THE MEXICAN SNOW-GLOBE PYRAMID OF LUCK
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In April of 1996 my friend and former fellow-communard K. Rudin brought me a delightful Mexican good luck piece which she found in Ukiah, California, a medium-sized rural town north of San Francisco. I had never seen one before and was immediately caoptivated by its charm.The Snow-Globe Pyramid of Luck is a cast lucite plastic Egyptian (not Mayan) style pyramid filled with numerous lucky items arranged in three layers. Each one i have seen is slightly different from the others. They come in at least two sizes, as well. The layers were cast in reverse order, from the top down, and the plastic was allowed to harden between layers. Each pyramid is different, but from the top, this one contains:
(1) A silver-washed milagro hand, pointing downward, representing the Powerful Hand of God, in a layer of clear plastic. The smaller pyramids (6 millimeters high) never have a milagro cast into the top layer and even in the larger ones (7 Millimeters high), this charm seems to be optional. Variant milagros, when included, can be a four-leaf clover or a cross of Caravaca.
(2) A hollow glass ball filled with golden-yellow liquid in a layer of clear plastic. The sphere is capped at the top with a saint-print image of San Martin Caballero, the patron of wealth and money. Inside the sphere is a floating white plastic Buddha. The Buddha was cast from the same mold used on a Mexican package amulet of the "miniature horsehoe" type. In some pyramids, a colour print of the Virgin of Guadalupe or Saint Judas Thaddeus replaces San Martin Caballero. The liquid in the globe can be blue, purple, yellow, or green and in some of the smaller ones there is no included Buddha.
(3) A base layer of golden-yellow plastic in which are embedded white plastic charms of Buddha, an elephant with raised trunk, and horseshoe; piles of glitter (red, gold, green, and blue in colour); magnetic sand; and an array of rice and small red and black Abrus Precatorius seeds. These beans are also found in Mexican package amulets of the miniature horseshoe type. (See the page on red beans for more about the "good luck" qualities of these and several other species of psychedelic, intoxicant, and lethally toxic legumes known as rosary beans, colorines, huayruru seed, coral bean, frijol colorado, mescal bean, crab-eye, and frijolitos.) The base-layer of plastic varies in colour from piece. In some pyramids, the Abrus seeds, rice, and charms are laid down in neat patterns, in others they are scattered at random.
It is higly likely that the manufacturer of these pieces is also responsible for the Lucky Buddha Pregnant With a Christian Cross, which contains a similar assortment of natural items and plastic amulets cast from the same molds.
The Mexican Snow-Globe Pyramid of Luck is a nice surprise from the world of cross-cultural folkloric amulet-making. Good luck in finding one of your own!
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