ir
blood without remorse or remission. One of these documents, dated
in 1526, adds a trait of savage irony. A Spanish soldier is
represented dragging a fugitive Indian from a lake by a lasso
around his neck; while on the shore stands a monk ready to baptize
the recreant on his arrival!"[27-*]

No wonder that the priests of the dark ritual of Nagualism for centuries
after the conquest sought to annul the effects of the hated Christian
sacraments by counteracting ceremonies of their own, as we are told they
did by the historian Torquemada, writing from his own point of view in
these words:

"The Father of Lies had his ministers who aided him, magicians and
sorcerers, who went about from town to town, persuading the simple
people to that which the Enemy of Light desired. Those who believed
their deceits, and had been baptized, were washed on the head and
breast by these sorcerers, who assured them that this would remove
the effects of the chrism and the holy oils. I myself knew an
instance where a person of prominence, who resided not far from the
City of Mexico, was dying, and had received extreme unction; and
when the priest had departed one of these diabolical ceremonialists
entered, and washed all the parts which had been anointed by the
holy oil with the intention to destroy its power."[27-[+]]

Similar instances are recorded by Jacinto de la Serna. He adds that not
only did the Masters prescribe sacrifices to the Fire in order to annul
the effects of extreme unction, but they delighted to caricature the
Eucharist, dividing among their congregation a narcotic yellow mushroom
for the bread, and the inebriating pulque for the wine. 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-*]

Whoever or whatever was an enemy to that religion so brutally forced upon
these miserable creatures was to them an ally and a friend. Nunez de la
Vega tells us that he found written formulas among them reading: "O
Brother Antichrist, Brother Antichrist, Brother Antichrist, come to our
aid!"--pathetic and desperate appeal of a wretched race, ground to earth
under the iron h