According to an author intimately familiar with the Mexican nagualists, the art they claimed to possess of transforming themselves into the lower animals was taught their predecessors by a woman, a native Circe, a mighty enchantress, whose usual name was Quilaztli (the etymology of which is unknown), but who bore also four others, representing her four metamorphoses, Cohuacihuatl, the Serpent Woman; Quauhcihuatl, the Eagle Woman; Yaocihuatl, the Warrior Woman; and Tzitzimecihuatl, the Specter Woman.[34-‡] The powers of these queens of magic extended widely among their sex. We read in the chronicles of ancient Mexico that when Nezahualpilli, the king, oppressed the tribes of the coast, the _tierra caliente_, they sent against him, not their warriors, but their witches. These cast upon him their fatal spells, so that when he walked forth from his palace, blood burst from his mouth, and he fell prone and dead.[34-§] In Guatemala, as in ancient Delphos, the gods were believed to speak through the mouths of these inspired seeresses, and at the celebration of victories they enjoyed a privilege so strange and horrible that I quote it from the old manuscript before me without venturing a translation: “... Despues de sacrificar los antiguos algun hombre, despedaçandolo, si era de los que avian cogido en guerra, dicen que guardaban el miembro genital y los testiculos del tal sacrificado, y se los daban à una vieja que tenian por profeta, para que los comiese, y le pedian rogasse à su idolo les diesse mas captivos.”[35-*] When Captain Pedro de Alvarado, in the year 1524, was marching upon Quetzaltanango, in Guatemala, just such a fearful old witch took her stand at the summit of the pass, with her familiar in the shape of a dog, and “by spells and nagualistic incantations” undertook to prevent his approach.[35-†] As in the earliest, so in the latest accounts. The last revolt of the Indians of Chiapas occurred among the Zotzils in 1869. The cause of it was the seizure and imprisonment by the Spanish authorities of a “mystical woman,” known to the whites as Santa Rosa, who, together with one of their _ahaus_ or chieftains, had been suspected of fomenting sedition. The natives marched thousands strong against the city of San Cristobal, where the prisoners were, and secured their liberation; but their leader, Ignacio Galindo, was entrapped and shot by the Spaniards, and the mutiny was soon quelled.[35-‡]