Chapter 6

_X-qnaulai_, to know often or thoroughly (frequentative).

_Naom_, wise, astute (_naom vinic_, hombre sabio).

_Naoghi_, art, science.

_Naoghibal_, memory.

_Ghnaoghel_, a wise man.

_Alaghom naom_, the Goddess of Wisdom.

_From the Zapotec, of Oaxaca_.

_Nana_, _gana_, _gona_, to know.

_Nona_, to know thoroughly, to retain in the memory.

_Nana ticha_, or _nona lii_, a wise man.

_Guela nana_, or _guela nona_, wisdom, knowledge.

_Hue gona_, or _ro gona_, a teacher, a master.

_Na lii_, truth; _ni na lii_, that which is true.

_Nacina_, or _naciina_, skill, dexterity.

_Hui naa_, a medicine man, a "nagualist."

_Nahaa_, to speak pleasantly or agreeably.

_Nayaa_, or _nayapi_, to speak easily or fluently.

_Rigoo gona_, to sacrifice, to offer sacrifice.

_Ni nana_, the understanding, the intelligence, generally.

_Nayanii_, the superior reason of man.

_Nayaa_, } superiority, a superior man (gentileza, gentil hombre). _Naguii_, }

_From the Nahuatl, of Mexico_.

_Naua_, to dance, holding each other by the hands.

_Naualli_, a sorcerer, magician, enchanter.

_Nauallotl_, magic, enchantment, witchcraft.

_Nauatl_, or _nahuatl_, skillful, astute, smart; hence, superior; applied to language, clear, well-sounding, whence (perhaps) the name of the tongue.

_Nauati_, to speak clearly and distinctly.

_Nauatlato_, an interpreter.

=38.= I believe that no one can carefully examine these lists of words, all taken from authorities well acquainted with the several tongues, and writing when they still retained their original purity, without acknowledging that the same radical or syllable underlies them all; and further, that from the primitive form and rich development of this radical in the Zapotec, it looks as if we must turn to it to recognize the origin of all these expressions, both in the Nahuatl and the Maya linguistic stocks.

The root _na_, to know, is the primitive monosyllabic stem to which we trace all of them. _Nahual_ means knowledge, especially mystic knowledge, the Gnosis, the knowledge of the hidden and secret things of nature; easily enough confounded in uncultivated minds with sorcery and magic.[57-*]

It is very significant that neither the radical _na_ nor any of its derivatives are found in the Huasteca dialect of the Mayan tongue, which was spoken about Tampico, far removed from other members of the stock. The inference is that in the southern dialects it was a borrowed stem.

Nor in the Nahuatl language--although its very name is derived from it[58-*]--does the radical _na_ appear in its simplicity and true significance. To the Nahuas, also, it must have been a loan.

It is true that de la Serna derives the Mexican _naualli_, a sorcerer, from the verb _nahualtia_, to mask or disguise oneself, "because a _naualli_ is one who masks or disguises himself under the form of some lower animal, which is his _nagual_;"[58-[+]] but it is altogether likely that _nahualtia_ derived its meaning from the custom of the medicine men to wear masks during their ceremonies.

Therefore, if the term _nagual_, and many of its associates and derivatives, were at first borrowed from the Zapotec language, a necessary corrollary[TN-6] of this conclusion is, that along with these terms came most of the superstitions, rites and beliefs to which they allude; which thus became grafted on the general tendency to such superstitions existing everywhere and at all times in the human mind.

Along with the names of the days and the hieroglyphs which mark them, and the complicated arithmetical methods by means of which they were employed, were carried most of the doctrines of the Nagualists, and the name by which they in time became known from central Mexico quite to Nicaragua and beyond.

The mysterious words have now, indeed, lost much of their ancient significance. In a recent dictionary of the Spanish of Mexico _nagual_ is defined as "a witch; a word used to frighten children and make them behave,"[58-[++]] while in Nicaragua, where the former Nahuatl population has left so many traces of its presence in the language of to-day, the word _nagual_ no longer means an actor in the black art, or a knowledge of it, but his or her armamentarium, or the box, jar or case in which are kept the professional apparatus, the talismans and charms, which constitute the stock in trade or outfit of the necromancer.[59-*]

Among the Lacandons, of Mayan stock, who inhabit the forests on the upper waters of the Usumacinta river, at the present day the term _naguate_ or _nagutlat_ is said to be applied to any one "who is entitled to respect and obedience by age and merit;"[59-[+]] but in all probability he is also believed to possess superior and occult knowledge.

=39.= All who have any acquaintance with the folk-lore of the world are aware that the notion of men and women having the power to change themselves into beasts is as wide as superstition itself and older than history. It is mentioned in the pages of Herodotus and in the myths of ancient Assyria. It is the property of African negroes, and the peasantry of Europe still hold to their faith in the reality of the were-wolf of Germany, the _loup-garou_ of France and the _lupo mannaro_ of Italy. Dr. Richard Andree well says in his interesting study of the subject: "He who would explain the origin of this strange superstition must not approach it as a national or local manifestation, but as one universal in its nature; not as the property of one race or family, but of the species and its psychology at large."[59-[++]]

Even in such a detail as the direct connection of the name of the person with his power of change do we find extraordinary parallelisms between the superstition of the red man of America and the peasant of Germany. As in Mexico the _nagual_ was assigned to the infant by a form of baptism, so in Europe the peasants of east Prussia hold that if the godparent at the time of naming and baptism thinks of a wolf, the infant will acquire the power of becoming one; and in Hesse to pronounce the name of the person in the presence of the animal into which he has been changed will restore him to human shape.[59-Sec.]

=40.= I need not say that the doctrine of personal spirits is not especially Mexican, nor yet American; it belongs to man in general, and can be recognized in most religions and many philosophies. In ancient Greece both the Platonicians and later the Neo-Platonicians thought that each individual has a particular spirit, or _daim[=o]n_, in whom is enshrined his or her moral personality. To this _daim[=o]n_ he should address his prayers, and should listen heedfully to those interior promptings which seem to arise in the mind from some unseen silent monitor.[60-*]

Many a member of the Church of Rome substitutes for the _daim[=o]n_ of the Platonists the patron saint after whom he is named, or whom he has chosen from the calendar, the hagiology, of his Church. This analogy did not fail to strike the early missionaries, and they saw in the Indian priest selecting the _nagual_ of the child a hideous and diabolical caricature of the holy rites.

But what was their horror when they found that the similarity proceeded so far that the pagan priest also performed a kind of baptismal sacrament with water; and that in the Mexican picture-writing the sign which represents the natal day, the _tonal_, by which the individual demon is denoted, was none other than the sign of the cross, as we have seen. This left no doubt as to the devilish origin of the whole business, which was further supported by the wondrous thaumaturgic powers of its professors.

=41.= How are we to explain these marvelous statements? It will not do to take the short and easy road of saying they are all lies and frauds. The evidence is too abundant for us to doubt that there was skillful jugglery among the proficients in the occult arts among those nations. They could rival their colleagues in the East Indies and Europe, if not surpass them.

Moreover, is there anything incredible in the reports of the spectators? Are we not familiar with the hypnotic or mesmeric conditions in which the subject sees, hears and feels just what the master tells him to feel and see? The tricks of cutting oneself or others, of swallowing broken glass, of handling venomous reptiles, are well-known performances of the sect of the Aissaoua in northern Africa, and nowadays one does not have to go off the boulevards of Paris to see them repeated. The phenomena of thought transference, of telepathy, of clairvoyance, of spiritual rappings, do but reiterate under the clear light of the close of the nineteenth century the mystical thaumaturgy with which these children of nature were familiar centuries ago in the New World, and which are recorded of the theosophists and magicians of Egypt, Greece and Rome.[61-*] So long as many intelligent and sensible people among ourselves find all explanations of these modern phenomena inadequate and unsatisfactory, we may patiently wait for a complete solution of those of a greater antiquity.

=42.= The conclusion to which this study of Nagualism leads is, that it was not merely the belief in a personal guardian spirit, as some have asserted; not merely a survival of fragments of the ancient heathenism, more or less diluted by Christian teachings, as others have maintained; but that above and beyond these, it was a powerful secret organization, extending over a wide area, including members of different languages and varying culture, bound together by mystic rites, by necromantic powers and occult doctrines; but, more than all, by one intense emotion--hatred of the whites--and by one unalterable purpose--that of their destruction, and with them the annihilation of the government and religion which they had introduced.

FOOTNOTES:

[4-*] These words occur a number of times in the English translation, published at London in 1822, of Dr. Paul Felix Cabrera's _Teatro Critico Americano_. The form _nagual_ instead of _nahual_, or _naual_, or _nawal_ has been generally adopted and should be preferred.

[4-[+]] For instance, in "The Names of the Gods in the Kiche Myths," pp. 21, 22, in _Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society_, 1881; _Annals of the Cakchiquels_, Introduction, p. 46; _Essays of an Americanist_, p. 170, etc.

[5-*] _Historia de las Indias Occidentales_, Dec. iv, Lib. viii, cap. 4.

[5-[+]] More especially it is the territory of the Chorti dialect, spoken to this day in the vicinity of the famous ancient city of Copan, Honduras. Cerquin lies in the mountains nearly due east of this celebrated site. On the Chorti, see Stoll, _Zur Ethnographie der Republik Guatemala_, pp. 106-9.

[6-*] Bernardino de Sahagun, _Historia de la Nueva Espana_, Lib. x, cap. 9.

[6-[+]] Derived from _teciuhtlaza_, to conjure against hail, itself from _teciuh_, hail. Alonso de Molina, _Vocabulario Mexicano_, sub voce.

[6-[++]] Bautista, _Advertencias para los Confesores_, fol. 112 (Mexico, 1600).

[6-Sec.] Nicolas de Leon, _Camino del Cielo_, fol. 111 (Mexico, 1611).

[7-*] Paso y Troncoso, in _Anales del Museo Nacional[TN-7] de Mexico_, Tom. iii, p. 180.

[7-[+]] Sahagun, _Historia de Nueva Espana_, Lib. x, cap. 29, and Lib. xi, cap. 7. Hernandez has the following on the mysterious properties of this plant: "Illud ferunt de hac radice mirabile (si modo fides sit vulgatissimae inter eos rei habendae), devorantes illam quodlibet prsaesagire praedicereque; velut an sequenti die hostes sint impetum in eos facturi? Anne illos felicia maneant tempora? Quis supellectilem, aut aliud quidpiam furto subripruerit? Et ad hunc modum alia, quibus Chichimecae hujusmodi medicamine cognoscendis." Franciscus Hernandus, _Historia Plantarum Novae Hispaniae_, Tom. iii, p. 71 (Ed., Madrid, 1790).

[7-[++]] _Diccionario Universal_, Appendice, Tom. i, p. 360 (Mexico, 1856).

[8-*] _Confessionario Mayor y Menor en lengua Mexicana_, fol. 8, verso (Mexico, 1634).

[8-[+]] Vetancurt, _Teatro Mexicano_, Trat. iii, cap. 9.

[8-[++]] Hernandez, _Historia Plantarum Novae Hispaniae_, Tom. iii, p. 32.

[9-*] Dr. Jacinto de la Serna, _Manual de Min stros[TN-8] de Indios para el Conocimiento de sus Idolatrias y Extirpacion de Ellas_, p. 163. This interesting work was composed about the middle of the seventeenth century by a Rector of the University of Mexico, but was first printed at Madrid, in 1892, from the MS. furnished by Dr. N. Leon, under the editorship of the Marquis de la Fuensanta del Valle.

[9-[+]] MSS. of the Licentiate Zetina, and _Informe_ of Father Baeza in _Registro Yucateco_, Tom. i.

[10-*] Acosta, _De la Historia Moral de Indias_, Lib. v, cap. 26.

[10-[+]] Of the _thiuimeezque_ Hernandez writes: "Aiunt radicis cortice unius unciae pondere tuso, atque devorato, multa ante oculos observare phantasmata, multiplices imagines ac monstrificas rerum figuras, detegique furem, si quidpiam rei familiaris subreptum sit." _Hist. Plant. Nov. Hispan._, Tom. iii, p. 272. The _chacuaco_ and its effects are described by Father Venegas in his _History of California_, etc.

[10-[++]] "In Mictlan Tetlachihuique, in Nanahualtin, in Tlahuipuchtin." Paredes, _Promptuario Manual Mexicano_, p. 128 (Mexico, 1757). The _tlahuipuchtin_, "those who work with smoke," were probably diviners who foretold the future from the forms taken by smoke in rising in the air. This class of augurs were also found in Peru, where they were called _Uirapircos_ (Balboa, _Hist. du Perou_, p. 28-30).

[10-Sec.] Von Gagern, _Charakteristik der Indianischer Bevoelkerung Mexikos_, s. 125.

[11-*] _Historia Antigua de Mexico_, Tom. ii, p. 25. Francisco Pimentel, in his thoughtful work, _Memoria sobre las Causas que han originado la Situacion Actual de la Raza Indigena de Mexico_ (Mexico, 1864), recognizes how almost impossible it is to extirpate their faith in this nagualism. "Conservan los agueros y supersticiones de la antigueedad, siendo cosa de fe para ellos, los _nahuales_," etc., p. 200, and comp. p. 145.

[11-[+]] On these terms consult the extensive _Dictionnaire de la Langue Nahuatl_, by Remi Simeon,[TN-9] published at Paris, 1887. It is not impossible that _tona_ is itself a compound root, including the monosyllabic radical _na_, which is at the basis of _nagual_.

[11-[++]] Sahagun, _Historia de Nueva Espana_, Lib. iv, _passim_, and Lib. x, cap. 9.

[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 assigning this meaning to _naualli_.

[13-*] _Anales de Cuauhtitlan_, 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-Sec.] Eduard Muehlenpfordt, _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 superstitions 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, assigned 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, entitled "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-[++]] _Constit. Diocesan_, p. 19.

[18-*] _Constitut. Diocesan_, Titulo vii, pp. 47, 48.

[19-*] Rather with the Quetzalcoatl of the Nahuas, and the Gucumatz 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_ (pronounced _p[=o]sh_) is another form of the Quiche-Cakchiquel _p[=u]z_, 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, _Constitut. 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 god 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," _Constitut. Diocesan_, i, p. 106.

[23-*] _Historia de Guatemala, o, 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. Brasseur, Paris, 1861). In the Quiche myths, Gucumatz is the analogue 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 erhaelt der heidnische Goetzenpriester von diesem Ereignisse viel eher Kunde, als der katholische Pfarrer. Erst wenn dem neuen Weltbuerger durch den Aj-quig das Horoskop gestellt, der Name irgend eines Thieres beigelegt, Mi-si-sal (das citronengelbe Harz des Rhus copallinum) verbrannt, ein Lieblingsgoetze angerufen, und noche viele andere aberglauebische 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 gewoehnlich auch als sein Schutzgeist (_nagual_) fuers 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, "Manuscrits 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-[++]] Brasseur, _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 Brasseur.

[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." _Constituciones 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 principalmente 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-Sec.] 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 gods." Carriedo, _Estudios Historicos_,[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 documents 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.