In Mexico to-day, in addition to his special personal guardian, the native will often choose another for a limited time or for a particular purpose, and this is quite consistent with the form of Christianity he has been taught. For instance, as we are informed by an observant traveler, at New Year or at corn-planting the head of a family will go to the parish church and among the various saints there displayed will select one as his guardian for the year. He will address to him his prayers for rain and sunshine, for an abundant harvest, health and prosperity, and will not neglect to back these supplications by liberal gifts. If times are good and harvests ample the Santo is rewarded with still more gifts, and his aid is sought for another term; but if luck has been bad the Indian repairs to the church at the end of the year, bestows on his holy patron a sound cursing, calls him all the bad names he can think of, and has nothing more to do with him.[13-§] =10.= A Mexican writer, Andres Iglesias, who enjoyed more than common opportunities to study these practices as they exist in the present generation, describes them as he saw them in the village of Soteapan, a remote hamlet in the State of Vera Cruz, the population of which speak the Mixe language. This is not related to the Nahuatl tongue, but the terms of their magical rites are drawn from Nahuatl words, showing their origin. Every person at birth has assigned to him both a good and a bad genius, the former aiming at his welfare, the latter at his injury. The good genius is known by the Nahuatl term _tonale_, and it is represented in the first bird or animal of any kind which is seen in or near the house immediately after the birth of the infant. The most powerful person in the village is the high priest of the native cult. One who died about 1850 was called “the Thunderbolt,” and whenever he walked abroad he was preceded by a group of chosen disciples, called by the Nahuatl name _tlatoques_, speakers or attorneys.[14-*] His successor, known as “the Greater Thunder,” did not maintain this state, but nevertheless claimed to be able to control the seasons and to send or to mitigate destructive storms--claims which, sad to say, brought him to the stocks, but did not interfere with the regular payment of tribute to him by the villagers. He was also a medicine man and master of ceremonies in certain “scandalous orgies, where immodesty shows herself without a veil.”[14-†][TN-1]