Webmaster's Note: While most legends have some genesis in truth, for the most part they are fanciful tales enhanced and embellished to make a good story. The Hope Diamond, the Koh-i-Noor Diamond, the Timur Ruby, the La Peregrina Pearl all have their legends, curses and mythic stories. No assertion of authenticity can be made concerning the legend of El Corazon, and it is therefore offered here for amusement and entertainment only.
The Legend of El Corazon del Jaguar
Many legends of fabulous treasures have emanated from the Amazon rainforest, fostered by the wealth found by conquistadores in Peru and the gold jewelry worn by indigenous peoples. El Dorado, the City of Gold, was thought to be hidden deep within the forest. Gigantic, pale-skinned warriors, taller than the tallest Europeans and “decked out in gold,” roamed the deepest, most inaccessible areas. The Amazon itself gets its name from a tribe of warrior women supposedly encountered – and fought against – by the first explorers of the river. The Legend of El Corazon del Jaguar begins in this remote and mysterious region, reaches to the royal courts of Portugal and Spain, disappears once more into the rainforest, is rediscovered generations later, and eventually becomes the centerpiece of the Saunders Gemstone Collection. Throughout its history, it remains a tale of political intrigue, broken hearts, love lost and then found again. Here is its story.
A thousand years ago, before the Europeans came to South America, the Amazon Basin was home to some 6 million indigenous people scattered in small tribal groups and larger city-states throughout the more than 2.5 million square miles of rainforest. The tribal groups often engaged in commerce that benefited all, but the story of El Corazon begins with war.
It is said that one very successful city-state 
(believed to be Cajamarquilla of the Chachapoya culture) had experienced many years of abundant crops, a thriving economy and benevolent rule. However, the prosperity of its people and the opulence of its palaces and temples were coveted by less fortunate neighbors, and the Cajamarquilla people were at war. Despite being threatened on all sides, the city was saved by the prowess, courage, and tactical ingenuity of their warrior-general, Sinxi Roca (probably not his original name but attributed to him from later Incan lore). Son-in-law of the King, Sinxi Roca was so powerful and ferocious in battle that he earned the nickname Runa Uturunku, Jaguar Man. He quickly and rightfully became the most popular and revered man in the realm.
Sadly for the people of Cajamarquilla, as soon as their human enemies were vanquished, Mother Nature turned against them. The rains stopped, crops burned in the hot sun and even the domestic animals stopped giving birth. The priests and shamans prayed and cajoled the gods for months until finally coming up with a drastic strategy. Apu Inti, the Sun God, was obviously upset with the people and must be mollified. The sacrifice of a pure white lamma failed to satisfy Apu Inti. The sacrifice of a pure black llama also failed to end the drought. A much greater gift to the gods was needed – the heart of the city’s bravest and most prized hero. (It is unknown if the shamans chose to sacrifice Jaguar Man from honest religious conviction or out of envy for his popularity.)
The Chachapoya King initially refused to give up his beloved son-in-law. But the drought worsened and eventually Jaguar Man, courageous and selfless to the end, volunteered, insisting that the sacrifice must be made. The ritual was held at the Feast of the Sun (Inti Raymi) during the Winter Solstice. At sunset, atop the Sun Temple and witnessed by thousands of citizens, the King himself plunged the golden knife (the tumi) into Jaguar Man’s chest. His heart was removed, placed still beating in a golden bowl, and offered up to the Sun God.
To everyone’s amazement, the hero’s heart continued to beat as strongly and vibrantly as in a living man. As the sun set behind the nearby Andes mountains, the golden bowl was placed high up on a pedestal and the awed King, the confused shamans and the frightened crowd all withdrew to their homes. Jaguar Man’s heart was left on the pedestal all night, watched over only by the mummies of noble ancestors that had been brought out to observe the ceremony. It was hoped that the Sun God would accept the offering while the people slept.
And in fact the heart was gone the next morning. But so was Paxixama (probably confused with the Incan Earth Mother of that name), the King’s daughter and loving wife of Jaguar Man. Many believed that the Sun God had indeed accepted the gift of the hero’s heart (the drought ended shortly after), and that Paxixama had simply died of grief. But some claimed they saw an unusually large, ghostly, silver-coated jaguar prowling around the pedestal, then running off with the golden bowl in its mouth. Still others insisted that it was no silver jaguar, but Paxixama herself who climbed the steep stairs of the temple, took her husband’s still beating heart under the watchful eyes of her ancestors, and fled with it into the rainforest. She may have lost her husband, but his heart still beat for her.
She wandered for many days, perhaps weeks until, exhausted and famished, she collapsed under a large tree next to a small river (believed to be the Rio Huallaga, one of the headwaters of the Amazon). Without food, alone and filled with grief, Paxixama was dying. As she clutched her husband’s heart tenderly in her hands, its beating became fainter and fainter; so too did the beating of her own heart. A last tear fell from her eye. It landed on the hero’s heart at the very moment of it’s last beat and instantly the heart transformed into a beautiful blood-red crystal. Paxixama smiled, closed her eyes, and the Heart of the Jaguar passed out of human knowledge.
 Francisco de Orellano |
The story picks up again some 500 years later with Francisco de Orellana. Conquistador, adventurer, explorer and relative of Pizarro, Orellana was the first European to travel the length of the Amazon River. Separated from a larger party of mercenaries searching for El Dorado, Orellana and 57 mostly Spanish soldiers unintentionally navigated the Amazon in a small brigantine and several canoes in 1542. Along the way they battled and sometimes traded with a number of indigenous Indian tribes.
While stopping at a village on the Upper Amazon in April of 1542, Orellana made an amazing discovery. Out of the forest walked four astonishingly tall men with white skin, long fine hair, splendidly dressed and “decked out in gold.” These eerie creatures belonged to a mysterious tribe living deep in the forest. Orellana was not allowed to visit their land or told of its location, but he was evidently intrigued by stories of vast riches, including the tale of a large and enchantingly beautiful crystal formed from the heart of a jaguar. (He may have been given a glimpse of the stone; his companion and the expedition’s chronicler, Friar Gaspar de Carvajal, was often frustratingly inconsistent about recording details.)
The Spaniards soon left the village and, after many months of danger and adventure, emerged from the mouth of the Amazon into the Atlantic. (Among their adventures was a battle against “Amazon” warriors, women “very white and tall...with bows and arrows in their hands, doing as much fighting as ten Indian men.” It is Orellana’s account of this battle that resulted in the river being named the Amazon.) Eventually making his way back to Europe, Orellana’s reports of the Amazon, its mysteries and its treasures caught the fancy of potential new patrons. One wealthy (and mysteriously anonymous) Portuguese official at the royal court in Lisbon encouraged Orellana to return in haste to secure what treasures were to be had. Sadly, Orellana’s return expedition failed and he died, reportedly of a broken heart, while attempting to venture back up the river.
New accounts of El Corazon del Jaguar occasionally surfaced over the following centuries. Lope de Aguirre was said to have been driven to his murderous madness by his desire to possess it. Pedro de Teixeira is believed to have claimed the Upper Amazon area of “Franciscana” for Portugal because local legend placed El Corazon there. (This act violated the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas giving the region to Spain; however, the Portuguese crown refused to give up Teixeira’s claim, which gave them most of the Amazon Basin.)
 Humboldt and Bonpland |
In 1800 renowned naturalist Baron Alexander von Humboldt explored and charted the Casiquiare Canal connecting the Rio Orinoco (which flowed north into the Atlantic) and the Rio Negro (flowing Southeast into the Amazon). Legend says that somewhere along the route, he came into possession of a large, blood-red stone. For many nights thereafter his camp was harassed by a ghostly jaguar that eventually ran off with Humboldt’s dog. Soon Humboldt’s botanist companion, Aimé Bonpland became deathly ill. He was rushed downriver (taking the stone with him) to Angostura where he was tended by a local doctor and a mysterious, enchantingly beautiful young Indian woman. As he recovered his health, Bonpland lost his heart to the young woman. She promised to marry him, but then disappeared into the rainforest, the blood-red stone vanishing with her.
Bonpland searched the forest for weeks, but failed to locate his new love. Brokenhearted, he reluctantly returned with Humboldt to Europe where the two explorers were showered with fame, glory and employment. But the botanist could not dispel the haunting image of his young Indian maiden, nor quell his passion for her. Bonpland eventually returned to South America, and after enduring a near fatal attack by Spanish cavalry and nine years imprisonment in an army camp, he finally found his “corazon.” He married his Indian love and lived out the rest of his life with her and numerous offspring, never again returning to Europe.
Some 170 years later, El Corazon reappeared in Arizona at the annual Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. It's mystical beauty and value were immediately apparent to the collector, and the stone now rests in the private collection of Harrison Saunders.