localities, and in the original there follow the names of more than
a hundred others. The prayer concludes as follows:]

"... I who appoint myself godfather and godmother, I who ask, I the
witness and brother of this man who asks, of this man who makes
himself, your son, O holy souls, I ask, do not let any evil happen
unto him, nor let him be unhappy for any cause.

"I the priest, I who speak, I who burn this incense, I who light
this candle, I who pray for him, I who take him under my
protection, I ask you that he may obtain his subsistence with
facility. Thou, God, canst provide him with money; let him not fall
ill of fever; I ask that he shall not become paralytic; that he
may not choke with severe coughing; that he be not bitten by a
serpent; that he become neither bloated nor asthmatic; that he do
not go mad; that he be not bitten by a dog; that he be not struck
by lightning; that he be not choked with brandy; that he be not
killed with iron, nor by a stick, and that he be not carried off by
an eagle; guard him, O clouds; aid him, O lightning; aid him, O
thunder; aid him, St. Peter; aid him, St. Paul; aid him, eternal
Father.

"And I who up to this time have spoken for him to you, I ask you
that sickness may visit his enemies. So order it, that when his
enemies go forth from their houses, they may meet sickness; order
it, that wherever they go, they may meet troubles; do your offices
of injury to them, wheresoever they are met; do this that I pray, O
holy souls. God be with you; God the Father, God the Son, God the
Holy Spirit: Amen, Jesus."

Most of such invocations are expressed in terms far more recondite and
symbolic than the above. We have many such preserved in the work of
Jacinto de la Serna, which supply ample material to acquaint us with the
peculiarities of the sacred and secret language of the nagualists. I
shall quote but one, that employed in the curious ceremony of "calling
back the _tonal_," referred to on a previous page. I append an
explanation of its obscure metaphors.

_Invocation for the Restitution of the Tonal._

"Ho there! Come to my aid, mother mine of the skirt of precious
stones![1] What keeps thee away, gray ghost, white ghost?[2] Is the
obstacle white, or is it yellow? See, I place here the yellow
enchantment and the white enchantme