sider worthy of their
veneration. Among my collection of photographs are several plates in
which some of the men have assumed that position of the arms
spontaneously.

_The sistrum_ was an instrument used by Egyptians and Mayas alike during
the performance of their religious rites and acts of worship. I have
seen it used lately by natives in Yucatan in the dance forming part of
the worship of the sun. The Egyptians enclosed the brains, entrails and
viscera of the deceased in funeral vases, called _canopas_, that were
placed in the tombs with the coffin. When I opened Chaacmol's mausoleum
I found, as I have already said, two stone urns, the one near the head
containing the remains of brains, that near the chest those of the heart
and other viscera. This fact would tend to show again a similar custom
among the Mayas and Egyptians, who, besides, placed with the body an
empty vase--symbol that the deceased had been judged and found
righteous. This vase, held between the hands of the statue of Chaacmol,
is also found held in the same manner by many other statues of
different individuals. It was customary with the Egyptians to deposit in
the tombs the implements of the trade or profession of the deceased. So
also with the Mayas--if a priest, they placed books; if a warrior, his
weapons; if a mechanic, the tools of his art,[TN-23]

The Egyptians adorned the tombs of the rich--which generally consisted
of one or two chambers--with sculptures and paintings reciting the names
and the history of the life of the personage to whom the tomb belonged.
The mausoleum of Chaacmol, interiorly, was composed of three different
superposed apartments, with their floors of concrete well leveled,
polished and painted with yellow ochre; and exteriorly was adorned with
magnificent bas-reliefs, representing his totem and that of his
wife--dying warriors--the whole being surrounded by the image of a
feathered serpent--_Can_, his family name, whilst the walls of the two
apartments, or funeral chambers, in the monument raised to his memory,
were decorated with fresco paintings, representing not only Chaacmol's
own life, but the manners, customs, mode of dressing of his
contemporaries; as those of the different nations with which they were
in communication: distinctly recognizable by their type, stature and
other peculiarities. The portraits of the great and eminent men of his
time are sculptured on the jambs and lintels of the doors, represented
li