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Exhuming the Nahualli: Shapeshifting, Idolatry, and Orthodoxy in Colonial Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2021

Anderson Hagler
Anderson Hagler*
Affiliation:
Duke University, Durham, North [email protected]
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Abstract

This article examines the relationship between ritual specialists, nanahualtin or nahualistas (pl.) and nahualli or nahual (sing.), and healing practices, adding context to the social roles they fulfilled and the range of feats they performed. The cases examined here reveal that nanahualtin operated as intellectuals in their communities because of their ability to control animals, prognosticate, and heal or harm individuals at will. Some nanahualtin shapeshifted from humans to animals while others possessed animal companions. The elevated status of nanahualtin led commoners to seek their advice, which conflicted with the established orthodoxy of the Catholic Church. Because clergymen championed the sacraments as the best way to access the divine, non-orthodox rituals performed in mountains, rivers, and caves were derided as idolatrous devil worship.

The 11 criminal and Mexican Inquisition cases examined here range from 1599 to 1801. Two seventeenth-century cases (1678 and 1685) and one eighteenth-century case (1701) contain Nahuatl phrases and testimonies from Chiapas and Tlaxcala, respectively. The cases from Chiapas demonstrate the use of Nahuatl as a vehicular language outside the central valley of Mexico. This article examines the gender of the animals into which ritual specialists transformed as an emergent category from trial records, which provides insight into Catholic officials’ understanding of the nahualli. Last, this study notes social divisions between rural and urban clergy regarding the power of nanahualtin and the efficacy of their magic.

Keywords

nahuallishapeshiftingidolatryritual specialistNew Spain
Type
Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 78 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 197 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Academy of American Franciscan History

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Footnotes

Many people have graciously offered their time and insight as I developed this article. I would like to thank the following individuals for their guidance and support: Pete Sigal, Juliana Barr, Jocelyn Olcott, Gabriel Rosenberg, Evan Helper-Smith, Araceli Campos Moreno, Michelle Honeybun, Alyssa Skarbeck, Eduardo de la Cruz, Xochiquetzalli Cruz Martínez, Edward Polanco, Shawn Austin, Catherine Tracy Goode, Linda Curcio-Nagay, Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, L. J. Andrew Villalon, and The Americas’ anonymous reviewers.

References

1. Archivo Histórico Diocesano de San Cristóbal de la Casas, Chiapas [hereafter AHDC], Folder 1409, exp. 1, Quechula III A 5, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1801–1802, fols. 1r-6v. Although the Chiapan cases in this essay have been retrieved, masterfully contextualized, and discussed in detail by Dolores Aramoni Calderón, this article moves past her discussion of resistance and assimilation by focusing on testimony that connects the nahualli to healing and other supernatural phenomena, while also tracing the multiple contexts in which the term ‘nahual’ was deployed. See Calderón, Dolores Aramoni, Los refugios de lo sagrado: religiosidad, conflicto y resistencia entre los Zoques de Chiapas (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y la Artes, 1992)Google Scholar.

2. Although “orifice” may refer to either the vagina or anus, the context provided by subsequent testimony seems to suggest the latter. I thank the anonymous reviewer for calling this distinction to my attention.

3. AHDC, Folder 1409, exp. 1, Quechula III A 5, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1801–1802, fol. 1r.

4. This nagua or dress should not be confused with the nahual or nahualli.

5. The Spanish word “rabadilla” has been translated as “backside,” which leads me to conclude that “orificio” should be translated as “anus.” Aramoni Calderón's findings corroborate this translation of orificio. See Aramoni Calderón, Los refugios de lo sagrado, 236.

6. AHDC, Folder 1409, exp. 1, Quechula III A 5, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1801–1802, fol. 3r.

7. It seems likely that the devil first appeared to Pamplona near the same place where Feliciana retrieved her naguas. Perhaps, Pamplona feared Feliciana's boldness would weaken the source of his supernatural power if left unpunished.

8. AHDC, Folder 1409, exp. 1, Quechula III A 5, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1801–1802, fol. 4r.

9. AHDC, Folder 1409, exp. 1, Quechula III A 5, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1801–1802, fol. 4v.

10. Unfortunately, Spanish-language epicene nouns do not reveal the actual gender of the animals in question. Although snake, in this instance, is grammatically feminine, it is only so in an abstract sense. A subsequent shapeshifting case detailing the transformation of a woman into a bird also precludes the possibility of analyzing the animal's gender. As it remains difficult to analyze the gender of reptiles and birds in Spanish-language testimonies, this study emphasizes the gender of mammals.

11. AHDC, Folder 1409, exp. 1, Quechula III A 5, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1801–1802, fol. 4r.

12. Referring to ritual specialists in the Andes, Leo J. Garofalo notes that colonial Afro-Peruvians “earned both respect and fear, status and stigma, for their ability to solve a variety of problems and illnesses believed to be caused by the malice of other people or supernatural forces.” See Garofalo, , “Conjuring with Coca and the Inca: The Andeanization of Lima's Afro-Peruvian Ritual Specialists, 1580–1690,” The Americas 63:1 (2006): 53Google Scholar.

13. Terms such as “shaman” and “curandero” remain problematic, since European colonizers used them to denigrate indigenous and mixed-race peoples and their religious practices. As such, this study uses “ritualist” and “ritual specialist” to analyze the role of commoner men and women who communed with the spiritual realm.

14. Federici, Silvia, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (New York: Autonomedia, 2004), 176Google Scholar; Gaskill, Malcolm, Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the Sabbat in New Spain, see Lewis, Laura A., Hall of Mirrors: Power, Witchcraft, and Caste in Colonial Mexico (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 127–130CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and 226 n105.

15. In general, parish priests were viewed as poorly trained and therefore ill-equipped to eliminate superstition and idolatry among the indigenous populace. See Gerardo Lara Cisneros, ¿Ignorancia invencible?: superstición e idolatría ante el Provisorato de Indios y Chinos del Arzobispado de México en el siglo XVIII (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México [hereafter UNAM], 2014), 305–309.

16. The literature on ritual specialists in the Spanish Americas is vast. This study builds on the findings of scholars who have shown that popular magic shaped the daily lives of commoners and elites, due to its perceived efficacy. See Behar, Ruth, “Sex and Sin, Witchcraft and the Devil in Late-Colonial Mexico,” American Ethnologist 14:1 (1987): 34–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cervantes, Fernando, The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain (New Haven: London: Yale University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Few, Martha, Women Who Live Evil Lives: Gender, Religion, and the Politics of Power in Colonial Guatemala (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Sousa, Lisa, “The Devil and Deviance in Native Criminal Narratives from Early Mexico,” The Americas 59:2 (2002): 161–179CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lewis, Hall of Mirrors; Garofalo, “Conjuring with Coca and the Inca”; Bristol, Joan Cameron, Christians, Blasphemers, and Witches: Afro-Mexican Ritual Practice in the Seventeenth Century (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007)Google Scholar; and Tavárez, David, The Invisible War: Indigenous Devotions, Discipline, and Dissent in Colonial Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

17. The term literally translates to ‘water-hill’ as it combines atl with tepetl. See James Lockhart, The Nahuas After the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 14–15.

18. Arij Ouweneel and Simon Miller, eds., The Indian Community of Colonial Mexico: Fifteen Essays on Land Tenure, Corporate Organizations, Ideology and Village Politics (Amsterdam: CEDLA, 1990), 12.

19. In 1778, one Spanish friar lamented that Zoque peoples in Chiapas showed greater veneration for caves than for churches. See AHDC, Folder 777, exp. 1, San Andrés III A 2, Episcopal, Gobierno, 1778, fol. 6r.

20. For notable incongruencies between Mesoamerican, Nahua, and Catholic ideologies, see Louise M. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989), esp. chapts. 5 and 6; Cervantes, The Devil in the New World, 42, 71; Osvaldo F. Pardo, The Origins of Mexican Catholicism: Nahua Rituals and Christian Sacraments in Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004); and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, “Mira lo que hace el Diablo: The Devil in Mexican Popular Culture, 1750–1856,” The Americas 59:2 (November 1, 2002): 203.

21. Alfredo López Austin, “Los Temacpalitotique: brujos, profanadores, ladrones y violadores,” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 6 [UNAM] (1966): 99; Alfredo López Austin, “Cuarenta clases de magos del mundo náhuatl,” in Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 7 (1968): 87; Alfredo López Austin, Cuerpo humano e ideología: las concepciones de los antiguos Nahuas (Mexico City: UNAM, 2004), 418–420; Roberto Martínez González, El nahualismo (Mexico City: UNAM, 2017), 319–452.

22. Although the entire animal kingdom held cosmological significance, owls in particular were deemed to be omens of death. See Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live among the Indians Native to This New Spain, 1629, J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig, trans. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), 69; and León García Garagarza, “The Tecolotl and the Chiquatli: Omens of Death and Transspecies Dialogues in the Aztec World,” Ethnohistory 67:3 (July 1, 2020): 455–479. For reference to “tlacatecolotl,” an owl-man who terrorizes people at night, see Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 41; and López Austin, “Cuarenta clases de magos del mundo náhuatl,” 88.

23. In Chiapas, for example, locals recognized that those nanahualtin who transformed into lighting could bring rain. However, commoners also understood that these nanahualtin might harm the community with magic from the underworld. See Juan Pedro Viqueira, Encrucijadas chiapanecas: economía, religión e identidades (Mexico City: Colegio de México, 2002), 244. See also Vianey Mayorga Muñoz, “Las representaciones del nahual entre los Nahuas de la Huasteca Potosiana,” in Los habitantes del encanto. Seres extraordinarios en comunidades indígenas de América, Claudia Rocha and Claudia Carranza, eds. (San Luis Potosí: Colegio de San Luis, 2015), 121–122.

24. Belief in nanahualtin has persisted into the modern era. For anthropological works that deal with this subject, see George Foster, “Nagualism in Mexico and Guatemala,” Acta Americana 2 (1944): 101; Hugo G. Nutini and John M. Roberts, Bloodsucking Witchcraft: An Epistemological Study of Anthropomorphic Supernaturalism in Rural Tlaxcala (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993); and Timothy J. Knab, A War of Witches: A Journey into the Underworld of the Contemporary Aztecs (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995). Félix Báez-Jorge notes the broad range of power wielded by nanahualtin and their connection to iconographic images such as the saints. He states, “En estrecha relación con estas creencias se manifiestan los procesos de transfiguración simbólica de los santos patronos comunitarios, quienes, al sustituir en las cosmovisiones a los antepasados espíritus guardianes, se han nagualizado, identificados no solamente a formas animales, sino también a fenómenos atmosféricos (rayos, torbellinos, meteoros, etc.).” Félix Báez-Jorge, Entre los naguales y los santos: religión popular y ejercicio clerical en el México indígena (Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 1998), 175.

25. Steven Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 5. Antonio Gramsci argues that the intellectual represented a model for “the peasant to look to in his aspiration to escape from or improve his condition.” See Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, trans. (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 14.

26. Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espanã: que en doce libros y dos volumenes, Carlos Maria de Bustamante, ed. (Mexico City: Imprenta del Ciudadano Alejandro Valdés, 1830), Vol. 3, book 10, chapt. 9, 22.

27. Sahagún, Vol. 3, book 10, chapt. 9, 22–23.

28. Sahagún's linguistic skills, combined with his sincere attempt to understand much of Nahua culture, make his work extremely valuable for historians. As noted above, however, his wish to convert native peoples to Christianity shaped his assessment of Mesoamerican cultures. This predicament gave rise to various labels for Sahagún's role as a chronicler and interpreter. Some have labeled Sahagún an “ethnographer” or “accidental ethnographer,” while others have labeled him an “anthropologist.” For ethnographer, see Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 199 n9, and for accidental ethnographer, see Stacey Schwartzkopf and Kathryn E. Sampeck, eds., Substance and Seduction: Ingested Commodities in Early Modern Mesoamerica (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017), 34. For anthropologist, see Miguel León-Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún: First Anthropologist, Mauricio J. Mixco, trans. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), 3.

29. Fray Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, mexicana y castellana, 6th ed. (Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 2013), 63.

30. Sousa highlights this genderless trend in Nahuatl, Ñudzahui, and Tíchazàa. See Lisa Sousa, The Woman Who Turned Into a Jaguar, and Other Narratives of Native Women in Archives of Colonial Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017), 45.

31. Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (Essex: Longman Group Limited, 1995), 133–134. Despite women's alleged weakness, they often used diabolical pacts to undermine male authority. See Laura A. Lewis, “The ‘Weakness’ of Women and the Feminization of the Indian in Colonial Mexico,” Colonial Latin American Review 5:1 (1996): 73.

32. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, 45.

33. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, 49. In San Luis Potosí, an unnamed Guachichil woman accused of sorcery allegedly transformed men into coyotes in 1599. See Ruth Behar, “The Visions of a Guachichil Witch in 1599: A Window on the Subjugation of Mexico's Hunter-Gatherers,” Ethnohistory 34:2 (1987): 115–138.

34. Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions, 47.

35. Proselytizing clergy frequently associated the devil with the trickster deity Tezcatlipoca. See Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 39; Cervantes, The Devil in the New World, 41; López Austin, Cuerpo humano e ideología, 402; and Viviana Díaz Balsera, Guardians of Idolatry: Gods, Demons, and Priests in Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón's Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018), 41–42.

36. López Austin, Cuerpo humano e ideología, 87–88; González, El nahualismo, 294–299; Sousa, The Woman Who Turned Into a Jaguar, 26–30.

37. Sahagún, Historia General, Vol 1., book 4, chapt. 4, 289.

38. Sahagún, Vol 1., book 4, chapt. 6, 293.

39. Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions, 45–46.

40. Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions, 46.

41. A notable example of the excision of the high priest was Fray Juan de Zumárraga's execution of don Carlos of Texcoco. See Richard Greenleaf, Zumárraga and the Mexican Inquisition, 1536–1543 (Washington, DC: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1962), 67; and Patricia Lopes Don, Bonfires of Culture: Franciscans, Indigenous Leaders, and the Inquisition in Early Mexico, 1524–1540 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010), 175. See also L. Musgrave-Portilla, “The Nahualli or Transforming Wizard in Pre and Postconquest Mesoamerica,” Journal of Latin American Lore 8:1 (1982): 24.

42. Francisco Núñez de la Vega, Constituciones diocesanas del Obispado de Chiapa, María del Carmen León Cázares and Mario Humberto Ruz, eds. (Mexico City: UNAM, 1988), 754.

43. Núñez de la Vega, Constituciones diocesanas del Obispado de Chiapa, 755.

44. Núñez de la Vega, Constituciones diocesanas del Obispado de Chiapa, 755.

45. Núñez de la Vega, Constituciones diocesanas del Obispado de Chiapa, 755.

46. Núñez de la Vega, Constituciones diocesanas del Obispado de Chiapa, 756. The “nahualtocaitl” or names of the nahualli, which were recited to bring about change in the terrestrial realm, correspond to the “infernal words” mentioned by Bishop de la Vega. For more on these nahualli names and their connection to diseases, see Tavárez, The Invisible War, 70, 78–80, and 89. Díaz Balsera notes that “the nahualtocaitl assumed, encouraged, or performed a world in which the boundaries between entities were permeable and fluid.” Díaz Balsera, Guardians of Idolatry, 36. Ruiz de Alarcón also mentions the “nahualtocaitl,” translating it as “the language that wizards use.” See Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions, 148.

47. Núñez de la Vega, Constituciones diocesanas del Obispado de Chiapa, 758.

48. León García Garagarza illuminates this dilemma eloquently in “The Year the People Turned into Cattle: The End of the World in New Spain, 1558,” in Centering Animals in Latin American History, Martha Few and Zeb Tortorici, eds. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013), 31–53.

49. González, El nahualismo, 81.

50. Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions, 246. Kaplan notes that the term “nagual” originally signified a transforming witch, but subsequently was more broadly applied to mean a companion animal as the term spread to Southern Mexico and Guatemala. Lucille N. Kaplan, “Tonal and Nagual in Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico,” Journal of American Folklore 69:274 (1956): 363. J. Eric S. Thompson associates “nagualism” only with the belief in “an alter ego in animal form.” Thompson, Maya History & Religion (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), 167. Joan Cameron Bristol endorses a similar interpretation of nagualismo, stating that it is a “Nahua concept in which human beings were assigned spirit guardians at birth.” Bristol, Christians, Blasphemers, and Witches, 154.

51. Don corroborates Thompson's definition for Maya belief in the nahual. However, since the cases in this essay span from the Yucatán to San Luis Potosí, a broader definition of nahualli is employed. Don, Bonfires of Culture, 53. Regarding the conquest of Guatemala by Nahuatl-speaking peoples, see Laura E. Matthew, Memories of Conquest: Becoming Mexicano in Colonial Guatemala (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 71.

52. López Austin, Cuerpo humano e ideología: las concepciones de los antiguos Nahuas, 416–417; Zeb Tortorici, Sins against Nature: Sex and Archives in Colonial New Spain (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018), 133.

53. Sousa, The Woman Who Turned Into a Jaguar, 23.

54. Archivo Histórico del Estado de San Luis Potosí [hereafter AHESLP] 1599, Criminal, box 82, exp. 19, fols. 113–127. See also Behar, “The Visions of a Guachichil Witch in 1599,” 124.

55. AHESLP, 1599, Criminal, box 82, exp. 19, fol. 117.

56. AHESLP, 1599, Criminal, box 82, exp. 19, fols. 118–119.

57. Sousa, The Woman Who Turned Into a Jaguar, 45.

58. Tortorici, Sins against Nature, 63.

59. Sahagún, Historia general, Vol. 1, book 4, chapt. 2, 285.

60. Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, “Tratado de las supersticiones y costumbres gentílicas que hoy viven entre los indios naturales de esta Nueva España,” 1953, Tratado Primero, chapt. 1, para. 7, http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/tratado-de-las-supersticiones-y-costumbres-gentilicas-que-hoy-viven-entre-los-indios-naturales-de-esta-nueva-espana--0/html, accessed February 14, 2021.

61. In Chapter 9, Alarcón states, “Tienen por agueros ver o encontrar qualquier animal extraordinario, como el leon, tigre, oso, lobo, y aun el coyote.” In Chapter 10, Alarcón mentions that the bowmen make cries like a “leon.” Ruiz de Alarcón, Tratado Primero, paras. 140, 166.

62. “la figura de sus naguales propios; unos en la de tigre, león, toro, etcétera.” See Núñez de la Vega, Constituciones diocesanas del Obispado de Chiapa, 757. For a brief overview of de la Vega, see Eduardo Flores Ruiz, La catedral de San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, 1528–1978 (Chiapas: Area de Humanidades, Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas, 1978), 100–101.

63. Andrews and Hassig translate terms such as lion and tiger more accurately as “jaguar.” Corrections such as these, however, inadvertently mask the process of obfuscation, as noted in this study. See Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions, 68, 108, 182, 217, and 272.

64. Archivo Histórico del Estado de Tlaxcala [hereafter AHET], Judicial Criminal, 1701, box 4, exp. 35, fols. 1r-6r.

65. AHET, Judicial Criminal, 1701, box 4, exp. 35, fol. 3v.

66. Tortorici, Sins against Nature, 133.

67. See Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, mexicana y castellana, 19 and 22, respectively.

68. Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 126.

69. See the Nahuatl-to-Spanish side, Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana, 86. Molina writes “quaquaue,” which contrasts to the case in 1701 that had, by this time, incorporated the modern spelling of “cuacuahue.”

70. Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl, 57.

71. Dakin originally employed the term “lingua franca” rather than vehicular language. However, as Matthew and Romero note, lingua franca gives the incorrect impression of prevalent bilingualism in Nahuatl. Therefore, Matthew and Romero prefer the term “vehicular language.” See Karen Dakin, “The Characteristics of a Nahuatl Lingua Franca,” Texas Linguistics Forum 18 (1981): 55–67; and Laura E. Matthew and Sergio F. Romero, “Nahuatl and Pipil in Colonial Guatemala: A Central American Counterpoint,” Ethnohistory 59:4 (October 1, 2012): 765–783.

72. AHDC, Folder 962, exp. 1, Cintlapa III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1678, fols. 3–42.

73. AHDC, Folder 962, exp. 1, Cintlapa III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1678, fol. 3r. Unfortunately, the case does not stipulate which language(s) don Pedro Rodríguez spoke. For a summary of this case, see Aramoni Calderón, Los refugios de lo sagrado, 154–175.

74. AHDC, Folder 962, exp. 1, Cintlapa III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1678, fol. 4v.

75. AHDC, Folder 962, exp. 1, Cintlapa III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1678, fol. 5r.

76. Because the case mentions that Domingo Jiménez needed an interpreter, it is reasonable to assume that he noted Diego de Vera changed his gender as a human but probably did not make this distinction when referring to the animals into which de Vera transformed.

77. AHDC, Folder 962, exp. 1, Cintlapa III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1678, fol. 6r.

78. Archivo General de la Nación [hereafter AGN], Inquisición, 1624, vol. 303, exp. 15, fols. 69–72.

79. AGN, Inquisición, 1624, vol. 303, exp. 15, fol. 69r. This case corroborates Ruiz de Alarcón's commentary regarding the connection between the nahualli and his or her animal companion. See Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions, 45–47.

80. Sonya Lipsett-Rivera notes that Nahuas divided the night into “periods of greater or lesser danger, according to their temporal proximity to the setting or rising of the sun.” Lipsett-Rivera, “Mira lo que hace el Diablo,” 204.

81. AHDC, Folder 962, exp. 1, Cintlapa III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1678, fol. 10v.

82. AHDC, Folder 962, exp. 1, Cintlapa III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1678, fol. 11v.

83. Lockhart, The Nahuas After the Conquest, 263–325.

84. Lockhart, The Nahuas After the Conquest, 304.

85. Lockhart, The Nahuas After the Conquest, 305.

86. Karen Dakin, Claudia Parodi, and Natalie Operstein, eds., Language Contact and Change in Mesoamerica and Beyond (Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2017), 6.

87. AHDC, Folder 962, exp. 1, Cintlapa III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1678, fols. 23r-23v.

88. AHDC, Folder 962, exp. 1, Cintlapa III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1678, fols. 40v-41r.

89. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fols. 1r-58r.

90. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 33r.

91. On February 11, Gabriel Montero mentioned another mulatto from Tonalá but could not recall his name. See AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 7r. At first glance, ethnonyms such as ‘mulato’ seem to indicate that race was a stable concept in colonial Mexico. However, recent works have shown that race was fluid and highly contextual; one's designation could change over the course of one's lifetime. See Robert C. Schwaller, Géneros de Gente in Early Colonial Mexico: Defining Racial Difference (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016), 111–146; Frank T. Proctor III, Damned Notions of Liberty: Slavery, Culture, and Power in Colonial Mexico, 1640–1769 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010), 41; and Ben Vinson III, Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 86–87.

92. Ida Altman, Sarah Cline, and Juan Javier Pescador, The Early History of Greater Mexico (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2003), 208. For an overview of slavery in the Spanish Americas, see Ann Twinam, Purchasing Whiteness: Pardos, Mulattos, and the Quest for Social Mobility in the Spanish Indies (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015), 84–96.

93. Lewis divides the Spanish colonial world into two realms, the sanctioned and unsanctioned domains. In the unsanctioned domain, indigenous and mixed-race peoples attained power over their colonial oppressors by making pacts with the devil or one of his minions. Because indigenous and mixed-race peoples inhabited this unsanctioned domain, they became suspect in the eyes of colonial officials, thereby contributing to the “ongoing political economy of conquest.” See Lewis, Hall of Mirrors, 5–7. For references to miscegenation, see Andrew B. Fisher and Matthew O'Hara, eds., Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009), 87, 109, 171, 201–202, and 250–251. For African beliefs in spirit possession, see Bristol, Christians, Blasphemers, and Witches, 154–155. Africans from Guinea, the Congo, and Angola believed in a spiritual counterpart similar to the nahualli known as a “‘shadow,’ which abandoned the body at night and could be captured and harmed by a sorcerer.” See Nora E. Jaffary, False Mystics: Deviant Orthodoxy in Colonial Mexico (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 103.

94. “Tlen tihualla ticchihua?” in modern Nahuatl. See AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 22v.

95. From their arrival in the sixteenth century, the clergy in Mexico studied indigenous languages such as Nahuatl, Otomi, Matlatzinca, and Huastec, thus contextualizing the friars’ familiarity with Nahuatl. See John F. Schwaller, “The Expansion of Nahuatl as a Lingua Franca among Priests in Sixteenth-Century Mexico,” Ethnohistory 59:4 (October 1, 2012): 678.

96. For other pacts made with the devil, see Behar, “Sex and Sin, Witchcraft and the Devil in Late-Colonial Mexico,” 43–48.

97. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 23r.

98. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 39v.

99. The Mexican Inquisition considered superstition broadly as a crime against the faith. Crimes such as witchcraft, sorcery, divination, prognostication, and heresy, as well as making a pact with the devil, fell under the category of superstition. See John F. Chuchiak, The Inquisition in New Spain, 1536–1820: A Documentary History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 292–293.

100. The case reads “sea de culebra, sea de burro.” As mentioned above, the grammar rules for epicene nouns make the gender of the snake uncertain. However, the term for ass, “burro,” is clearly masculine. See AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 39v.

101. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 39v.

102. Powerful nanahualtin typically embodied fierce animals such as jaguars, snakes, or caimans. See Musgrave-Portilla, “The Nahualli or Transforming Wizard in Pre and Postconquest Mesoamerica,” 46; and Díaz Balsera, Guardians of Idolatry, 45. For modern examples, see Julian Alfred Pitt-Rivers, From Hospitality to Grace: A Julian Pitt-Rivers Omnibus (Chicago: Hau, 2017), 234; and Knab, A War of Witches, 87.

103. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 40r.

104. Although outside the scope of this article, the Nahuatl term ‘titicih’ often refers to women ritual specialists who performed a variety of complex ceremonies to assist their communities, including midwifery, ophthalmology, and native forms of baptism. See Edward Anthony Polanco, “‘I Am Just a Tiçitl’: Decolonizing Central Mexican Nahua Female Healers, 1535–1635,” Ethnohistory 65:3 (July 1, 2018): 441–463.

105. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 40v.

106. Viqueira notes that six or seven tostones equated to one month's salary for many mayordomos. See Viqueira, Encrucijadas chiapanecas, 168.

107. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 41r.

108. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fols. 41v-42r.

109. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 43v.

110. For the continued reverence of landscapes such as caves and mountains among indigenous peoples, see Cervantes, The Devil in the New World, 35, 37–38, 50, and 91–93. Peoples such as the Nahua associated caves with the underworld. See Lipsett-Rivera, “Mira lo que hace El Diablo,” 215; and Alfredo López Austin and Leonardo López Luján, Monte Sagrado: Templo Mayor (Mexico City: UNAM, 2017), 50–52.

111. Cervantes, The Devil in the New World, 49; Tavárez, The Invisible War, 250.

112. The seven sacraments are baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, holy orders, and marriage. See Pardo, The Origins of Mexican Catholicism, 12.

113. Significantly, a woman cured Catalina, revealing that magic and healing crossed gender lines. Although Esteban denied having made a pact with the devil and claimed not to know what the term nahual meant, the case ended here. The record does not state whether Esteban was prosecuted. See AHDC, Folder 1580, exp. 1, Tecpatán III A 1, Episcopal, Gobierno, 1696, fols. 1r-4v.

114. AHDC, Folder 2463, exp. 1, Soconusco III A1, Episcopal, Gobierno, 1721, fols. 1r-15v.

115. AHDC, Folder 2463, exp. 1, Soconusco III A1, Episcopal, Gobierno, 1721, fols. 6r-6v.

116. AHDC, Folder 2463, exp. 1, Soconusco III A1, Episcopal, Gobierno, 1721, fol. 6v.

117. For Nahua interpretations of landscapes, caves, and crossroads, see Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 47–48, 63.

118. For queer landscapes, see Anderson Hagler, “Archival Epistemology: Honor, Sodomy, and Indians in Eighteenth-Century New Mexico,” Ethnohistory 66:3 (July 1, 2019): 522–523.

119. For natural springs emerging from caves, see Karl A. Taube, “The Teotihuacan Cave of Origin: The Iconography and Architecture of Emergence Mythology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics:12 (1986): 51–82. See also López Austin and López Luján, Monte Sagrado, 50–55.

120. Claudia Rocha, “Habitar el Monte Sagrado,” in Los habitantes del encanto, Rocha and Carranza, eds., 183–188. For the owner or “dueño” of the Monte, see López Austin and López Luján, Monte Sagrado, 67–72.

121. Cervantes, The Devil in the New World, 71.

122. St. Michael was a popular figure in colonial Mexico, evidenced by his numerous appearances in religious dramas and sermons. See Cervantes, The Devil in the New World, 13, 83; Oakah L. Jones, Los Paisanos: Spanish Settlers on the Northern Frontier of New Spain (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1979), 155; and Fernando Horcasitas, Teatro náhuatl: épocas novohispana y moderna, Vol. 1 (Mexico City: UNAM, 2004), 85, 95, 192, 619–621, 699, and 729.

123. Antonio Rubial García, “Icons of Devotion: The Appropriation and Use of Saints in New Spain,” in Local Religion in Colonial Mexico, Martin Austin Nesvig, ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006), 41.

124. Andrew A. Bialas, The Patronage of Saint Michael the Archangel (Chicago: Clerics of St Viator, 1954), 120.

125. Nicolás de Santiago's testimony corroborates many of the details mentioned in María Sánchez's confession. See AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fols. 44r-45r.

126. For instance, in his ninth pastoral letter, Bishop Núñez de la Vega states that the truly repentant will demonstrate sincerity by “crying and confessing his guilt.” See Núñez de la Vega, Constituciones diocesanas del Obispado de Chiapa, 760.

127. The case states that Roque Martin's sentence was read to him in “lengua Mexicana,” suggesting that he spoke Nahuatl. See AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fols. 54r-55r.

128. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 54r.

129. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 54v. Edward Osowski notes a similar occurrence in the cave at Amecameca near Mexico City. See Osowski, Indigenous Miracles: Nahua Authority in Colonial Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010), 40.

130. AHDC, Folder777, exp. 1, San Andrés III A 2, Episcopal, Gobierno, 1778, fols. 1–30.

131. AHDC, Folder 777, exp. 1, San Andrés III A 2, Episcopal, Gobierno, 1778, fol. 2v.

132. For similar associations regarding deviant landscapes and accusations of human sacrifice in the Yucatan, see Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517–1570 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 161, 168, 171, and 195.

133. AHDC, Folder 777, exp. 1, San Andrés III A 2, Episcopal, Gobierno, 1778, fol. 6r.

134. AHDC, Folder 777, exp. 1, San Andrés III A 2, Episcopal, Gobierno, 1778, fol. 25v.

135. AHDC, Folder 777, exp. 1, San Andrés III A 2, Episcopal, Gobierno, 1778, fol. 27r.

136. AHDC, Folder 777, exp. 1, San Andrés III A 2, Episcopal, Gobierno, 1778, fol. 27v.

137. Cervantes notes that “extirpation campaigns suffered from a lack of consistent institutional support and funds.” See Cervantes, The Devil in the New World, 55.

138. AHDC, Folder 777, exp. 1, San Andrés III A 2, Episcopal, Gobierno, 1778, fol. 19r.

139. Johanna Broda, “The Sacred Landscape of Aztec Calendar Festivals: Myth, Nature, and Society,” in To Change Place: Aztec Ceremonial Landscapes, David Carrasco, ed. (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1991), 79.

140. For the importance of baptism among the clergy, see Pardo, The Origins of Mexican Catholicism, 43–48.

141. AGN, Inquisición, 1734, vol. 849, exp. s/n, fols. 312–317.

142. AGN, Inquisición, 1734, vol. 849, exp. s/n, fol. 316r. See also Cervantes, The Devil in the New World, 95.

143. González, El nahualismo, 120.

144. By the time of the trial, Montoya spoke Spanish very well. He was 40 years old and had worked as a presbyter, provisional notary, and purger (expurgador, meaning he helped the compile the list of prohibited books) for the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Rivas. See AGN, Inquisición, 1787, vol. 1299. exp. 18, fols. 304–319. Chuchiak notes that “the expurgatorio was the Inquisition's list of purged or prohibited books.” See Chuchiak, The Inquisition in New Spain, 1536–1820, 378 n14.

145. The testimony states “yeguas,” clearly indicating female animals. See AGN, Inquisición, 1787, vol. 1299, exp. 18, fol. 305v.

146. Montoya denotes a female animal by stating “una leona.” See AGN, Inquisición, 1787, vol. 1299, exp. 18, fol. 305v.

147. AGN, Inquisición, 1787, vol. 1299, exp. 18, fols. 310r-310v.

148. The case states “tres pájaros grandes,” which does not illuminate the gender of María's nahual. Later, Romero states “el uno que quedó fue bajando con pausa, y vio, que se entró en su casa, fue a la puerta y entró, y se halló con su mujer.” In addition to complications surrounding the use of epicene nouns, it would have been very difficult for Romero to discern the birds’ gender so late at night. See AGN, Inquisición, 1787, vol. 1299, exp. 18, fol. 310v.

149. AGN, Inquisición, 1787, vol. 1299, exp. 18, fol. 315v.

150. AGN, Inquisición, 1787, vol. 1299, exp. 18, fol. 315v.

151. The highest official of the Inquisition was the inquisitor general, who was nominated by the crown and confirmed by the pope. See Chuchiak, The Inquisition in New Spain, 1536–1820, 12–15.

152. Chuchiak, The Inquisition in New Spain, 15. For the salaries of Inquisition officials, see Table 8 on page 29.

153. For additional information on the Mexican Inquisition, see Solange Alberro, Inquisición y sociedad en México, 1571–1700 (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1988).

154. Chuchiak, The Inquisition in New Spain, 1536–1820, 24. Edicts of faith were published annually during Lent and typically urged the masses to keep their consciences clean through denunciation and confession. See Tortorici, Sins against Nature, 12–13. The alleged purity of one's bloodline was taken very seriously in colonial New Spain. Those who had ties to Iberia proper, had not recently converted to Catholicism, and had not intermixed their bloodline with negros, mulattoes, pardos, and other castas were deemed to be the most “pure.” See María Elena Martínez, Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011); and Twinam, Purchasing Whiteness.

155. AGN, Inquisición, 1787, vol. 1299, exp. 18, fol. 305r.

156. Echoing this observation, Stuart Schwartz notes that “the devil seemed to thrive on the cultural frontiers. While Spanish and Portuguese theologians were often skeptical about witchcraft, the presence and actions of the devil were broadly accepted at all levels of society.” See Stuart B. Schwartz, All Can Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian Atlantic World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 171.

157. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 5r.

158. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 5r.

159. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 5v.

160. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 5v.

161. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 6r.

162. Garofalo states that “specific techniques for protection and divining existed in west and central Africa and may have been combined with Iberian and Andean techniques.” Garofalo, “Conjuring with Coca and the Inca,” 67.

163. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 6v.

164. AHDC, Folder 268, exp. 1, Jiquipilas III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1685, fol. 42v.

165. Cervantes, The Devil in the New World, 53 and 59.

166. Aguirre Beltrán refers to this admixture of ideas as “medicina mestiza.” See Beltrán, Gonzalo Aguirre, Medicina y magia: el proceso de aculturación en la estructura colonial (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1992), 257Google Scholar.

167. AHDC, Folder 2463, exp. 1, Soconusco III A1, Episcopal, Gobierno, 1721, fol. 14v.

168. AHDC, Folder 2463, exp. 1, Soconusco III A1, Episcopal, Gobierno, 1721, fol. 15r.

169. AHDC, Folder 1165, exp. 1, Magdalenas Coalpitan III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1798, fols. 1r-24r.

170. AHDC, Folder 1165, exp. 1, Magdalenas Coalpitan III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1798, fol. 3v.

171. AHDC, Folder 1165, exp. 1, Magdalenas Coalpitan III A 1, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1798, fol. 3r.

172. Hagler, “Archival Epistemology,” 516.

173. AHDC, Folder 1409, exp. 1, Quechula III A 5, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1801–1802, fol. 5v.

174. AHDC, Folder 1409, exp. 1, Quechula III A 5, Episcopal, Provisorato, 1801–1802, fol. 6r.