Continuing with excerpts from Brinton’s 1989 Nagualism (see previous post) with my comments in italics
As is nearly always the case, the shamans are described in negative and demonized terms. Even so, the outlines of the description below correspond to shamanic healing methods.
The learned historian, Orozco y Berra, speaks of the powers attributed at the present day to the nahual in Mexico among the lower classes, in these words :
‘The nahual is generally an old Indian with red eyes, who knows how to turn himsell into a dog, woolly, black and ugly. The female witch can convert herself into a ball of fire ; she has the power of flight… [I omit the usual negative characterizations] There still exist among them the medicinemen, [not all men] who treat the sick by means of strange contortions, 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.” [Brinton, 11]
Next Brinton provides a valuable description of the spiritual philosophy embedded in the language of the Nahua (Aztecs and related peoples):
They called it the tonalli of a person, a word translated to mean that which is peculiar to him, which makes his individuality, 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 day-sign. From this came the verb tonalpoa, to count or estimate the signs, that is, to cast the horoscope of a person ; and tonalpouhque, the diviners whose business it was to practice this art. [11]
The classic shamanic concept of soul-loss and recovery through ceremonies and spiritual journey was important in Nahua healing practice:
So long as [the tonalli] remained with a person he enjoyed health and prosperity; but it could depart, go astray, become lost; and then sickness and misfortune arrived. This is signified in the Nahuatl language by the verbs tonalcaualtia, to check, stop or suspend the tonal, hence, to shock or frighten one; and tonalitlacoa, to hurt or injure the tonal, hence, to cast a spell on one, to bewitch him. This explains the real purpose of the conjuring and incantations which were carried on by the native doctor when visiting the sick. It was to recall the tonal, to force or persuade it to return; and, therefore, the ceremony bore the name ”the restitution of the tonal,” and was more than any other deeply imbued with the superstitions [sic] of Nagualism. The chief officiant was called the tetonaltiani, ” he who concerns himself with the tonal.” [12; the Aztec term is not however gendered in the way implied by the translation.]
In 1702 Francisco Nuñez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapas and Soconusco, published a book describing how the Maya people were holding on to their ancient sacred traditions:
“The Indians of New Spain retain all the errors of their time of heathenism preserved in certain writings in their own languages, explaining by abbreviated characters and by figures painted in a secret cypher the places, provinces and names of their early rulers, the animals, stars and elements which they worshiped, the ceremonies and sacrifices which they observed, and the years, months and days by which they predicted the fortunes of children at birth, and assign them that which they call the Naguals. These writings are known as Repertories or Calendars, and they are also used to discover articles lost or stolen, and to effect cures of diseases. Some have a wheel painted in them, like that of Pythagoras, described by the Venerable Bede ; others portray a lake surrounded by the Naguals in the form of various animals… [17]
The bishop makes several references to his religious persecution of the Maya in Chiapas. In 1692 he sent out this order to apply inquisitorial methods of repression to Maya who followed their old religion:
“And because in the provinces of our diocese those Indians who are Nagualists adore their nagual, and look upon them as gods, and by their aid believe that they can foretell the future, discover hidden treasures, and fill their dishonest desires: we, therefore, prescribe and command that in every town an ecclesiastical prison shall be constructed at the expense of the church, and that it be provided with fetters and stocks (con grillos y cepos), and we confer authority on every priest and curate of a parish to imprison in these gaols whoever is guilty of disrespect toward our Holy Faith, and we enjoin them to treat with especial severity those who teach the doctrines of Nagualism (y con rigor mayor a los dogmatizantes Nagualistas).” 18
Same bishop, 9th Pastoral Letter: May 24, 1698 from Ciudad Real:
“There are certain bad Christians of both sexes who do not hesitate to follow the school of the Devil, and to occupy themselves with evil [sic] arts, divinations, sorceries, conjuring, enchantments, fortune-telling, and other means to forecast the future.”
Here the bishop projects the diabolist idea of diabolic pact from the European witch hunts onto aboriginal Central Americans. The language he uses (“vain,” “diabolical,” etc.) originated in the penitential books used to stamp out Pagan tradition since the early middle ages:
These Nagualists practice their arts by means of Repertories and superstitious Calendars, where are represented under their proper names all the Naguals of stars, elements, birds, fishes, brute beasts and dumb animals ; with a vain note of days and months, so that they can announce which corresponds to the day of birth of the infant. This is preceded by some diabolical ceremonies, after which they designate the field or other spot, where, after seven years shall have elapsed, the Nagual will appear to ratify the bargain. As the time approaches, they instruct the child to deny God and His Blessed Mother, and warn him to have no fear, and not to make the sign of the cross. He is told to embrace his Nagual tenderly, which, by some diabolical art, presents itself in an affectionate manner even though be a ferocious beast, like a lion or a tiger. [18-19]
… Worse even than these are those who wander about as physicians or healers ; who are none such, but magicians, enchanters, and sorcerers, who, while pretending to cure, kill whom they will. They apply their medicines by blowing on the patient, and by the use of infernal words….
He refers, still in diabolist terms, to shamanic initiations carried out in woods, glens, caves or fields:
In some provinces the disciple is laid on an ant-hill, and the Master standing above him calls forth a snake, colored with black, white and red, which is known as ‘the ant-mother‘ (in Tzental zmezquiz). This comes accompanied by the ants and other small snakes of the same kind, which enter at the joints of the fingers, beginning with the left hand, and coming out at the joints of the right hand, and also by the ears and the nose ; while the great snake enters the body with a leap and emerges at its posterior vent. Afterwards the disciple meets a dragon vomiting fire, which swallows him entire and ejects him posteriorly! Then the Master declares he may be admitted, and asks him to select the herbs with which he will conjure; the disciple names them, the Master gathers them and delivers them to him, and then teaches him the sacred words. [19-20. [Master in Spanish could as well be translated “teacher.”]
Curandera applying herbs for healing
These words and ceremonies are substantially the same in all the provinces. The healer enters the house of the invalid, asks about the sickness, lays his hand on the suffering part, and then leaves, promising to return on the day following. At the next visit he brings with him some herbs which he chews or mashes with a little water and applies to the part. Then he repeats the Pater Noster, the Ave, the Credo and the Salve, and blows upon the seat of disease, afterwards pronouncing the magical words taught him by his master. He continues blowing in this manner, inhaling and exhaling, repeating under his breath these magical expressions… [20]
As in other countries, the Maya revered the ancestral shamans, and the colonial Church persecuted this as well:
“In other parts they reverence the bones of the earlier Nagualists, preserving them in caves, where they adorn them with flowers and burn copal before them. We have discovered some of these and burned them…” [21]
And again, he mentions that the deceased aj’kij (daykeeper shamans/astrologers) are revered as “holy souls” [51]
The bishop says there are still some who “transform themselves into tigers, lions, bulls, flashes of light and globes of fire.” The churchmen interpreted Maya accounts of shamans’ relations with their spirits in terms of their own diabolist ideas of incubus / succubus: “one woman who remained in the forest a week with the demon in the form of her Nagual, acting toward him as does an infatuated woman toward her lover.”
As was said of European witches, “they die when the Nagual is killed,” or if it’s wounded they bear a mark in the same place. The old belief is deeply rooted: “there is scarcely a town in these provinces in which it has not been introduced. It is a superstitious idolatry, full of monstrous incests, sodomies and detestable bestialities.” [21] This source, like many others, highlights the linkage between persecution of European witches and that of American Indian shamans. Often foreign terms came to be applied to Indian shamans. This one is especially interesting because it originated from Arabic, was absorbed into Spanish and then transported to Central America:
The word zahori, of Arabic origin, is thus explained in the Spanish and English dictionary of Delpino (London, 1768) : “So they call in Spain an impostor who pretends to see into the bowels of the earth, through stone walls, or into a man’s body.” Dr Stoll says the Guatemala Indians speak of their diviners, the Ah Kih, as zahorin. Guatemala, s. 229 [note, 26. Ah Kih now written aj’qij]
These Zahoris, as they are generally called in the Spanish of Central America, possessed many other mysterious arts besides that of such metamorphoses and of forecasting the future. They could make themselves invisible, and walk unseen among their enemies ; they could in a moment transport themselves to distant places, and, as quickly returning, report what they had witnessed ; they could create before the eyes of the spectator a river, a tree, a house, or an animal, where none such existed; they could cut open their own stomach, or lop a limb from another person, and immediately heal the wound or restore the severed member to its place ; they could pierce themselves with knives and not bleed, or handle venomous serpents and not be bitten ; they could cause mysterious sounds in the air, and fascinate animals and persons by their steady gaze ; they could call visible and invisible spirits, and the spirits would come. [26]
A good summation of powers described for shamans around the world!
Brinton draws on Jacinto de la Serna’s account of how the Indians resisted by incorporating their own sacred things into altar pieces:
Sometimes they adroitly concealed in the pyx, alongside the holy wafer, some little idol of their own, so that they really followed their own superstitions while seemingly adoring the Host. They assigned a purely pagan sense to the sacred formula, “Father, Son and Holy Ghost,” understanding it to be “Fire, Earth and Air,” or the like. [28, citing Manual de Ministros, pp 20-1, 42, 162]
Below are two conflicting accounts. In one, an old woman shaman chants and makes ceremony on a mountaintop to prevent the Spanish from invading Guatemala. The other implies that the old woman and her dog were sacrificed for the same reason. The author thinks the first version is better documented:
When Captain Pedro de Alvarado, in the year 1524, was marching upon Quetzaltanango, in Guatemala, just such a fearful old witch took her stand at the summit of the pass, with her familiar in the shape of a dog, and “by spells and nagualistic incantations” undertook to prevent his approach. [35. A footnote explains: “Trataron de valerse del arte de los encantos y naguales” are the words of the author, Fuentes y Guzman, in his Recordacion Florida, Tom. i, p. 50. In the account of Bernal Diaz, it reads as if this witch and her dog had both been sacrificed; but Fuentes is clear in his statement, and had other documents at hand. [35]
Another story, also from Guatemala, is loaded with castration anxiety and, even though the Maya did practice human sacrifice in ancient times, its truthfulness is dubious: “After the ancients sacrificed some man, cutting him into pieces, if he was one of those taken in war, they say that they kept the genital member and testicles of the victim, and gave them to an old woman they held as a prophet, in order for her to eat them, and asked her to pray her idol to give them more captives.” [my translation of]
” . . . . Despues de sacrificar los antiguos algun hombre, despedaçandolo, si era de los que avian cogido en guerra, dicen que guardaban el [34] miembro genital y los testiculos del tal sacrificado, y se los daban a una vieja que tenian por profeta, para que los comiese, y le pedian rogasse a su idolo les diesse mas captivos.” [35, from Fr. Tomas Goto, Diccionario de la Lengua Cakchiquel, MS., 8. v. Sacrificar; in the Library of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia]
My visual presentation Rebel Shamans: Women Confront Empire talks about the young Tzental priestess Maria Candelaria. In 1712 she led a major Maya rebellion against Spanish rule, after the bishop sent soldiers to destroy a shrine she had created.
But when her followers were scattered and killed, when the victorious whites had again in their hands all the power and resources of the country, not their most diligent search, nor the temptation of any reward, enabled them to capture Maria Candelaria, the heroine of the bloody drama. With a few trusty followers she escaped to the forest, and was never again heard of. More unfortunate were her friends and lieutenants, the priestesses of Guistiupan and Yajalon, who had valiantly seconded Maria in her patriotic endeavors. Seized by the Spaniards, they met the fate which we can easily imagine, though the historian has mercifully thrown a veil on its details. [36]
Of just such a youthful prophetess did Mr. E. G. Squier hear during his travels in Central America, a “sukia woman,” as she was called by the coast Indians, one who lived alone mid the ruins of an old Maya temple, a sorceress of twenty years, loved and feared, holding death and life in her hands. [36]
to be continued…
Max Dashu