Nagualism Part 5

"I the priest, I who speak, I who burn this incense, I who light this candle, I who pray for him, I who take him under my protection, I ask you that he may obtain his subsistence with facility. Thou, G.o.d, canst provide him with money; let him not fall ill of fever; I ask that he shall not become paralytic; that he may not choke with severe coughing; that he be not bitten by a serpent; that he become neither bloated nor asthmatic; that he do not go mad; that he be not bitten by a dog; that he be not struck by lightning; that he be not choked with brandy; that he be not killed with iron, nor by a stick, and that he be not carried off by an eagle; guard him, O clouds; aid him, O lightning; aid him, O thunder; aid him, St. Peter; aid him, St. Paul; aid him, eternal Father.

"And I who up to this time have spoken for him to you, I ask you that sickness may visit his enemies. So order it, that when his enemies go forth from their houses, they may meet sickness; order it, that wherever they go, they may meet troubles; do your offices of injury to them, wheresoever they are met; do this that I pray, O holy souls. G.o.d be with you; G.o.d the Father, G.o.d the Son, G.o.d the Holy Spirit: Amen, Jesus."

Most of such invocations are expressed in terms far more recondite and symbolic than the above. We have many such preserved in the work of Jacinto de la Serna, which supply ample material to acquaint us with the peculiarities of the sacred and secret language of the nagualists. I shall quote but one, that employed in the curious ceremony of "calling back the _tonal_," referred to on a previous page. I append an explanation of its obscure metaphors.

_Invocation for the Rest.i.tution of the Tonal._

"Ho there! Come to my aid, mother mine of the skirt of precious stones![1] What keeps thee away, gray ghost, white ghost?[2] Is the obstacle white, or is it yellow? See, I place here the yellow enchantment and the white enchantment.[3]

"I, the Master of the Masters of enchantments, have come, I, who formed thee and gave thee life.[4] Thou, mother mine of the starry skirt, thou, G.o.ddess of the stars, who givest life, why hast thou turned against this one?[5]

"Adverse spirit and darkened star, I shall sink thee in the breadth and depth of the waters.[6] I, master of spells, speak to thee[TN-5] Ho there! Mother mine, whose skirt is made of gems, come, seek with me the shining spirit who dwells in the house of light,[7] that we may know what G.o.d or mighty power thus destroys and crushes to earth this unfortunate one. Green and black spirit of sickness, leave him and seek thy prey elsewhere.

"Green and yellow ghost, who art wandering, as if lost, over mountains and plains, I seek thee, I desire thee; return to him whom thou hast abandoned. Thou, the nine times beaten, the nine times smitten, see that thou fail me not.[8] Come hither, mother mine, whose robe is of precious gems; one water, two waters; one rabbit, two rabbits; one deer, two deers; one alligator, two alligators.[9]

"Lo! I myself am here; I am most furious; I make the loudest noise of all; I respect no one; even sticks and stones tremble before me.

What G.o.d or mighty power dare face me, me, a child of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses?[10] I have come to seek and call back the _tonal_ of this sick one, wherever it is, whithersoever it has wandered, be it nine times wandered, even unto the nine junctures and the nine unions.[11] Wherever it is, I summon it to return, I order it to return, and to heal and clean this heart and this head."

_Explanations._

1. The appeal is to Water, regarded as the universal Mother. The "skirt of precious stones" refers to the green of the precious green stones, a color sacred to water.

2. The question is addressed to the _tonal_.

3. The yellow enchantment is tobacco; the white, a cup of water.

4. That is, a.s.signed the form of the nagual belonging to the sick man.

5. This appeal is directed to the Milky Way.

6. The threat is addressed to the _tonal_, to frighten it into returning.

7. The "shining spirit" is the Fire-G.o.d.

8. The yellow tobacco, prepared ceremonially in the manner indicated.

9. These are names of days in the native calendar which are invoked.

10. The priest speaks in the person of his G.o.d.

11. Referring to the Nahuatl belief that there are nine upper and nine under worlds.

From the same work of de la Serna I collect the following list of symbolic expressions. It might easily be extended, but these will be sufficient to show the figurative obscurities which they threw around their formulas of conjuration, but which were by no means devoid of coherence and instruction to those who could understand them.

_Symbolic Expressions of the Nagualists._

_Blood._--"The red woman with snakes on her gown" (referring to the veins).

_Copal Gum._--"The white woman" (from the whitish color of the fresh gum).

_Cords_ (for carrying burdens).--"The snake that does woman's work"

(because women sit still to knit, and the cord works while itself is carried).

_Drunkenness._--"My resting time," or "when I am getting my breath."

_The Earth._--"The mirror that smokes" (because of the mists that rise from it); "the rabbit with its mouth upward" (the rabbit, in opposition to the one they see in the moon; with its mouth upward, because of the mists which rise from it like the breath exhaled from the mouth); "the flower which contains everything" (as all fruit proceeds from flowers, so does all vegetable life proceed from the earth, which is therefore spoken of as a flower); "the flower which bites the mouths" (a flower, for the reason given; it eats the mouths, because all things necessarily return to it, and are swallowed by it).

_Fingers._--"The five fates," or "the five works," or "the five fields" (because by the use of his fingers man works out his own destiny. Hence also the worship of the Hand among the Nahuas as the G.o.d Maitl, and among the Mayas as the G.o.d Kab, both which words mean "hand").

_Fire._--"Our Father of the Four Reeds" (because the ceremony of making the new fire was held on the day Four Reeds, 4 Acatl); "the shining rose;" "the yellow flyer;" "the red-haired one;" "the yellow spirit."

_A Knife of Copper._--"The yellow Chichimec" (because the Chichimecs were alleged to tear out the bowels of their enemies).

_The Maguey Plant._--"My sister, the eight in a row" (because it was planted in this manner).

_A Road._--"That which is divided in two, and yet has neither beginning, middle nor end" (because it always lies in two directions from a person, and yet all roads lead into others and thus never end).

_Sickness._--"The red woman;" "the breath of the flame;" "our mother the comet" (all referring to the fever); "the Chichimec"

(because it aims to destroy life, like these savage warriors); "the spider" (because of its venomous nature).

_Smoke._--"The old wife" (_i. e._, of the fire).

_The Sun._--"Our holy and pockified Uncle" (referring to the myth of Nanahuatl, who was syphilitic, and leaping into the flames of a fire rose as the sun).

_Tobacco._--"The nine (or seven) times beaten" (because for sacred purposes it was rubbed up this number of times); "the enchanted gray one" (from its color and use in conjuring).

_Water._--"The Green Woman" (from the greenness which follows moisture); "our Mother, whose robe is of precious stones" (from the green or vegetable life resembling the turquoise, emerald, jade, etc.).

=36.= It might be asked how the dark arts and secret ceremonies of the Nagualists escaped the prying eyes of the officers of the Holy Inquisition, which was established in Mexico in 1571. The answer is, that the inquisitors were instructed by Cardinal Diego de Espinosa, who at that time was Inquisitor General and President of the Council of the Indies, "to abstain from proceedings against Indians, because of their stupidity and incapacity, as well as scant instruction in the Holy Catholic faith, for the crimes of heresy, apostasy, heretical blasphemy, sorcery, incantations, superst.i.tions," etc.

Energetic inquisitors, however, conceded very grudgingly this exemption.

In the imposing _auto de fe_ celebrated in the city of Mexico, in 1659, a half-breed, Bernardo del Carpio by name, son of a full-blood Indian mother, accused of blasphemy, etc., endeavored to escape the Holy Office by pleading his Indian blood; but his appeal was disallowed, and the precedent established that any admixture whatever of European blood brought the accused within the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.[55-*]

Even this seems to have been a concession, for we find the record of an _auto de fe_ held in 1609, in the province of Tehuantepec, in which eight full-blood natives were punished for worshiping the G.o.ddess Pinopiaa.[55-] Mr. David Ferguson, however, who has studied extensively the records of the inquisition in Mexico, informs me that in none of the trials read by him has he observed any charges of Nagualism, although many white persons were accused, and some tried, for consulting Indian sorcerers.

=37.= It will be seen from what I have said, that the rites of Nagualism extended as widely as did the term over Mexico and Central America. It becomes, therefore, of importance to discover from what linguistic stock this term and its a.s.sociated words are derived. From that source it is reasonable to suppose the rites of this superst.i.tion also had their origin.

The opinions on this subject have been diverse and positive. Most writers have a.s.sumed that it is a Nahuatl, or pure Mexican, word; while an eminent authority, Dr. Stoll, is not less certain that it is from a radical belonging to the neighboring great stock of the Mayan dialects, and especially the Quiche, of Guatemala.[55-] Perhaps both these positions are erroneous, and we must look elsewhere for the true etymology of these expressions. Unquestionably they had become domesticated in both Maya and Nahuatl; but there is some reason to think they were loan-words, belonging to another, and perhaps more venerable, civilization than either of these nations could claim.

To ill.u.s.trate this I shall subjoin several series of words derived from the same radical which is at the basis of the word nagual, the series, three in number, being taken from the three radically diverse, though geographically contiguous, linguistic stocks, the Maya, the Zapotec and the Nahuatl.

_From the Maya, of Yucatan._

_Naual_, or _nautal_, a native dance, forbidden by the missionaries.