1891.] 1»^ [Briuton. 



be sure that the person against whom the conjuration is practiced will 

 feel pain in the part where the thorn is inserted. There still exist among 

 them the medicine-men, who treat the sick by means of strange contor- 

 tions, call upon the spirits, pronounce magical incantations, blow upon 

 the part where the pain is, and draw forth from the patient thorns, worms, 

 or pieces of stone. They know how to prepare drinks which will bring 

 on sickness, and if the patients are cured by others the convalescents are 

 particular to throw something of their own away, as a lock of hair, or a 

 part of their clothing. Tiiose who possess the evil eye can, by merely 

 looking at children, deprive them of beauty and health, and even cause 

 their death,"* 



1. As I have said, nowhere in the records of purely Mexican, 

 that is, Aztecan, Nagualism do we find the word nag ual evaployed 

 in the sense given in the passage quoted from Herrera, that is 

 as a personal guardian spirit or tutelary genius. These tribes 

 had, indeed, a belief in some such protecting power, and held that 

 it was connected with the day on which each person is born. They 

 called it the tonalli of a person, a word translated to mean that 

 which is peculiar to him, which makes his individualit}', his self. 

 The radical from which it is derived is tona^ to warm, or to be 

 warm, from which are also derived tonatiuh^ the sun. Tonalli, 

 which in composition loses its last syllable, is likewise the word 

 for heat, summer, soul, spirit and day, and also for the share or 

 portion which belongs to one. Thus, to-tonal is spirit or soul in 

 general ; no-tonal, my spirit ; no-tonal in ipan no-tlacat, " the 

 sign under which I was born," i.e., the astrological da3'-sign. 

 From this came the verb tonalpoa, to count or estimate the signs, 

 that is, to cast the horoscope of a person ; and tonalpouJique, the 

 diviners whose business it was to pi-actice this art.f 



These tonalpouhque are referred to at length by Father Saha- 

 gun.| He distinguishes them from the naualli, though it is clear 

 that they corresponded in functions to the nagualistic priests of 

 the southern tribes. From the number and name of the day of 



* Hisloria Antigua de Mexico, Tom.ii, p. 25. Francisco Pimentel, in his thoughtful work, 

 Memoria sobre las Caitsas que han originado la Silaacion Actual de la Baza Indigena de 

 Afe.r('ro (Mexico, 1861), recognizes how almost impossible it is to extirpate their faith in 

 this nagualism. " Conservan los agueros y supersticioues d«la antigUedad, siendo cosa 

 de fe para ellos, los nahuales," etc., p. 200, and corap. p. 145. 



t On these terms consult the extensive Dictiotmaire de la Langue Kahuatl, by R^mi 

 Simeon, published at Paris, 1887. It is not impossible that <ona is itself a compound root, 

 including the monosyllabic radical na, which is at the basis of nagual. 



t Sahagun, Hisloria de Nucva E.-'pana, Lib. Iv, 2)assim, and Lib. x, cap. 9. 



