I may add here in explanation of the tableau of the scene in the garden, that the present of a basket of oranges was the offer of marriage made by Aac to Moo. It is usual with the aborigines of Yucatan, that yet retain many of the customs of their forefathers, when a young man wishes to propose marriage to a girl to send by a friend as a present, a fruit, or flower, or sweetmeat. The acceptance of the present is the sign that the proposal of the suitor is admitted, and from that moment they are betrothed; whilst the refusal of the present means that he is rejected. A similar custom exists in Japan. When a young lady expects a proposal of marriage a convenient flower-pot is placed in a handy position on the window-sill. The lover plants a flower in it. If next morning the flower is watered he can present himself to his lady-love knowing that he is welcome. If on the contrary, the flower has been uprooted and thrown on the side-walk, he well understands he is not wanted.
The family name of the kings of Mayax was Can (serpent) as Khan is still the title of the Kings of Tartary and Burmah, and of the governor of provinces in Persia, Afghanistan and other countries in Central Asia. Can was therefore the family name of Aac. The meaning of the writer of Genesis when he says that the serpent spoke to the woman and seduced her with a fruit is now easily understood.
The account of the fratricide in Genesis, in the Ramayana, or in the papyri of Egypt, is nothing more or less, with a slight variance, than the story of the feuds of king Can's children. This story, treasured by the priests of Egypt and India, consigned in their sacred books and poems, has been handed down to us among the primitive traditions of mankind.
Nowhere, except in Mayax, do we find it as forming part of the history of the nation. Nowhere, except in Mayax, do we find the portraits of the actors in the tragedy. There, we not only see their portraits carved in bas-reliefs, on stone or wood, or their marble statues in the round, or represented in the mural paintings that adorn the walls of the funereal chamber built to the memory of the victim, but we discover the ornaments they wore, the weapons they used, nay, more, their mortal remains.
The following is the certificate of Charles O. Thompson, Principal and Professor of Chemistry at the Worcester Free Institute, who made the chemical analysis of part of the cremated remains found in the stone urn that was near the chest of the statue that occupied the centre of the mausoleum raised to the memory of the famous warrior Coh, twenty feet below the upper plane of the monument.
Worcester, Mass., Sept. 25, 1880.
"Stephen Salisbury, Jr., Esq., submits an unknown solid for qualitative examination.
"Under microscope it presents a certain compactness and horny aspect characteristic of animal matter which has been charred in a close vessel, it loses 9 per cent. when dried at 100° and 9 per cent. more by combustion. After calcination, a dross and residue remains which contains 3 per cent. fenic oxide, a little alumina and much silica. Warm water exposed to action of residue shows traces of potash and soda.
"These results are consistent with the theory that the mass was once part of a human body which has been burned with some fuel."