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Rh regarded by them merely as a cloak for the exactions and oppressions of its ministers and professors. Thus all sacraments and holy ceremonies were annulled or counteracted in private by the priests of the sect immediately after they had been celebrated by the Spanish ecclesiastics.

This mysterious secret society embraced numerous communities, and its members were classed under various degrees. Initiation into them was by ceremonies of the most onerous and solemn description. Local brotherhoods were organised, and there were certain recognised centres of the cult, as, for example, at Huehuetan in the province of Soconusco, at Totonicapan in Guatemala, Zamayaz in Suchiltepec, and Teozapotlan in Oaxaca. At each of these places dwelt a high-priest or chief magician, who had beneath his sway often as many as a thousand sub-priests, and exercised control over all the Nagualistic practitioners in a large district. The priesthood of this cabalistic guild was hereditary. The highest grade appears to have been that of Xochimilca, or "flower weaver,"probably because of the skill they possessed to deceive the senses by strange and pleasant visions.

The basis of Nagualistic magic was the belief in a personal guardian spirit or familiar. This was known as the nagual, and was apportioned to each child at its birth. In a History of Guatemala written about 1690 by Francisco Fuentes y Guzman, the author gives some information about a sorcerer who, on arrest, was examined as to the manner of assigning the proper nagual to a child. When informed of the day of its birth, he presented himself at the house of the parents and, taking the child outside, invoked the demon. He then produced a little calendar which had against each day a picture of a certain animal or object. Thus in the Nagual calendar for January, the first day of the month was represented by a lion, the second by a snake, the eighth by a rabbit, the fourteenth by a toad, the nineteenth by a jaguar, and so on. The invocation over, the nagual of the child would appear under the form of the animal or object set