352 THE MAGIC OP JEWELS AND CHARMS
is
stranger than that of employing for this purpose artificial eyes from
Peruvian mummies. Originally eyes of the giant cuttlefish {loligo gigas), they
were used by the ancient Peruvians to replace the natural eyes of the
dead because these substitutes were more durable. Of course the rather
grew-some source whence these mummy-eye amulets were secured, bringing
them measurably in touch with a sort of necromancy, made them all the
more sought after by the superstitious natives. An example from a
mummy found at Cuzco, Peru, was exhibited by the writer in the
Folk-Lore Collection at the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893.6
A
strange animal figure from the Pueblo Bonito ruins, rudely carved out
of stone and having a band composed of pieces of turquoise set about
the neck, was undoubtedly an amulet. Two depressions in the stone where
the eyes should be indicate that these were of inlaid turquoise. In
spite of the imperfect form of this object, it gives evidence in some
of its details to the skill of the native artist who executed it,
especially in the care he has taken to protect the soft stone from the
attrition of the cord used for its suspension, a piece of bird-bone
having been introduced into the perforation near the neck, and the ends
of the hole countersunk and filled with gum into which a piece of
turquoise was set; one of these caps still remains in place. Frog
forms, entirely of turquoise, also appear in Pueblo Bonito, several
tadpoles and frogs of this material having been found in the
burial-room explored by Mr. Pepper. Sometimes the form is barely
indicated by the protuberant eyes and a slight incising which marks the
place of the neck.6
The Pueblo Bonito ruins in New Mexico have furnished
•George Frederick Kunz, "Folk-lore of Precious Stones," Chicago, 1894; reprint from Memoirs of the International Congress of Anthropology; see p. 269.
* George H. Pepper, " The Exploration of a Burial-room in Pueblo Bonito, New Mexico," Putnam Anniversary Volume, New York, 1909, pp. 229, 230, 23«, 237.
