iver, at the present day the term
_naguate_ or _nagutlat_ is said to be applied to any one "who is
entitled to respect and obedience by age and merit;"[59-[+]] but in all
probability he is also believed to possess superior and occult
knowledge.

=39.= All who have any acquaintance with the folk-lore of the world are
aware that the notion of men and women having the power to change
themselves into beasts is as wide as superstition itself and older than
history. It is mentioned in the pages of Herodotus and in the myths of
ancient Assyria. It is the property of African negroes, and the
peasantry of Europe still hold to their faith in the reality of the
were-wolf of Germany, the _loup-garou_ of France and the _lupo mannaro_
of Italy. Dr. Richard Andree well says in his interesting study of the
subject: "He who would explain the origin of this strange superstition
must not approach it as a national or local manifestation, but as one
universal in its nature; not as the property of one race or family, but
of the species and its psychology at large."[59-[++]]

Even in such a detail as the direct connection of the name of the person
with his power of change do we find extraordinary parallelisms between
the superstition of the red man of America and the peasant of Germany.
As in Mexico the _nagual_ was assigned to the infant by a form of
baptism, so in Europe the peasants of east Prussia hold that if the
godparent at the time of naming and baptism thinks of a wolf, the infant
will acquire the power of becoming one; and in Hesse to pronounce the
name of the person in the presence of the animal into which he has been
changed will restore him to human shape.[59-Sec.]

=40.= I need not say that the doctrine of personal spirits is not
especially Mexican, nor yet American; it belongs to man in general, and
can be recognized in most religions and many philosophies. In ancient
Greece both the Platonicians and later the Neo-Platonicians thought that
each individual has a particular spirit, or _daim[=o]n_, in whom is
enshrined his or her moral personality. To this _daim[=o]n_ he should
address his prayers, and should listen heedfully to those interior
promptings which seem to arise in the mind from some unseen silent
monitor.[60-*]

Many a member of the Church of Rome substitutes for the _daim[=o]n_ of
the Platonists the patron saint after whom he is named, or whom he has
chosen from the calendar, the hagiology, of his Church. Thi