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Cursing Owls
CONTENT WARNING:
Translated Spanish and Nahuatl vulgarity abound in this article.
When I was a kid, my tíos, abuelos and Dad used to warn me about screech / barn owls.
“They’re witches in disguise,” they said. “Looking to steal kids.”
Then they would launch into a discussion of protections against these magical pests. Among the many ways to escape them?
Bad words.
My dad’s favorite vulgar phrase to make witch owls flee was “¡A la chingada, pinche lechuza!” or “Fuck off, you damn barn owl!”
I used the phrase often out on my uncle Joe Casas’ ranch and in the brush near my home.
I had no idea at the time that the ritual was Aztec.
In the fifth chapter of Book V of the Florentine Codex, we learn that Nahua people in the Triple Alliance (Aztec Empire) believed it an omen for a screech owl to alight near or on one’s house and then loose its cry. Someone would fall ill.
If it passed by twice or more, someone would die.
Why? Because the screech owl was a messenger of Mictlāntēuctli and Mictēcacihuātl, Lord and Lady of Mictlān, the Land of the Dead. Those gods of death called the screech owl “yāōtequihuah,” War Captain, because it captured souls for them.
