Myths and legends from Tlaxcala: The nagual

.

THE NAGUAL AND OTHER NASTY SPIRITS

.

(Folk story from Nativitas, Tlaxcala)

.

Every place in the world has many folk stories and often several versions of a single story. One good example is this very interesting story I heard in Nativitas, Tlaxcala, where people talk about the Weeping woman and a headless horseman up in the Calvario hill. According to them, this horseman without head passes on his horse near the ravines. However, there’s another story people tell and it is about the nagual, a spirit that has many different interpretations all over central Mexico. In Nativitas, they say that such nagual appears at about two in the morning. That nagual is not the devil, because the devil is printed somewhere on a rock in the hill. Legend has it that San Miguelito found the devil inside a church and then pursued him. When he caught him, he lashed him without mercy, and the poor devil ran away pretty scared. He was going so fast that he crashed against the rock; and since then you can see its evil figure imprinted on those walls by the hill. But that’s another story...
.

The nagual in Nativitas, according to some people, is a spirit, some kind of a witch or sorcerer from the past that decided to live in a cave in the Calvario hill. It is certainly a very dark place, especially after dusk, and many people believe that if you dare walk near that cave in the middle of the night, you will never return. Legend has it that many people have disappeared from the face of the earth right on that hill, and the general belief is that they have gone into the domains of the nagual.

.

Would you like to read more Mexican folk stories? Just follow link:

• Mexican Folk Literature

.