The Nagual

What is this snarling, feline/doglike upright creature that has plagued Mexico for millennia?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Welcome to Mexico Unexplained, where we will explore the magic,
the mysteries and the miracles of Mexico. This series presents
information based partly on theory and conjecture. The podcaster's purpose
is to suggest some possible explanation, but not necessarily the
only ones to the subjects we will examine. Here is
your host, Robert Viitto.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Welcome and we bim beneath us two. Episode number were
thirty six of Mexico Unexplained, where we examined the magic,
the mysteries and the miracles of Mexico. I'm your host,
Robert Biddo. On a Sunday in October of twenty thirteen,
the small church dedicated to Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion,

(01:20):
our Lady of the Ascension, held a special mass for
the worried townsfolk of the sleepy seaside town of Shiksulu, Puerto,
located on the northern coast of the Yucatan. It was
a very hot day, but the church was packed with
parishioners searching for answers and comfort. Among the attendees was Alexandra,

(01:45):
a gas station worker who had beheld a terrible site
just days before a tall, clawed, hairy, growling creature crossed
her path while she walked to work. Alejandra's encounter was
tied to the many horrible deaths of chickens throughout the
town and the surrounding area. Hundreds of chickens were found

(02:08):
dismembered and half eaten, with feathers and parts strewn about
large areas. Soon after Alejandra's sighting and a few other
brief sightings about the town, the people in the town
had collectively come to the conclusion that the strange creature
lurking in their area and destroying their poultry stock was

(02:30):
a demonicnal. The modern Mexican folklore idea of a naal,
a cryptid on par with Bigfoot or the chupacabra, has
generated recent interest from cryptozoologists or those who study unknown animals,
and is much different from the nahala. Old The concept

(02:53):
of the noal has seemed to shape shift with the
times and has been used to describe any known number
of hideous evil creatures spotted throughout Mexico's backcountry and mostly
relegated to the darker hours of the day. There are
a few common threads in the modern noal story. It

(03:15):
is big and hairy, makes growling or howling noises, and
has the snout of a dog or sometimes the face
of a cat. The Noala is blamed for disappearances of
animals or people and destruction of property. Today's version of
the Noal is not what we see in the historical record.

(03:36):
Some claim that the Codex Borgia, a pre Hispanic pictographic
bark book, features Nahuales on page twenty two. The codex,
which is essentially a calendar book created by Aztec scribes
and used for purposes of divination, contains no written language,

(03:58):
so there is no explanation of the figures claimed to
be Nahwal's on the pages of the illustration. Most likely,
the claim of modern day analysts that these images are
of shape shifters is not an accurate one. The word
nawal is definitely pre Columbian in origin. In the various

(04:23):
languages in Mesoamerica, that word and similar words from the
same stem or root mean different things. For example, in Nahwatl,
the language of the Aztecs, there is the word nahwali,
which means sorcerer, magician, or enchanter, and the word nahwayotel

(04:45):
magic enchantment or witchcraft. In the Qichei Maya language, we
have nahwal a witch or sorcerer, and the word nahwaleen,
which means to tell fortunes or to predict the future.
In the Cental language spoken in the Mexican state of Chiapas,

(05:07):
there are similar words having to do with wisdom and memory.
Naogel is a wise man. The word is related to
two other words naogi art science and naugibal memory. Yet
another set of examples of similar words are found in

(05:29):
the Sapotech language of Wahaka. We have nyanie, which loosely
translates to the superior reason of man. We have nyanie,
which loosely translates to the superior reason of man. There
are also two other similar words, nayaa and naguii, which

(05:53):
means superior or powerful man. Although these words have existed
in their respective languages millennia, one researcher in the nineteen
fifties named Gustavo Correa has argued that the idea of
the Noal and the mystical practices surrounding the Noal called Nahualism,
were wholly imported from Europe and did not exist before

(06:17):
the arrival of the Spanish in his work titled El
Spiritu del Male Guatemala, the author compared the idea of
the noal to the werewolves of medieval Europe and claims
that because the noal is so close to its European counterpart,
that it must have come to the Americas centuries ago

(06:38):
with Spanish colonization as part of European folklore. Others counter
Correa's claims by citing evidence in stone of shape shifting creatures,
notably the ware jaguar figurines of the Olmecs dating back
over two thousand years, and the more recent pre Hispanic

(06:59):
Stone own monuments of the Sapotech, which show people turning
into animals. The first mentioning of a nowal or nahwualism
by Europeans occurred in a fifteen thirty writing by Antonio
Derrera called Historia de las Indias Occidentales. He was reporting

(07:21):
specifically on the Maya. Translated from the Spanish, the author
rights quote, the devil was accustomed to deceive these natives
by appearing to them in the form of a lion, tiger, coyote, lizard, snake, bird,
or other animal. To these appearances, then they apply the

(07:45):
name Nahwals, which is as much as to say, guardians
or companions. And when such an animal dies, so does
the Indian to whom it was assigned. The way such
an alliance was formed was thus the Indian repaired to
some very retired spot, and there appealed to the streams,

(08:08):
rocks and trees around him, and, weeping, implored for himself
the favors they had conferred on his ancestors. He then
sacrificed a dog or fowl, and drew blood from his tongue,
or his ears or other parts of his body, and
turned to sleep. Either in his dreams or half awake,

(08:30):
he would see some one of these animals or birds
above mentioned, who would say to him, on such a
daygo hunting, and the first animal or bird you see
will be my form, and I shall remain your companion
and nahoal for all time. Thus their friendship became so

(08:51):
close that one one died, so did the other. And
without such a nawal, the natives believe no one can
become rich or powerful. End quote. In another colonial account,
this time from a priest named Father Bernardino de Sagoun,
who was assigned to Aztec country, we see that the

(09:14):
nawal is not an animal at all, but a person.
In his work Historia de Noevaespanna, the priest writes quote,
the nawali or magician is he who frightens men and
sucks the blood of children during the night. He is
well skilled in the practice of his trade. He knows

(09:36):
all the arts of sorcery and employs them with cunning ability,
but for the benefit of men only, not for their injury.
Those who have recourse to such arts for evil intents,
injure the bodies of their victims, cause them to lose
their reason, and smother them. These are the wicked men

(09:58):
and necromancers. End quote. The Church was very concerned in
colonial times about the continuation of previous pagan religious practices,
and fortunate for the modern day researcher, there is a
lot of material about Mesoamerican religious and folk belief practices

(10:18):
documented by the clergy. In an instructional book for confessors
written in the year sixteen hundred for priests with a
predominantly Indian congregation, father Juan Bautista writes, quote, there are
magicians who call themselves techi ut la aske and also

(10:39):
by the term nanawaltin, who conjure the clouds when there
is danger of hall so the crops may not be injured.
They can also make a stick look like a serpent,
a mat like a centipede, a piece of stone like
a scorpion, and similar deceptions. Others of these Nana Waltine

(11:01):
will transform themselves to all appearances into a tiger, a dog,
or a weasel. Others again will take the form of
an owl, a rooster, or a weasel, and when one
is preparing to seize them, they will appear now as
a rooster, now as an owl, and again as a weasel.

(11:23):
They call themselves nana Waltine end quote. The type of
animal used has to do with the day on which
the conjurer was born, as each day in the Mesoamerican
calendars associated with a specific animal. It is unclear from
Father Bautista's writings if the person practicing Nowalism is claiming

(11:46):
to actually turn into these animals, or if he is
casting spells on witnesses to make others believe he is
shape shifting into something else. The practice of Nowalism was
not completely erased during the Spanish colonial period for curious reasons.
When the Spanish Inquisition ramped up in the Spanish colonies

(12:09):
of the Americas. The primary focus of the inquisitors were
the Europeans or mixed bloods, who were part of the
European society of the New World. No great attention was
paid to the Indians, especially those living their traditional ways
away from the urban centers, because they were seen as

(12:31):
ignorant end quote, not knowing any better end quote. Over
the long course of the colonial period, the concept of
the noal thus became better documented by those who wished
to learn more about the Mesoamerican natives. Another primary source
observation about the nahal from a Spanish historian, Arosco Ibera,

(12:55):
writing in the latter colonial period, states quote no wall
is generally an old Indian with red eyes, who knows
how to turn himself into a dog, wooly, black and ugly.
The female which can convert herself into a ball of fire.
She has the power of flight, and at night will

(13:18):
enter the windows and suck the blood of little children.
These sorcerers will make little images of rags or of clay,
then stick into them the thorn of the magee and
place them in some secret place. You can be sure
that the person against whom the conjuration is practiced, will

(13:38):
feel pain in the part where the thorn is inserted.
There still exists among them. The medicine men, who treat
the sick by means of strange contortions, call upon the spirits,
pronounce magical incantations, blow upon the part where the pain is,
and draw forth from the patient thorns, worms, or pieces

(14:01):
of stone. They know how to prepare drinks which will
bring on sickness, and if the patients are cured by others,
the convalescence are particular to throw something of their own away,
as a lock of hair or a part of their clothing.
Those who possess the evil eye can, by merely looking

(14:23):
at children, deprive them of beauty and health, and even
cause their death end. For most of the recorded history
of this phenomenon, the noal has been considered a powerful
person who, through the use of what is collectively known
as witchcraft, changes into an animal, or causes other people

(14:46):
to think that he or she has changed. The term
noal has also been used by some Mesoamerican groups to
denote a lifetime spirit guide represented by a real world animal.
The notion that the nowal has a cryptied or unknown
animal is a more recent belief, as old memories of

(15:09):
the real meanings of Nawwalism have died out or become
murky down through the generations, Folk tales of legendary beasts
and shapeshifters have changed over time and have developed into
the mysterious creatures we have today. Those claiming sightings of large, hairy, snarling,

(15:33):
feline or dog like creatures in Mexico may have something
altogether different on their hands, not even related to anything
conjured from old Indian magic. Thank you once again for
listening to another episode of Mexico Unexplained. Remember to like
us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to

(15:55):
our YouTube channel, Mexico Unexplained. Please go to our web
website for references, illustrations and for free access to transcripts
of past shows. We appreciate your kind attention. Until next time,
Thank you and gracious.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Thank you, but listening to another episode of Mexico Unexplained
with host Robert Bito. For show summary, relevant links and commentary,
Please check out our website at Mexicoexplained dot com, Like
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