viel eher Kunde, als der katholische Pfarrer. Erst wenn dem neuen Weltburger durch den Aj-quig das Horoskop gestellt, der Name irgend eines Thieres beigelegt, Mi-si-sal (das citronengelbe Harz des Rhus copallinum) verbrannt, ein Lieblingsgotze angerufen, und noche viele andere aberglaubische Mysterien verrichtet worden sind, wird das Kind nach dem Pfarrhause zur christlichen Taufe getragen. Das Thier, dessen Name dem Kinde kurz nach seiner Geburt vom Sonnenpriester beigelegt wird, gilt gewohnlich auch als sein Schutzgeist (_nagual_) furs ganze Leben." Dr. Karl Scherzer, _Die Indianer von Santa Catalina Istlavacan_, p. 11, Wien, 1856.

[26-] The word _zahori_, of Arabic origin, is thus explained in the Spanish and English dictionary of Delpino (London, 1763): "So they call in Spain an impostor who pretends to see into the bowels of the earth, through stone walls, or into a man's body." Dr. Stoll says the Guatemala Indians speak of their diviners, the _Ah Kih_, as _zahorin_.

_Guatemala_, s. 229.

[26-] Emetorio Pineda, _Descripcion Geografica de Chiapas y Soconusco_, p. 22 (Mexico, 1845).

[27-*] Madier de Montjau, "Ma.n.u.scrits Figuratifs de l' Ancien Mexique,"

in _Archives de la Societe Americaine[TN-12] de France_, 1875, p. 245.

[27-] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, Lib. xv, cap. 16.

[28-*] De la Serna, _Manual de Ministros_, pp. 20, 21, 42, 162. The mushroom referred to was the _quauhnanacatl_, probably the same as the _teyhuinti_ of Hernandez, _Hist. Plant. Nov. Hispan._, Tom. ii, p. 358, who says that it is not dangerous to life, but disturbs the mind, inciting to laughter and intoxication.

[28-] Actual slavery of the Indians in Mexico continued as late as the middle of the seventeenth century. See Cavo, _Tres Siglos de Mexico_, etc., Tom. ii, p. 11.

[28-] Bra.s.seur, _Hist. des Nations Civilisees de Mexique_, Tom. iv, p.

822.

[29-*] _Informe del teniente general, Don Jacobo de Barba Figueroa, corregidor de la Provincia de Suchitepeque_, quoted by Bra.s.seur.

[29-] Jacinto de la Serna says: "Los maestros de estas ceremonias son todos unos, y lo que sucede en esta cordillera en todas sucede." _Manual de Ministros_, p. 52. Speaking of the methods of the nagualists of Chiapas, Bishop Nunez de la Vega writes: "Concuerdan los mas modernos con los mas antiguos que se practicaban en Mexico." _Const.i.tuciones Diocesanas_, p. 134.

[29-] He observes that there were "familias de los tales sabios en las quales en manera de patrimonio se heredaban, succediendo los hijos a los padres, y princ.i.p.almente su abominable secta de Nagualismo." _Historia del Cielo y de la Tierra_, MS., p. 7. Ordonez advances various erudite reasons for believing that Nagualism is a religious belief whose theory and rites were brought from Carthage by Punic navigators in ancient times.

[29--] Maria de Moxo, _Cartas Mejicanas_, p. 270, (Genova, n. d.).

[30-*] "_Xochimilca_, que asi llamavan a los mui sabios encantadores."

Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, Lib. xv, cap. 16.

[30-] In Nahuatl, _tlapiani_, a guardian or watchman. The Zapotec priesthood was divided into the _huijatoos_, "greater guardians," and their inferiors, the _copavitoos_, "guardians of the G.o.ds." Carriedo, _Estudios Historics_,[TN-13] p. 93.

[30-] See Eligio Ancona. _Historia de Yucatan_, Tom. iv, cap. 1 (Merida, 1880).

[31-*] The mention of the fifteen, 5 x 3, chosen disciples indicates that the same system of initiating by triplets prevailed in Yucatan as in Chiapas (see above, p. 19). The sacred tree is not named, but presumably it was the ceiba to which I refer elsewhere. The address of Jacinto was obtained from those present, and is given at length by the Jesuit Martin del Puerto, in his _Relacion hecho al Cabildo Eclesiastico por el preposito de la Compania de Jesus, acerca de la muerte de Jacinto Can-Ek y socios_, Dec. 26, 1761. It is published, with other doc.u.ments relating to this revolt, in the Appendix to the _Diccionario Universal_, edited by Orozco y Berra, Mexico, 1856. On the prophecies of Chilan Balam, see my _Essays of an Americanist_, pp. 255-273 (Philadelphia, 1890).

[31-] Eligio Ancona, _Hist. de Yucatan_, Tom. ii, p. 452.

[32-*] See Pedro Sanchez de Aguilar, _Informe contra Idolum Cultores en Yucathan_ (Madrid, 1639); Eligio Ancona, _Historia de Yucatan_, Tom. ii, pp. 128, 129.

[32-] The chief authority on this revolt is Juan de Torres Castillo, _Relacion de lo Sucedido en las Provincias de Nexapa, Iztepex y Villa Alta_ (Mexico, 1662). See also Cavo, _Los Tres Siglos de Mexico durante el Gobierno Espanol_, Tom. ii, p. 41, and a pamphlet by Christoval Manso de Contreras, _Relacion cierta y verdadera de lo que sucedio en esta Provincia de Tehuantepec_, etc. (printed at Mexico, 1661), which I know only through the notes of Dr. Berendt. Mr. H. H. Bancroft, in his very meagre account of this event, mistakingly insists that it took place in 1660. _History of Mexico_, Vol. iii, p. 164.

[32-] See Bra.s.seur de Bourbourg, _Histoire des Nations Civilisees de la Mexique_, Tom. iv, 824.