Water spirits (nanacatl/ahuacueh)

Mon Apr 9 18:31:07 UTC 2001

In Mexquitic, SLP (settled by folks from Tlaxcala in 1591 and
Nahuatl-speaking up to c. 1850, monolingual Spanish since the early 1900s)
the term for water spirit is "chan" (as in "el chan del agua"). Nowadays
the chanes are conceptualized as "animalitos," bugs/insects/"germs" that
are microscopic, not invisible per se; they are said to cause itching,
numbness, bad luck, etc. in anyone foolish enough to cross a stream
without the precaution of holding a bunch of perul (pepper-tree) branches
in his/her hand.

David Frye, U. Michigan