Page:Mexico of the Mexicans.djvu/116

100 figures of the Godhead and the Saints took the place of hideous idols, and the Christian priests themselves were astounded at the similarity between the European and Mexican sacraments of communion, baptism, and confession. In many instances, the Virgin was confounded with one form or another of the old earth-goddess. True, Motecuhzoma was deeply shocked when Cortes, on examining the great teocalli of Mexico, expressed surprise that such a monarch as he should worship sanguinary idols. The priest and theologian in the Aztec king, seeing beyond the mere symbolism of his native religion and aware of its deeper meanings, was revolted at the crude and unmannerly remarks of the fanatical Conquistador. But he represented only a small inner circle of advanced initiates. The great mass of the people regarded their faith as ritual which must be observed if insatiable gods were to be sufficiently nourished to enable them through magical process to send a sufficiency of food-stuffs; and so long as the new Christian deities undertook to yield maize, chian pinolli, and cotton, a change of pantheon mattered little to them. This is not to say that all parts of the Mexican empire yielded to the Cross as patiently and speedily as did the Aztecs. They did not. From their revolt sprang the dreadful and picturesque secret religion of Nagualism. Practically all English and American writers appear to be ignorant of the existence of this powerful cult; and as it casts a strong light upon the darker places of the native Mexican character and as the information is valuable, some account of it may not be out of place in these pages, especially as it is probably still in vogue in some of the remote districts of the Republic, especially in the South, whatever may be said to the contrary.

Nagualism was originally instituted by the remnant of native priests and sorcerers who survived Spanish persecution, for the purpose of combating and counteracting the effects of the Christian faith which had been forced upon the natives, and was