Queen Moo's Talisman: The Fall of the Maya Empire

								

induced by heat on the shell of an armadillo and the marks made by the
vapor; from these signs he endeavors to read the fate of the young
Princess Móo. The soothsayer, of the imperial family of China uses a
turtle in the same way in a ceremony called Puu, for the royal family
only, and in state affairs of exceptional importance.
Another tableau, also reproduced in “Queen Móo”, represents one man in
his feather mantle, mesmerizing another, showing that hypnotism was
anciently made use of in Yucatan by priests and wisemen.
There can be no doubt that certain stones were considered efficacious,
as talismans. Jadeite, particularly that of a beautiful apple-green,
mottled with grey, was held in high esteem by the Mayas, if they did
not regard it as sacred. They called it “Bones of the Earth” because it
was the hardest stone known to them. Of the many varieties of jadeite,
for which no less than a hundred and fifty names have been found,
according to Fischer, the apple-green is the most rare.
In the great square of the old city of Chicħen, Dr. Le Plongeon
discovered, in the thick forest, two very ancient tombs with some of
their decorative sculptures yet in place; those on one, enabled him to
see that the tomb had been erected to the memory of Coh by his widow,
Queen Móo. In it he found a statue of the Prince consort; also a large
white stone urn, containing what proved, by chemical analysis, to have
been human flesh, charred and preserved in red oxide of mercury. In the
same urn, among other relics, was a beautiful ornament of green
jadeite, like those decorating the necks of various personages
portrayed in the sculptures of certain edifices.
In connection with the statue it must be observed that the ancient
Mayas held a belief similar to that entertained by the Egyptians,
regarding the condition of the soul after death, and in the same way
made a statue of the deceased, with the idea that this would give the
individual a hold upon life. The natives who aided in bringing Coh’s
statue to light, out of the mausoleum where it had remained concealed
for thousands of years, invariably spoke of it as the “Enchanted
Prince”, and frequently assured its discoverer that he had succeeded in
finding it because he himself had dwelt there in past ages, and was one
of the great men whose effigies were seen on all sides.
When the larger portion of the charred viscera found in the urn was
burned, to reduce it to ashes, the natives standing by exclaimed—“A
majestic shade ascends amid the smoke! It is the form of the enchanted
Prince, that seems to fade into nothingness.” So impressed were the men
by what their imagination had evoked, that all ran from the spot in a
state of agitation.
On the day when the statue, weighing three thousand pounds, was taken
out of the monument, a party of hostile Indians suddenly emerged from
the forest. One of their number was aged, and he remarked to his