1894.] ^^ [Brinton. 



Mexico and Guatemala, which everywhere was inspired by two 

 ruling sentiments — detestation of the Spaniards and hatred of 

 the Christian religion. 



In their eyes the latter was but a cloak for the exactions, 

 massacres and oppressions exerted by the former. To them the 

 sacraments of the Church were the outward signs of their own 

 subjugation and misery. They revolted against these rites in 

 open hatred, or received them with secret repugnance and con- 

 tempt. In the Mexican figurative manuscripts composed after 

 the conquest the rite of baptism is constantly depicted as the 

 S3'mbol of religious persecution. Says a sympathetic student 

 of this subject : 



"The act of baptism is always inserted ia their records of battles and 

 massacres. Everywhere it conveys the same idea, — making evident to 

 the reader that the pretext for all the military expeditions of the Spaniards 

 was the enforced conversion to Christianity of the natives ; a pretext on 

 which the Spaniards seized in order to possess themselves of the land and 

 its treasure, to rob the Indians of their wives and daughters, to enslave 

 them, and to spill their blood without remorse or remission. One of these 

 documents, dated in 1520, adds a trait of savage irouy. A Spanish sol- 

 dier is represented dragging a fugitive Indian from a lake by a lasso 

 around his neck ; while on the shore stands a monk ready to baptize the 

 recreant on his arrival ! "* 



No wonder that the priests of the dark ritual of Nagualism 

 for centuries after the conquest sought to annul the effects of 

 the hated Christian sacraments by counteracting ceremonies of 

 their own, as we are told thc}^ did by the historian Torquemada, 

 writing from his own point of view in these words : 



"The Father of Lies had his ministers who aided him, magicians and 

 sorcerers, who went about from town to town, persuading the simple people 

 to that which the Enemy of Light desired. Those who believed their deceits, 

 and had been baptized, were washed on the head and breast by these sor- 

 cerers, who assured them that this would remove the effects of the chrism 

 and the holy oils. I myself knew an instance where a person of promi- 

 nence, who resided not far from the City of Mexico, was dying, and had 

 received extreme unction ; and when the priest had departed one of these 

 diabolical ceremonialists entered, and washed all the parts which had been 

 anointed by the holy oil with the intention to destroy its power. "f 



* Madier de Montjau, " Manuscrits Figuratifs de 1' Ancien Mexique," in Archives de la 

 Societi Americaiiie de France. 1875, p. 215. 

 t Torquemada, Monarguia Indiana, Lib. xv, cap. IC. 



