But what among the Banks Islanders and the Malays is irregular and occasional, among other peoples is systematic and universal. The Zulus believe that every man has his _ihlozi_, a kind of mysterious serpent, “which specially guards and helps him, lives with him, wakes with him, sleeps and travels with him, but always under ground. If it ever makes its appearance, great is the joy, and the man must seek to discover the meaning of its appearance. He who has no _ihlozi_ must die. Therefore if any one unintentionally kills an _ihlozi_ serpent, the man whose _ihlozi_ it was dies, but the serpent comes to life again.”(882) Amongst the Zapotecs of Central America, when a woman was about to be confined, her relations assembled in the hut, and began to draw on the floor figures of different animals, rubbing each one out as soon as it was completed. This went on till the moment of birth, and the figure that then remained sketched upon the ground was called the child’s _tona_ or second self. “When the child grew old enough he procured the animal that represented him and took care of it, as it was believed that health and existence were bound up with that of the animal’s, in fact that the death of both would occur simultaneously,” or rather that when the animal died the man would die.(883) Among the Indians of Guatemala the _nagual_ or _naual_ is an “animate or inanimate object, generally an animal, which stands in a parallel relation to a particular man, so that the weal and woe of the man depend on the fate of the animal.” Among the Chontal Indians who inhabit the part of Honduras bordering on Guatemala and in point of social culture stand very close to the Pipil Indians of Guatemala, the _nagual_ used to be obtained as follows. The young Indian went into the forest to a lonely place by a river or to the top of a mountain, and prayed with tears to the gods that they would vouchsafe to him what his forefathers had possessed before him. After sacrificing a dog or a bird he laid himself down to sleep. Then in a dream or after awakening from sleep there appeared to him a jaguar, puma, coyote (prairie-wolf), crocodile, serpent, or bird. To this visionary animal the Indian offered blood drawn from his tongue, his ears, and other parts of his body, and prayed for an abundant yield of salt and cacao. Then the animal said to him, “On such and such a day you shall go out hunting, and the first animal that meets you will be myself, who will always be your companion and _nagual_.” A man who had no _nagual_ could never grow rich. The Indians were persuaded that the death of their _nagual_ would entail their own. Legend affirms that in the first battles with the Spaniards on the plateau of Quetzaltenango the _naguals_ of the Indian chiefs fought in the form of serpents. The _nagual_ of the highest chief was especially conspicuous, because it had the form of a great bird, resplendent in green plumage. The Spanish general Pedro de Alvarado killed