numerable years painted on a tablet in the
above figure. Even after they were converted to the faith, they
hung it behind a beam in the church of the town of Oxchuc,
accompanied by an image of their god Hicalahau, having a ferocious
black face with the members of a man,[21-*] along with five owls
and vultures. By divine interposition, we discovered these on our
second visit there in 1687, and had no little difficulty in getting
them down, we reciting the creed, and the Indians constantly
spitting as they executed our orders. These objects were publicly
burned in the plaza.

"In other parts they reverence the bones of the earlier Nagualists,
preserving them in caves, where they adorn them with flowers and
burn copal before them. We have discovered some of these and burned
them, hoping to root out and put a stop to such evil ceremonies of
the infernal sect of the Nagualists.

"At present, all are not so subject to the promptings of the Devil
as formerly, but there are still some so closely allied to him that
they transform themselves into tigers, lions, bulls, flashes of
light and globes of fire. We can say from the declaration and
solemn confession of some penitents that it is proved that the
Devil had carnal relations with them, both as incubus and succubus,
approaching them in the form of their Nagual; and there was one
woman who remained in the forest a week with the demon in the form
of her Nagual, acting toward him as does an infatuated woman toward
her lover (como pudiera con su proprio amigo una muger amancebada).
As a punishment for such horrible crimes our Lord has permitted
that they lose their life as soon as their Nagual is killed; and
that they bear on their own bodies the wound or mark of the blow
which killed it; as the curas of Chamula, Copainala and other
places have assured us.

"The devilish seed of this Nagualism has rooted itself in the very
flesh and blood of these Indians. It perseveres in their hearts
through the instructions of the masters of the sect, and there is
scarcely a town in these provinces in which it has not been
introduced. It is a superstitious idolatry, full of monstrous
incests, sodomies and detestable bestialities."

Such are the words of the Bishop of Chiapas. We learn from his
thoroughly instructed and