yan stock, akin to those which occupied most of
the area of what is now Yucatan, Tabasco, Chiapas and Guatemala.[5-[+]]
I shall say something later about the legendary enchantress whom their
traditions recalled as the teacher of their ancestors and the founder of
their nation. What I would now call attention to is the fact that in
none of the dialects of the specifically Mexican or Aztecan stock of
languages do we find the word _nagual_ in the sense in which it is
employed in the above extract, and this is strong evidence that the
origin of Nagualism is not to be sought in that stock.

=3.= We do find, however, in the Nahuatl language, which is the proper
name of the Aztecan, a number of derivatives from the same root, _na_,
among them this very word, _Nahuatl_, all of them containing the idea
"to know," or "knowledge." The early missionaries to New Spain often
speak of the _naualli_ (plural, _nanahualtin_), masters of mystic
knowledge, dealers in the black art, wizards or sorcerers. They were not
always evil-minded persons, though they seem to have been generally
feared. The earliest source of information about them is Father Sahagun,
who, in his invaluable History, has the following paragraph:

"The _naualli_, or magician, is he who frightens men and sucks the
blood of children during the night. He is well skilled in the
practice of this trade, he knows all the arts of sorcery
(_nauallotl_) and employs them with cunning and ability; but for
the benefit of men only, not for their injury. Those 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."[6-*]

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 themselves _teciuhtlazque_,[6-[+]]
and also by the term _nanahualtin_, who conjure the clouds when
there is danger of hail, so that the crops may not be injured. They
can also make a stick look like a serpent, a mat like a centipede,
a piece of stone like a scorpion, and similar deceptions