Brinton.] J-^ [Jan 5, 



injury. Tliose who have recourse to such arts for evil intents injure the 

 bodies of their victims, cause them to lose their reason and smother them. 

 These are wicked men and necromancers."* 



It is evident on examining the later works of the Roman 

 clergy in Mexico that the Church did not look with any such 

 lenient eye on the possibly harmless, or even beneficial, exercise 

 of these magical devices. We find a further explanation of 

 what they were, preserved in a work of instruction to confessors, 

 published by Father Juan Bautista, at Mexico, in the year 1600. 



" There are magicians who call tliemselves teciuhllazque,\ and also by 

 the term nanahualiin, who conjure the clouds when there is danger of 

 hail, 80 that the crops may not be injured. They cm also make a stick 

 look like a serpent, a mat like a centipede, apiece of stone like a scorpion, 

 and similar deceptions. Others of these nanahualiin will transform them- 

 selves to all appearances (segun laaparencia), into a tiger, a dog or a weasel. 

 Others again will take the form of an owl, a cock, or a weasel ; and when 

 one is preparing to seize them, they will appear now as a cock, now as an 

 owl, and again as a weasel. These call themselves 7ianahualtin." X 



There is an evident attempt in this somewhat confused state- 

 ment to distinguish between an actual transformation, and one 

 which only appears such to the observer. 



In another work of similar character, published at Mexico a 

 few years later, the " Road to Heaven," of Father Nicolas de 

 Leon, we find a series of questions which a confessor should 

 put to any of his flock suspected of these necromantic 

 practices. They reveal to us quite clearly what these occult 

 practitioners were believed to do. The passage reads as follows, 

 the questions being put in the mouth of the priest : 



"Art thou a sootlisayer? Dost thou foretell events by reading signs, 

 or by interpreting dreams, or by water, making circles and figures on its 

 surface? Dost thou sweep and ornament with flower garlands the places 

 where idols are preserved ? Dost thou know certain words with which to 

 conjure for success in hunting, or to bring rain? 



"Dost thou suck the blood of others, or dost thou wander about at 

 night, calling upon the Demon to help thee? Hast thou drunk peyotl, or 

 hast thou given it to others to drink, in order to find out secrets, or to dis- 

 cover where stolen or lost articles were? Dost thou know how to speak 

 to vipers in such words that they obey thee?" § 



♦ Bernardino rle Satiagun, lUatoria de la Nueva Espana, Lib. x, cap. 9. 

 t Derived from tecuMlnza, to conjure against liail, itself from teciuh, liail. Alonso de 

 Molina, Vorabulario M<xicano, sub voce. 

 X Bautista Advertencias pira los Con/esores, fol. 112 (Mexico, 1600). 

 'i Nicolas de Leon, Camiao del Cielo, fol. Ill (Mexico, ICll). 



