NAGUALISM


In the city of Mexico itself, in the year 1692, there was a violent outbreak of the natives, when they destroyed three million dollars worth of property. Doubtless this was partly attributable to the scarcity of food which prevailed; but that the authorities traced it also to some secret ceremonials is evident from the law which was immediately passed forbidding the Indians to wear the piochtli, or scalp-lock, a portion of the hair preserved from birth as part of the genethliac rituals[68] and the especial enactments against the octli.

As for the revolt of the Tzentals of Chiapas, in 1712, it was clearly and confessedly under the leadership of the nagualistic priesthood, as I shall indicate on a later page.

The history of the native American race under the Spanish power in North America has never yet been written with the slightest approach to thoroughness. He who properly qualifies himself for that task will certainly reach the conclusion expressed a number of years ago by the eminent American antiquary and historian, Mr. E. G. Squier, in these words:

"Among the ruling and priestly classes of the semi-civilized nations of America, there has always existed a mysterious bond, a secret organization, which all the disasters to which they have been subjected have not destroyed. It is to its present existence that we may attribute those simultaneous movements of the aborigines of Mexico and Central America, which have more than once threatened the complete subversion of the Spanish power."[69]

That mysterious bond, that secret organization, is Nagualism.

20. A remarkable feature in this mysterious society was the exalted position it assigned to Women. Not only were they admitted to the most esoteric degrees, but in repeated instances they occupied the very highest posts in the organization. According to the traditions of the Tzentals and Pipils of Chiapas, when their national hero, Votan, constructed by the breath of his mouth his darkened shrine at Tlazonloyan, in Soconusco, he deposited in it the sacred books and holy relics, and constituted a college of venerable sages to be its guardians; but placed them all in subjection to a high priestess, whose powers were absolute.[70]

The veracious Pascual de Andagoya asserts from his own knowledge that some of these female adepts had attained the rare and peculiar power of being in two places at once, as much as a league and a half apart;[71] and the repeated references to them in the Spanish writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries confirm the dread in which they were held and the extensive influence they were known to control. In the sacraments of Nagualism, Woman was the primate and hierophant.

21. This was a lineal inheritance from pre-Columbian times. In many native American legends, as in others from the old world, some powerful enchantress is remembered as the founder of the State, mistress of men through the potency of her magic powers.

Such, among the Aztecs, was the sorceress who built the city of Mallinalco, on the road from Mexico to Michoacan, famous even after the conquest for the skill of its magicians, who claimed descent from her.[72] Such, in Honduras, was Coamizagual, queen of Cerquin, versed in all occult science, who died not, but at the close of her earthly career rose to heaven in the form of a beautiful bird, amid the roll of thunder and the flash of lightning.[73]



[68] Cavo, Los Tres Siglos, etc., Tom. ii, p. 82. On the use and significance of the piochtli we have some information in Vetancurt, Teatro Mexicano, Tom. ii, p. 464, and de la Serna, Manual de Ministros, pp. 166, 167. It was the badge of a certain order of the native priesthood.

[69] Adventures on the Musquilo Shore, by S. A. Ward, pseudonym of Mr. Squier, p. 258 (New York, 1855).

[70] Nuñez de la Vega, Constituciones Diocesanas, p. 10, and comp. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. des Nat. Civ. de Mexique, Tom. i, p. 74.

[71] Herrera, Hist. de las Indias Occidentales, Dec. ii, Lib. iii, cap. 5.

[72] Acosta, Hist. Nat. y Moral de las Indias, Lib. vii, cap. 5.

[73] The story is given in Herrera, Est. de las Indias, Dec. iv, Lib. viii, cap. 4. The name Coamizagual is translated in the account as "Flying Tigress." I cannot assign it this sense in any dialect.

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