189J.] 07 [Brinton. 



strip to fibsolute nudit}- ;* and the lascivious fuiy of Lands of 

 naked Nagualists, meeting in remote glades by starlight or in 

 the dark recesses of caves, dancing before the statues of the 

 ancient gods, were scenes that stirred the fanaticism of the 

 Spanish missionaries to its highest pitch. Bishop Landa in- 

 forms us that in Yucatan the dance there known as the naual 

 was one of the few in which both men and women took part, 

 and that it " was not very decent." It was afterwards pro- 

 hibited by the priests. We have excellent authority that such 

 wild rites continued well into the present centurj^, close to 

 the leading cities of the State,"!" and it is highly likely that they 

 are not unknown to-da3^ 



34. Moreover, it is certain that among the Nagualists, one 

 of their most revered symbols w^as the serpent; in Chiapas, 

 one of their highest orders of the initiated was that of the 

 chanes, or serpents. Not only is this in Christian symbolism 

 the form and sign of the Prince of Evil and the enemy of God, 

 but the missionaries w^ere aware that in the astrological sym- 

 bols of ancient Mexico the serpent represented the phallus ; 

 that it was regarded as the most potent of all the signs ; J and 

 modern research has shown, contrary to the opinion long held, 

 that there was among these nations an extraordinary and ex- 

 tensive worship of the reciprocal principle of nature, associated 

 with numerous phallic emblems.§ 



Huge phalli of stone have been discovered, one, for instance, 

 on the Cerro de las Navajas, not far from the cit}' of Mexico, 



* See a curious story from native sources in mj- Essays of an Americanist, pp. 171, 172. 

 It adds that this change can be prevented by casting salt upon the person. 



t Benito Maria de Moxo, Cartas Mcjicanas, p. 257 ; Landa, Cosasde Yuratan, p. 193. 



J Pedro de los Rios, in his notes to the Codex Vaticanus, published in King^borough's 

 great work, assigns the sign, cohuatl, the serpent, to " il membro virile, il maggio augurio 

 di tutti gli altri." It is distinctly so sliown on the 75th plate of the Codex. De la Serna 

 states that in his day some of the Mexican conjurors used a wand, around which was 

 fastened a living serpent. Manual de Ministros, p. 37. 



g There is abundant evidence of this in certain plates of the Code.x Troano, and there 

 is also alleged to be much in the Codex Mexicanus of the Palais Bourbon. Writing about 

 the latier, M. Aubin said as far back as 1811—" le culte du linnam on du phallus n'etait 

 pasetranger aux Mexicains, ce qu' etablissent plusieurs documents peu connus et des 

 sculptures decouvertes depuis un petit nonibre d'annees." His letter is in Boban, Cata- 

 logue Ilaisonnede la CoHection OoiipU, Tom. ii, p. 207. On the frecpient identification of 

 the serpent symbol with the phallus in classical art, consult Dr. Anton Niigele's article, 

 " Der Schlangen-Cultus," in the Ztitschrifl fur ViJlkerpsychologie , Band xvii, p. JSS, scq. 



PROC. AMEU. PHILOS. SCO. XXXIII. 144. H. rUINTKU FEB. 15. 1894. 



