ancient propitiatory offerings to the gods and demons; in the
enumeration, gold always precedes turquois as the more valuable gift.
They also figure among the presents bestowed on saints and Lamas by
kings and wealthy laymen. The thrones on which kings and Lamas take
their place are usually described as adorned with gold and turquoises,
and they wear cloaks ornamented with these stones. It may be inferred
from traditions and epic stories that in ancient times arrow-heads
were made not only of common flint, but also occasionally of turquois
to which a high value was attached. A powerful saint, by touching the
bow and arrow of a blacksmith, transforms the bow into gold, and the
arrow-head into turquois.
In the native languages of Mexico and Central America the name
_chalchiḥuitl_ most frequently designates jadeite, but it appears
sometimes to have been applied to other stones of a green or
greenish-blue color, such as the so-called amazon-stone from the region
of the Amazon River, and even occasionally to the turquoise. Thus the
talismanic value of the chalchihuitl seems to have depended rather upon
its hue and its rarity, than upon its mineralogical character; indeed,
among primitive peoples, stones of the same, or closely similar color,
although of different composition, often bore the same name, and were
conceived to have the same virtues whether talismanic or therapeutic.
Writing of the rich gifts sent by Montezuma to Cortés upon the latter’s
arrival at San Juan de Ulúa (1519), Bernal Diaz de Castillo
mentions[550] “four chalchiuites, a kind of green stone of great value,
and much esteemed by them [the Indians], more highly, indeed, than we
esteem the emerald. They are of a green color.” And he proceeds to state
that each one of these stones was said to be worth a great weight of
gold.
The statue of the earth-goddess Couatlicue, found in the village of
Cozcatlan, Mexico, and now preserved in the National Museum of Mexico,
shows, inserted in the cheek, a disk of jadeite.[551] Green seems thus
to have been the color sacred to this goddess, which may remind us of
the attribution of the green emerald to Venus. Indeed, green as the
color of foliage and plants must naturally have suggested itself as
eminently appropriate for an earth-goddess, just as its significance as
a symbol of life and generation connected it with the Goddess of Love.
The story of the emeralds brought from the New World by Hernan Cortés
must have been quite familiar to sixteenth century writers, for we find
Brantôme applying some details of this story to “a beautiful and
incomparable pearl” said to have been brought from Mexico by Cortés on
his return to Spain. This he later allowed to slip from his fingers into
the sea while showing it to a friend on board the ship that was bearing
him toward Algiers; it was lost in the sea, and in the words of Brantôme
“vanished from the sight of mankind, unworthy to possess such a miracle
of nature.” The loss of this pearl is looked upon by the French writer
as a punishment for the “inscription” Cortés had caused to be placed
upon it: Inter natos mulierum non surrexit major;[552] this refers to
John the Baptist and was, as we have seen, engraved upon one of the
famous emeralds of Cortés. Brantôme believes that its application to a
simple product of nature was sacrilegious and the cause of the object’s
loss; he also sees in this loss an omen of the death of the Emperor
Charles which occurred shortly afterward, and he draws attention to the
fact that the “Africans” called their kings “precious stones.”[553]
The Aztec art-workers of the period immediately antedating the Spanish
Conquest had attained a high order of skill in the difficult work of
inlaying carefully cut and shaped bits of precious material so as to
produce some form or design of symbolic or religious meaning. In judging
the artistic merit of such work, we must always remember that the Aztec
inlayers were only provided with rude and primitive tools and implements
for the execution of their task, and extraordinary patience and
application must have been necessary to complete some of the objects
that have been preserved for us. This art seems only to have been
cultivated in ancient Mexico and Central America, and perhaps Peru also;
of the Mexican work some twenty-five examples have been saved. The
Spaniards, shortly after their first landing, were given an opportunity
to judge of the quality of this Aztec inlaying, for among the gifts sent
by Montezuma to Cortés, were five such objects, a mask with
incrustations of turquoise, so disposed as to figure two intertwined
serpents; a crozier, also with turquoise mosaic and ending in a
serpent’s head; a pair of large ear-rings of serpentine form decorated
with the _chalchihuitl_ stone (perhaps nephrite or jadeite); a mitre of
ocelot skin, surmounted by a large _chalchihuitl_, and also decorated
with turquoise mosaic, and a staff of office with similar inlays. A
serpent-mask answering to the description of one of Montezuma’s gifts is
now in the British Museum and is in a fairly good state of preservation,
although unfortunately the two serpent-heads have been lost. Evidently
this mask was used in connection with the worship of Quetzalcoatl, the
serpent-god, an incarnation of which deity the poor Aztecs at first
believed Cortés to be.[554]
[Illustration:
By courtesy of Dr. Edward H. Thompson.
THE SACRED WELL OF CHICHEN ITZA
Wherein, according to tradition, human victims and votive offerings of
great value were cast.
]
Surpassing this mask in a certain strange and weird interest, and
equalling it in artistic workmanship, is another most remarkable Aztec
ceremonial mask, also in the British Museum Collection. The foundation
of this is the front part of a human skull, and its outer surface has
been covered with an incrustation of turquoise and jet mosaic in five
alternate bands, the upper, middle and lower ones being of jet, while
the two intermediate ones are of shaped pieces of turquoise; part of the
nose has been removed and the space covered over by tablets of pink
shell; protruding eyeballs are figured by convex disks of polished iron
pyrites with a bordering of white shell; a number of the teeth have been
broken out. Straps attached at the temples rendered it possible to bind
this mask to the face of an idol, or for a priest of high rank to wear
it on solemn ceremonial occasions.
Some three hundred yards or more from the great temple pyramid at
Chichen Itzá, Yucatan, Mexico, at the termination of the Sacred Way
traversed in times of tribulation, of pestilence or famine, by
processions of priests conveying sacrifices to be offered to the
offended divinities, was the Sacred Well. Into this the priests would
throw the ornaments and trinkets dedicated to the gods as
peace-offerings. But such inanimate objects were regarded as
insufficient, and even animal sacrifices were deemed to be inadequate,
and hence it often happened that prisoners of war and fair maidens were
cast into the deep, still waters of the Sacred Well.[555]
Many fragments of the carved stone ornaments have been recovered from
the depths of this Sacred Well, and even in their present imperfect
state, they testify to a considerable development of the lapidarian art
among the ancient Mayas, and a high degree of artistic skill in the
fashioning of such objects of adornment. Undoubtedly those used in this
way as sacred offerings were considered to be amulets and therefore to
be the more acceptable in the sight of the gods.
That lapis lazuli was as much favored for religious use by the
aborigines of the New World as it was in ancient Egypt and in other
parts of the Old World, is shown by the recent discovery of twenty-eight
carefully formed cylindrical beads of lapis lazuli among some very
ancient deposits in the island of La Plata, Ecuador. From the general
character of these deposits it is evident that they did not belong to
permanent dwellers on the island, and there is every reason to believe
that they were left by visitors from the mainland, who came to the
island for the performance of certain sacred rites and ceremonies.[556]
[Illustration:
By courtesy of Dr. Edward H. Thompson.
CARVED AND WORKED STONES FROM THE SACRED WELL AT CHICHEN ITZA,
YUCATAN, MEXICO
]
The ancient Mexicans held the turquoise in high esteem, and that Los
Cerrillos and other mines in Arizona and New Mexico were extensively
worked prior to the discovery of America is proved by fragments of Aztec
pottery-vases; by drinking, eating, and cooking utensils; by stone
hammers, wedges, mauls, and idols which have been discovered in the
debris found in many different localities.
While Major Hyde was exploring this neighborhood in 1880, he was visited
by several Pueblo Indians from San Domingo, who stated that the
turquoise he was taking from the old mine was sacred, and must not go
into the hands of those whose Saviour was not a Montezuma, and these
Indians offered, at the same time, to purchase all that might come from
the mine in the future.
About ten miles from Tempe, Arizona, in ruins designated as Los Muertos,
there was found enclosed in asbestos, in a decorated Zuñi jar, a
sea-shell coated with black pitch, in which were incrusted turquoise and
garnets, in the form of a toad, the sacred emblem of the Zuñi. Incrusted
clam shells, representing toads, may be seen in the Brunswick
Collection, the Christie Collection in the British Museum, and in the
Pitorini Museum, Rome.
At the annual Fiesta which is attended by the San Felipe, the Navajo,
the Isleta, the Acoma, the Jicorrilla, Apache and other Indians at the
Pueblo of Santo Domingo, a place situated about three miles west by
south of Wallace Station on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad,
a carved wooden image of the saint, about four feet in height, and said
to date from the time of the conquest in 1692, is carried in procession
through the principal streets to a small tent made of the finest Navajo
blankets, where it is placed on an improvised altar. Here various
offerings are made. Among them strings of turquoise beads, both round
and flat, of the choicest color, are suspended from the ears of the
figure, and from a string which encircles its neck. On the centre of the
breast is one of the curious turquoise-encrusted marine clam-shells
similar to the one found by Lieutenant F. H. Cushing in the excavations
near Tempe, Arizona. The writer saw a fine example of this ornamental
object suspended from the neck of the Virgin of Santo Domingo, at the
Annual Fiesta, August 4, 1890. With the exception of a black band of
obsidian running across the centre, the entire exterior of the shell is
covered with a sort of miniature pavement of little squares of turquoise
which are cemented to it with a black shellac-like substance obtained
from “the grease-wood” plant common in New Mexico.[557]
It has been suggested that the types of ornamentation used by the
aborigines of Central America may become fashionable at the time of the
opening of the Panama Canal. In jewelry the crawfish model, as shown in
a gold-plated ornament discovered in the Chiriqui district of Panama,
offers a striking and peculiar form which might win favor; a curious
frog pattern could also be used. If the local usage in ancient times is
to be considered, the emerald and other green stones would be given the
preference for decoration, as stones of this color were the most in
favor among the primitive inhabitants of Central America because it
symbolized the verdure of field and forest, and hence youth and vigor.
When set in gold these stones gained in symbolic value, for gold, having
the color of the sun, was regarded as typical of force, courage, and
vitality.
The mystic lake of Guatavita, high up on the Andean plateau of Colombia,
South America, was the chief holy place of the native Indians of this
locality hundreds of years ago, at a time when gold and emeralds were
plentiful among them, luxuries unknown to their impoverished descendants
of our day. Legend had taught them to regard this lake as the abiding
place of a powerful divinity or demon, whose good will must be secured
at any price if dire disease were to be held aloof from the people. Four
other sacred lakes on the plateau, Guasca, Siecha, Teusaca, and Ubaque,
shared in a lesser degree with the principal one in the attribution of
mysterious power. As early as 1534 word was brought to Sebastian de
Belalcazar, founder of Quito, that in the course of the religious
ceremonies held by the Indians at the Lake of Guatavita, they were wont
to cast into its waters immense quantities of gold-dust, emeralds and
other precious stones. It was also related that at these semi-annual
festivals the Caciques and the principal chiefs, bearing valuable gifts
of gold-dust and emeralds, were paddled out in canoes (or on rafts) to
the exact middle of the lake, this point being determined by the
intersection of two ropes stretching from four temples erected at four
equidistant points on its banks. Arrived at this spot the offerings were
cast into the lake, and the Cacique of Guatavita, whose naked body had
been coated with an adhesive clay, over which gold-dust was sprinkled in
profusion, sprang into the water, and after washing off the gold-dust,
swam to the shore. This resplendent living golden figure strongly
appealed to the Spaniards’ imagination, and the name they bestowed upon
the Cacique, El Dorado (“The Golden,” or “Gilded”), is used to our day
as a designation of a region or a spot exceptionally rich in gold. At
the moment the “Golden Cacique” made his plunge into the lake, the
assembled people scattered along its banks turned their backs toward the
water, shouted loudly, and threw their propitiatory offerings over their
shoulders into the lake.
Attempts have often been made to secure the treasures by drawing off the
waters of the lake, but only with very partial success so far. The first
serious effort is said to have been made by Antonio de Sepulveda, a
merchant of Santa Fé, in United States of Colombia, who obtained a
Spanish concession. In or about 1823 we have record of another
unsuccessful venture on the part of José Ignacio Paris, in an account of
Colombia written in 1824 by Captain Charles Stuart Cochrane, of the
Royal Navy, who aided Paris in his efforts. The report that at the time
of the Spanish Conquest, the Cacique of Guatavita caused gold-dust
constituting the burdens of fifty men to be cast into the lake, greatly
contributed to the zeal of the treasure-seekers in the vicinity. One of
the early attempts at least resulted in the recovery of so much treasure
that the Government’s 3 per cent. share is said to have amounted to
$170,000.
In none of these essays, however, was the lake really and effectually
drained off, and that of Paris in 1823 or 1824 failed in the same way,
because of inadequate capital. He had succeeded in persuading sixteen
shareholders to club together, each one contributing $500 to a common
fund, but after not only this $8,000, but $12,000 more supplied by
himself had been expended, there still remained 33 feet of water in the
lake.
Recently an English company has recognized that the treasure must be
sought at or even beneath the true bottom, as this existed at the time
of the Spanish Conquest, and thus at levels considerably lower than
those of the bottom at the present time. The project is, after 30 feet
of the present bottom has been removed, to set up a steam shovel and
sink down 40 or 50 feet in search of the gold-dust, golden ornaments and
emeralds believed to exist here.
VIII
Amulets: Ancient, Medieval, and Oriental
The present and the following chapter are devoted to a study of the
talismanic virtues attributed to precious stones and gems, as
distinguished from the curative powers with which they were credited. It
is sometimes difficult to establish a hard and fast dividing line
between the two classes, as everything that conduces to the happiness
and well-being of man also affects his bodily health, but a distinction,
correct in the main, may be made by regarding the talismanic use as
covering all cases except those in which the stone was used where to-day
some really medicinal substance would be administered.
A modern German writer on amulets has proposed to apply the term
“emanism” (Emanismus) to the virtue existing or supposed to exist in
amulets and talismans, and gives as his opinion that their virtue is
neither a spiritual nor a personal one, but the operation of forces, the
latter not being special, mysterious vital forces, but impersonal
physical components and qualities, and that these exercise their
influence by means of emanation. Wundt has held that the very earliest
amulets were parts of the human body, and almost always such parts as
were believed to be the bearers of the soul.[558]
Radiation or emanation of energy, without observable loss of substance,
is a fact familiar enough to us to-day, but this phenomenon was not so
generally accepted centuries ago. Still the lodestone always offered a
striking example with which all writers on such subjects were
acquainted. A stranger argument in support of the truth of this property
was adduced by the seventeenth century physician, Sir Thomas Browne
(1605–1682), who writes:[559]
If amulets do work by emanation from their bodies upon those parts
whereunto they are appended and are not yet observed to abate their
weight; if they produce visible and reall effects by imponderous and
invisible emissions, it may be unjust to deny all efficacy to gold, in
the non-emission of weight or deperdition of any ponderous articles.
While the learned doctor does not expressly state his belief in these
“imponderous and invisible emissions” from amulets, he certainly does
not attempt to deny their existence.
The Bolivian natives believe that the so-called mountain-sickness, the
affection from which some travellers suffer at high altitudes, probably
originates in subtle emanations from certain mineral veins. A
confirmation of the fact that such a belief exists, though not of the
truth of the theory, is found in the native name for this illness,
_veta_, which signifies at once “mountain-sickness” and a vein or lode.
The fact that at the pass of Livichuco, on the trail from Challapata to
Sucre, there are considerable deposits of antimony, is regarded as
substantiating this strange fancy.[560]
Among the Babylonians one of the most dreaded of the malign spiritual
powers was the terrible female demon Labastu, and a long series of
amulets are recommended, one or more of which should be worn to ward off
her pernicious influence. For some of these amulets precious stones were
used, and the effect of color, probably a determining circumstance in
the selection of the particular stone, was to be strengthened by the
color of the wrapping about the stone and of the cord by means of which
it was to be hung from the neck, or attached to the right or left hand
or foot, or to other parts of the body. As this dreadful spirit was
chiefly feared as the inducer of disease, the location of the amulet was
perhaps in some cases determined by the presence of local pain or
disorder; in this case it would be expected to act as a cure of disease
rather than a mere preventive. The following passages refer to such
stone amulets:[561]
[Illustration:
EYE AGATES
Used as charms against the Evil Eye. East Indian.
]
Thou shalt wrap up a _shubu_-stone in white wool, and hang it on a
white woollen cord, with four eye-stones (_enâti_) and four parê, and
bind it to thy right hand.
A black _ka_-stone shalt thou enwrap in black wool, hang it on a black
woollen cord, provide it with three eye-stones and three _parê_, and
bind it to thy left hand.
Thou shalt wrap a white _ka_-stone in red wool, hang it on a red
woollen cord, with four eye-stones and four _parê_, and bind it to the
right foot.
An _appu_-stone shalt thou wrap up in blue wool, hang it on a blue
woollen cord, furnish it with three eye-stones and three _parê_, and
bind it to the left foot.
Seven eye-stones and seven _parê_ shalt thou string on a black cord.
The _enâti_ (eye-stones) here mentioned were most probably eye-agates
similar to those still prized in the Mesapotamian region for their
supposed magical virtues, and more especially for protection against the
Evil Eye. There is, indeed, a bare possibility that some form of the
cat’s-eye (known by that name to the Arabs) or one of the star-stones
may occasionally be signified by this Assyrian name. The word _parê_, as
it is not preceded by the determinative character signifying stone, may
refer to some other material.
An immediate association of an animal eye with a turquoise, an example
of the sympathetic magic to which we have frequently alluded, comes from
Persia. During the celebration of the imposing ceremonies attending the
great annual assemblage of pilgrims at the shrine of Mecca, it is
customary to slaughter an immense number of sheep, and certain of the
Persian pilgrims will secure possession of some of the eyes of their
sacrificial victims, and will embed turquoises in them, firmly believing
that in this way they have composed an infallible amulet against the
Evil Eye.[562]
A Persian manuscript of a work entitled “Nozhat Namah Ellaiy,” written
in the eleventh century by Schem Eddin, the transcription being dated
1304, asserts that the turquoise (piruzeh), though lacking in
brilliancy, was esteemed to be a stone of good omen, and one that would
bring good luck, since this was indicated by its name, signifying in
Persian, “the Victorious.”[563]
One of the Egyptian tales from the time of the early dynasties shows the
value placed upon the turquoise in Egypt at that time. This recital
occurs in Baufra’s Tale. The reigning Pharaoh, to relieve a fit of
mental depression, took a pleasure trip on the palace lake in a boat
rowed by twenty beautiful and richly attired maidens. While bending over
her oar, one of the maidens let fall into the water from her
hair-adornment a fine turquoise (Egypt _mafkat_, thus rendered by
Petrie) and was deeply chagrined at the loss. However, the court
magician Zazamankh, who accompanied the sovereign, by his magic arts was
able to provide a remedy, for on his reciting a charm of great power the
turquoise rose up through the water so that it could be picked up from
the surface and returned to its disconsolate owner.[564]
[Illustration:
TYPES OF EGYPTIAN SEALS AND SCARABS IN THE MURCH COLLECTION,
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK
Royal names: Fig. 1, XII Dynasty (2000–1788 B.C.), Usertasen III; Fig.
2, XIII Dyn. (1788–1680, B.C.), Sebekhetep III; Fig. 3, Hyksos
Kings (1680–1580 B.C.), Aamu; Fig. 4, XVIII Dyn. (1580–1350 B.C.),
Amenhetep I; Fig. 5, XIX Dyn. (1350–1205 B.C.), Rameses II; Fig. 8,
XXII Dyn. (945–745 B.C.), Sheshonk I; Fig. 9, XXV Dyn. (712–663 B.C.),
Taharka; Fig. 10, XXVI Dyn. (663–525 B.C.), Psamtek I; Private
names; Fig. 11, Shemses, “Attendant”; Fig 12, Rera, “Superintendent of
the Storehouse of Offerings”; Fig. 13, Ankh, “Attendant”; Figs.
14–16, scroll designs and ornamental groupings of hieroglyphs; Fig.
17, Goodluck amulet “May your name be established, may you have a
son!”
Figs. 18–24, animal-back seals.
]