Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/257

 Rh those who are sick. The dread being who in mediaeval symbolism was represented by a skeleton is known to the Mayas as Yum Cimil, Lord of Death. He is supposed to lurk around a house where a person is ill, ready to enter and carry off his life when opportunity offers. He is, however, willing to accept something in lieu thereof, and to bring about this result the natives perform the rite called kex, or "barter." They hang jars and nets containing food and drink on the trees around the house, repeating certain invocations, and they believe that often the Lord of Death will be satisfied with these, and thus allow the invalid to recover.

Those diviners to whom I have alluded are familiarly known as Tat Ich, Daddy Face, and Tata Polin, Daddy Head, a reference, I suspect, to a once familiar name of a chief divinity. Kin ich, the face (or eye) of the day, i. e. the Sun.

A power universally ascribed to these magicians is that of transforming themselves into beasts. Were it not for so many examples of delusions in enlightened lands it would be difficult to explain the unquestioning belief which prevails on this subject throughout Central America. Father Baeza relates that one of these old sorcerers declared in a dying confession that he had repeatedly changed himself into various wild beasts. The English priest, Thomas Gage, who had a cure in Guatemala about 1630, tells with all seriousness a number of such instances. And even in our own days the learned Abbè Brasseur de Bourbourg is not entirely satisfied that animal magnetism, ventriloquism, and such trickery, can explain the mysteries of nagualism, as the Central American system of the black arts is termed. He is not certain that we ought to exclude the assistance of the invisible diabolic agencies!

The sacred books of the Kiches, a tribe living in Guatemala related to the Mayas, ascribe this power to one of their most celebrated kings. As an illustration the passage is worth quoting:

"Truly this Gucumatz became a wonderful king. Every seven