it, and pierce themselves with knives without bleeding. They could handle venomous serpents and not be bitten; cause mysterious sounds in the air; hypnotise both persons and animals; and invoke visible and invisible spirits, which would instantly appear. Needless to say, their priests were regarded by the natives with a mixture of terror and respect.
The details of the ceremonies and doctrines of Nagualism have never been fully revealed, and it is only from scattered passages in the writings of the Spanish colonists that we can throw any light on this mysterious magical system. One of the most remarkable features in connection with this brotherhood was the exalted position it assigned to women. It is, of course, a circumstance well known to students of anthropology that the religion of a discredited and conquered race very frequently has to fall back upon the services of women, either as priests or conservators of its mysteries. This may become necessary through the decimation of the male portion of the race, or because of their constant warfare with those who threaten to overrun their territory. The Nagualists appear, like similar confraternities, to have admitted women to their most esoteric degrees, and even occasionally advanced them to the very highest posts in the organisation. Pascual de Andagoya states out of his own knowledge that some of these female adepts were so far advanced in magical knowledge as to be able to be in two places at once, as much as a league and a half apart! Repeated references to powerful enchantresses are discovered in Spanish-American writings. Acosta, in his Natural and Moral History of the Indies, speaks of a certain Coamizagual, queen of Cerquin in Honduras, who was deeply versed in all occult science, and who at the close of her earthly career rose to heaven in the form of a beautiful bird, in the midst of a terrible thunderstorm. Jacinto de la Serna says that the Nagualists were taught the art of transforming themselves into animal forms by a mighty enchantress called Quilaztli. Such a dread being it was who, when Pedro
