1894.] ^* IBrinton. 



Of the two plants mentioned, the olohithqui and the joeyotl, 

 the former was considered the more potent in spiritual virtues. 

 " They hold it in as much veneration as if it were God," saj's 

 a theologian of the seventeenth century.* One who partook 

 of these herbs was called payni (from the verb pay, to take 

 medicine) ; and more especially tlachixqui, a Seer, referring to 

 the mystic " second sight," hence a diviner or prophet (from the 

 verb flachia, to see). 



Tobacco also held a prominent, though less important, place 

 in these rites. It was employed in t\yo forms, the one the dried 

 leaf, picietl, which for sacred uses must be broken and rubbed 

 up either seven or nine times ; and the green leaf mixed Avith 

 lime, hence called tenextlecietl (from tenextli, lime). 



Allied in effect to these is an intoxicant in use in southern 

 Mexico and Yucatan, prepared from the bark of a tree called by 

 the Mayas baal-che. The whites speak of the drink as intarilla. 

 It is quite popular among the natives, and they still attribute to 

 it a sacred character, calling it yax ha, the first water, the primal 

 fluid. The}' saj'^ that it was the first liquid created b^^ God, and 

 when He returned to His heavenly home He left this beverage 

 and its production in charge of the gods of the rains, the four 

 Pah-Ahtuns.f 



5. Intoxication of some kind was a;n essential part of many 

 of these secret rites. It was regarded as a method of throwing 

 the individual out of himself and into relation with the supernal 

 powers. What the old historian, Father Joseph de Acosta, tells 

 us about the clairvoyants and telepaths of the aborigines might 

 well stand for a description of their modern representatives : 



"Some of these sorcerers take any shape they choose, and fly through 

 the air with wonderful rapidity and lor long distances. They will tell 

 what is taking place in remote locahties long before the news could pos- 

 sibly arrive. The Spaniards have known them to report mutinies, bat- 

 tles, revolts and deaths, occurring two hundred or three hundred leagues 

 distant, on the very day they took place, or tJie day after. 



* Dr. Jacinto de la Senia, Manual de Mill stros de Indios para el Conocimiento de sits Idol- 

 atrias y Extirpacion de Ellas, p. 1G3. This interesting work was composed about the mid- 

 dle of the seventeenth century by a Rector of the University of Mexico, but wus first 

 printed at Madrid, in 1892, from the JIS. furnished by Dr. N. Leon, ui^der the editorship 

 of the Marquis de la Fuensanta del Valle. 



t MSS. of the Licentiate Zetina, and Injorme of Father Baeza in Registro Yucateco, 

 Tom. i. 



PKOC. AMER. PHILOS. 800. XXXIII. 144. C. rUINTED FEB. 13, 1894, 



