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[Jan 5, 



is not related to the Naliuatl tongue, but the terms of their 

 magical rites are drawn from Nahuatl words, showing their 

 origin. Every person at birth has assigned to him both a good 

 and a bad genius, the former aiming at his welfare, the latter at 

 his injury. The good genius is known by the Nahuatl term 

 tonale, and it is represented in the first bird or animal of any 

 kind which is seen in or near the house immediately after the 

 birth of the infant. 



The most powerful person in the A-iilage is the high priest of 

 the native cult. One who died about 1850 was called " the 

 Thunderbolt," and whenever he walked abroad he was preceded 

 by a group of chosen disciples, called by the Nahuatl name 

 tlatoques, speakers or attorneys.* His successor, known as " the 

 Greater Thunder," did not maintain this state, but nevertheless 

 claimed to be able to control the seasons and to send or to miti- 

 gate destructive storms — claims which, sad to say, brought him 

 to the stocks, but did not interfere with the regular payment of 

 tribute to him by the villagers. He was also a medicine man 

 and master of ceremonies in certain " scandalous orgies, where 

 immodesty shows herself without a veil." 



11. Turning to the neighboring province of Oaxaca and its 

 inhabitants, we are instructed on the astrological use of the cal- 

 endar of the Zapotecs by Father Juan de Cordova, whose Arte 

 of their language was published at Mexico in 1578, From wdiat 

 he says its principal, if not its only purpose, was astrological. 

 Each day had its number and was called alter some animal, as 

 eagle, snake, deer, rabbit, etc. Every child, male or female, re- 

 ceived the name of the day, and also its number, as a surname ; 

 its personal name being taken from a fixed series, which differed 

 in the masculine and feminine gender, and which seems to have 

 been derived from the names of the fingers. 



From this it appears that among the Zapotecs the jjersonal spirit 

 or nxujual was fixed by the date of the birtli, and not by some 



» The word is derived from tlaloa, to speak for another, and its usual translation was 

 " chief," as the head man spoke for, and in the name of the gens or tribe. 



t The interesting account by Iglesias is printed in the Appendix to the Diccionnrio 

 Vniversal de Oeographia y Ilinloria (Mexico, 1856). Other writers testify to the tenacity 

 with which tiic :Mixes cling to their ancient beliefs. Sefior Moro says they continue to 

 be " notorious idohiters," and their actual religion to be " an absurd jumble of their old 

 superstitions with Christian doctrines" (in Orozco y Berra, Geografiade las Lcngiias dc 

 Mexico, p. 176). 



