The Maya Conjurors of Waka'

Waka´ is a mid-sized Classic Maya city in Guatemala that for the most part looks like all the other mid-sized Classic Maya cities. It reached its peak between 400 and 800 AD. It seems to have been destroyed by the armies of Tikal around 800, or at least its royal line was ended, which means no more dated monuments.

The most remarkable thing about Waka' is a small group of elite burials that date to the 600s AD. I had seen some pictures of these before but I did not understand the full wonder of them until I stumbled on a marvelous new article by David Freidel and colleagues called Classic Maya Mirror Conjurors of Waka'. These folks think that Waka' was a famous place for divination using pyrite mirrors and divining trays, and that the royal family in particular was heavily involved in divination. It has long been known that Mesoamerican shamans used mirrors in their divinatory practice, what was called in England "scrying"; in fact Elizabethan magus John Dee had an Aztec obsidian mirror. Diviners too poor to afford obsidian or pyrite used shallow bowls of water. Above is the back of an "iron ore mosaic mirror" from Waka; notice that it depicts, among other things, the stinger of the divine centipede. (Just wait, it gets a lot weirder than that.)

The most famous burial is probably that of queen regnant Lady K'abel, dating to around 692. That's her above, flaunting her power.

The tomb includes the mosaic mask at the top of the post and a full suite of divining gear including a mirror and a divining plate.

And here is burial 37, a man also fully equipped with divining gear laid out in a ritual pattern that matches the gear of the Maize God shown on a famous stela. 

He also had a mosaic mask beside him.

But I am most fascinated by burial number 39, apparently a king, although the skeleton was too poorly preserved to be sure. Here we have yet another set of divining gear; but notice the circle on the plan marked "Figurine Scene."

That would be these figurines.

Everyone interprets these as a depiction of a ritual, most likely a divination. The characters include the king,

the queen – when this was part of a travelling exhibit of Maya figurines a few years ago it was described as a "proud warrior queen bearing a shield," but that isn't a shield, its a divination dish, as you can tell from the presence of the stylus that was rolled around to generate meanings –

a praying child watched over by a big-eared deer that all the authorities assure me is a representation of a guardian spirit,

and two dwarf boxers with removable helmets.

I mean, really, for what kind of ritual do you need the king, the queen with her divining dish, twelve ball players, two balls, a praying child, the child's bizarre guardian spirit, two boxing dwarves, a blind dwarf, a fourth dwarf with an elongated head, a young girl, and a monster? Besides, this being the Maya we're talking about, bloodletting, human sacrifice, and hallucinogens?

No, don't answer that.

Divinatory tokens from burial 39