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judgment, to indicate their good deeds. The same custom obtained in Mayach. This we learn from the various statues of personages of high rank discovered at Chichen by the writer-that of Prince Coh and others. They invariably hold between their hands a vase placed on the abdomen. Mayach this vase was typical of the Gulf of Honduras. Whence such strange customs among the Egyptians? Porphyry tells us that in Egypt, "When the bodies of persons of distinction were embalmed, they took out the intestines and put them into a vessel, over which (after some other rites had been performed for the dead) one of the embalmers pronounced an invocation to the sun in behalf of the deceased." These intestines, with the other viscera, were deposited in four vases; each contained a separate portion. They were placed in the tomb with the coffin, and were supposed to belong to the four genii of Amenti, whose heads and names they bore. These funeral vases were called canopi. Sir Gardner Wilkinson asks, "Why call these funeral vases canopi, a word without an etymon in the Egyptian language?" 5

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For the answer we must come to America. In ancient Peru the canopa were household gods; but the Quichua offers no explanation of the name. If we want to know its meaning we must inquire from the learned men of Mayach. They will tell us that, in remote ages, their ancestors imagined that the vault of heaven was sustained on four pillars, placed one at each of the cardinal points, whose names were Kan, Muluc, Ix, and Cauac; that the Creator assigned the care of these 1 Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, etc., vol. iii., chap. xvi., 'Porphyry, De Abstinencia, lib. iv. 10.

p. 470.

'Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, vol. iii., chap. xvi., p. 481.

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