ent; every seven days he assumed the nature
of an eagle, and then he became truly an eagle; then of a tiger and
he became truly a tiger; then of coagulated blood, and he was
nothing else than coagulated blood."[25-*]

It may be said that such passages refer metaphorically to the
versatility of his character, but even if this is so, the metaphors are
drawn from the universal belief in Nagualism which then prevailed, and
they do not express it too strongly.

=16.= Among the Maya tribes of Yucatan and Guatemala we have testimony to
the continuance to this day of these beliefs. Father Bartolome de Baeza,
cura of Yaxcaba in the first half of this century, reports that an old
man, in his dying confession, declared that by diabolical art he had
transformed himself into an animal, doubtless his _nagual_; and a young
girl of some twelve years confessed that she had been transformed into a
bird by the witches, and in one of her nocturnal flights had rested on
the roof of the very house in which the good priest resided, which was
some two leagues from her home. He wisely suggests that, perhaps,
listening to some tale of sorcery, she had had a vivid dream, in which
she seemed to take this flight. It is obvious, however, from his
account, as well as from other sources, that the belief of the
transformation into lower animals was and is one familiar to the
superstitions of the Mayas.[25-[+]] The natives still continue to
propitiate the ancient gods of the harvest, at the beginning of the
season assembling at a ceremony called by the Spaniards the _misa
milpera_, or "field mass," and by themselves _ti'ch_, "the stretching
out of the hands."

The German traveler, Dr. Scherzer, when he visited, in 1854, the remote
hamlet of Istlavacan, in Guatemala, peopled by Quiche Indians,
discovered that they had preserved in this respect the usages of their
ancestors almost wholly unaffected by the teachings of their various
Christian curates. The "Master" still assigned the _naguals_ to the
new-born infants, copal was burned to their ancient gods in remote
caves, and formulas of invocation were taught by the veteran nagualists
to their neophytes.[26-*]

These _Zahoris_,[26-[+]] 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