ya asserts from his own knowledge that
some of these female adepts had attained the rare and peculiar power of
being in two places at once, as much as a league and a half
apart;[33-[++]] and the repeated references to them in the Spanish
writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries confirm the dread in
which they were held and the extensive influence they were known to
control. In the sacraments of Nagualism, Woman was the primate and
hierophant.

=21.= This was a lineal inheritance from pre-Columbian times. In many
native American legends, as in others from the old world, some powerful
enchantress is remembered as the founder of the State, mistress of men
through the potency of her magic powers.

Such, among the Aztecs, was the sorceress who built the city of
Mallinalco, on the road from Mexico to Michoacan, famous even after the
conquest for the skill of its magicians, who claimed descent from
her.[34-*] Such, in Honduras, was Coamizagual, queen of Cerquin, versed
in all occult science, who died not, but at the close of her earthly
career rose to heaven in the form of a beautiful bird, amid the roll of
thunder and the flash of lightning.[34-[+]]

According to an author intimately familiar with the Mexican nagualists,
the art they claimed to possess of transforming themselves into the
lower animals was taught their predecessors by a woman, a native Circe,
a mighty enchantress, whose usual name was Quilaztli (the etymology of
which is unknown), but who bore also four others, representing her four
metamorphoses, Cohuacihuatl, the Serpent Woman; Quauhcihuatl, the Eagle
Woman; Yaocihuatl, the Warrior Woman; and Tzitzimecihuatl, the Specter
Woman.[34-[++]]

The powers of these queens of magic extended widely among their sex. We
read in the chronicles of ancient Mexico that when Nezahualpilli, the
king, oppressed the tribes of the coast, the _tierra caliente_, they
sent against him, not their warriors, but their witches. These cast upon
him their fatal spells, so that when he walked forth from his palace,
blood burst from his mouth, and he fell prone and dead.[34-Sec.]

In Guatemala, as in ancient Delphos, the gods were believed to speak
through the mouths of these inspired seeresses, and at the celebration
of victories they enjoyed a privilege so strange and horrible that I
quote it from the old manuscript before me without venturing a
translation:

"... Despues de sacrificar los antiguos algun hombre,