Water spirits (nanacatl/ahuacueh)

[Frances Karttunen]

"Chan" looks like a shortening of cha:neh (pl: cha:nehqueh), meaning 'having
a home' and hence 'resident.'  The 'Reto del Tepozteco' that was (and maybe
still is) performed every September in Tepoztlan uses the appellation
"Tepoztlancha:neh" for the autocthonous hero know in Spanish as "el
Tepozteco,"  that is, a being whose home is Tepoztlan.

If I were being pestered by fleas, gnats, and no-see-em's in general, I
would tend to think of them as notechcha:nequeh, with me as their home and
host.  It sounds as though in SLP such wee critters have merged with what in
Spanish are called "los aires" and in modern Nahuatl (also around Tepoztlan)
are calqued as "ehecameh."


The branches in question are also used for whisking oneself in the
tema:zcalli (steam bath) as one drives out fatigue, aches, and pains.

Fran
----------
>From: "David L. Frye" <dfrye at umich.edu>
>To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu
>Subject: Water spirits (nanacatl/ahuacueh)
>Date: Mon, Apr 9, 2001, 2:31 PM
>

> 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
>
>