1894.] 4:1 [Brinton. 



liimself for that task will certainly reach the conclusion ex- 

 pressed a number of years ago by the eminent American anti- 

 quary and historian, Mr. E. G. Sqnier, in these words : 



"Among the ruling and priestly classes of the semi-civilized nations of 

 America, there has alwaj's existed a mysterious bond, a secret organiza- 

 tion, 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 Amer- 

 ica, which have more than once threatened the complete subversion of 

 the Spanish power."* 



That mysterious bond, that secret organization, is Nagualism. 



20. A remarkable feature in this mysterious societ}^ was the 

 exalted position it assigned to Women. Xot onl}^ were they ad- 

 mitted to the most esoteric degrees, but in repeated instances 

 they occupied the very highest posts in the organization. Ac- 

 cording to the traditions of the Tzentals and Pipils of Chiapas, 

 when their national hero, A'otan, constructed by the breath of 

 his mouth his darkened shrine at Tlazoaloyan, 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 abso- 

 lute.f 



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 ; % ^^^^ 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 ex- 

 tensive influence they were known to control. In the sacra- 

 ments of Nagualism, Woman was the primate and hierophant. 



31. 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. 



* Adventures on the Musquito Shore, by S. A. Ward, pseudonym of Jlr. Squier, p. 258 

 (New York, 1855). 



t Nufiez de la Vega, Constilucioncs Diocesanas, p. 10, and com p. Brasscur de Bour- 

 bourg, Hist, des Nat. Civ. de Mexique, Tom. i, p. 74. 



X Herrera, Hist, de las Indias Occideataks, Dec. ii. Lib. iii, cap. 5. 



PUOC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXXIII. 144. P. PRINTED FEB. 14, 1S94. 



