Part 8 (1/2)

[12-*] See Ch. de Labarthe, _Revue Americaine_, Serie ii, Tom. ii, pp.

222-225. His translation of _naualteteuctin_ by ”Seigneurs du genie”

must be rejected, as there is absolutely no authority for a.s.signing this meaning to _naualli_.

[13-*] _a.n.a.les de Cuauht.i.tlan_, p. 31. The translator renders it ”palo brujo.”

[13-] _Les Anciennes Villes du Nouveau Monde_, pp. 146-148, figured on p. 150. On its significance compare Hamy, _Decades Americanae_, pp.

74-81.

[13-] _The Native Calendar of Central America and Mexico_ (Philadelphia, 1893).

[13--] Eduard Muhlenpfordt, _Mexico_, Bd. i, s. 255.

[14-*] The word is derived from _tlatoa_, to speak for another, and its usual translation was ”chief,” as the head man spoke for, and in the name of the gens or tribe.

[14-] The interesting account by Iglesias is printed in the Appendix to the _Diccionario Universal de Geographia y Historia_ (Mexico, 1856).

Other writers testify to the tenacity with which the Mixes cling to their ancient beliefs. Senor Moro says they continue to be ”notorious idolaters,” and their actual religion to be ”an absurd jumble of their old superst.i.tions with Christian doctrines” (in Orozco y Berra, _Geografia de las Lenguas de exico[TN-10]_, p. 176).

[15-*] For instance, J. B. Carriedo, in his _Estudios Historicos del Estado Oaxaqueno_ (Oaxaca, 1849), p. 15, says the _nahualt_ was a ceremony performed by the native priest, in which the infant was bled from a vein behind the ear, a.s.signed a name, that of a certain day, and a guardian angel or _tona_. These words are pure Nahuatl, and Carriedo, who does not give his authority, probably had none which referred these rites to the Zapotecs.

[15-] Juan de Cordova, _Arte en Lengua Zapoteca_, pp. 16, 202, 203, 213, 216.

[16-*] Quoted in Carriedo, ubi supra, p. 17.

[16-] _Hist. de las Indias Oc._, Dec. iii, Lib. iii, cap. 12.

[17-*] So I understand the phrase, ”figuras pintadas con zifras enigmaticas”[TN-11]

[17-] _Popoluca_ was a term applied to various languages. I suspect the one here referred to was the Mixe. See an article by me, ent.i.tled ”Chontales and Popolucas; a Study in Mexican Ethnography,” in the _Compte Rendu_ of the Eighth Session of the Congress of Americanists, p.

566, _seq._

[17-] _Const.i.t. Diocesan_, p. 19.

[18-*] _Const.i.tut. Diocesan_, t.i.tulo vii, pp. 47, 48.

[19-*] Rather with the Quetzalcoatl of the Nahuas, and the Guc.u.matz of the Quiches, both of which names mean ”Feathered Serpent.” Mixcohuatl, the Cloud Serpent, in Mexican mythology, referred to the Thunder-storm.

[19-] In his Tzental Vocabulary, Father Lara does not give this exact form; but in the neighboring dialect of the Cakchiquel Father Ximenes has _quikeho_, to agree together, to enter into an arrangement; the prefix _zme_ is the Tzental word for ”mother.”

[20-*] Father Lara, in his _Vocabulario Tzendal MS._ (in my possession), gives for medical (medico), _ghpoxil_, for medicine (medicinal cosa), _pox_, _xpoxtacoghbil_; for physician (medico), _ghpoxta vinic_ (the form _vanegh_, person, is also correct). The Tzendal _pox_ (p.r.o.nounced _posh_) is another form of the Quiche-Cakchiquel _puz_, a word which Father Ximenes, in his _Vocabulario Cakchiquel_ MS (in my possession), gives in the compound _puz naual_, with the meaning, enchanter, wizard.

Both these, I take it, are derived from the Maya _puz_, which means to blow the dust, etc., off of something (soplar el polvo de la ropa o otra cosa. _Dicc. de la Lengua Maya del Convento de Motul_, MS. The dictionary edited by Pio Perez does not give this meaning). The act of blowing was the essential feature in the treatment of these medicine men. It symbolized the transfer and exercise of spiritual power. When Votan built his underground shrine he did it _a soplos_, by blowing (Nunez de la Vega, _Const.i.tut. Diocesan_, p. 10). The natives did not regard the comet's tail as behind it but in front of it, blown from its mouth. The Nahuatl word in the text, _tzihuizin_, is the Pipil form of _xihuitzin_, the reverential of _xihuitl_, which means a leaf, a season, a year, or a comet. Apparently it refers to the Nahuatl divinity _Xiuhte cutli_, described by Sahagun, _Historia de Nueva Espana_, Lib. i, cap.

13, as G.o.d of fire, etc.

[21-*] _Hicalahau_, for _ical ahau_, Black King, one of the Tzental divinities, who will be referred to on a later page.

[21-] ”Maestros de los pueblos,” _Const.i.tut. Diocesan_, i, p. 106.

[23-*] _Historia de Guatemala, , Recordacion Florida_, Tom. ii, p. 44, _seq._

[24-*] Gage, _A New Survey of the West Indies_, p. 388, _seq._ (4th Ed.).