Page:Queen Moo's talisman; the fall of the Maya empire (IA queenmoostalisma00leplrich).djvu/22

 be seen in Dr. Le Plongeon's "Queen Móo", one tableau represents a wiseman examining the cracks 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.