The traditional virtue of the sapphire as an antidote against poison is noted by Bartolomæus Anglicus, who claims to have seen a test of its power, somewhat similar to that recorded by Ahmed Teifashi of the emerald. In John of Trevisa’s version this passage reads as follows:151
His vertue is contrary to venym, and quencheth it every deale. And yf you put an attercoppe152 in a boxe and hold a very saphyre of Inde at the mouth of the boxe ony whyle, by vertue thereof the attercoppe is overcome & dyeth as it were sodenly, as Dyasc. sayth [pseudo Dioscorides]. And this same I have assayed oft in many and dyvers places. His vertue kepeth and savyth the syght, & clearyth eyen of fylthe wythout ony greyf.
Voicing the general belief that the sapphire was endowed with power to influence spirits, Bartolomæus says that this stone was a great favorite with those who practised necromancy, and he adds: “Also wytches love well this stone, for they wene that they may werke certen wondres by vertue of this stone.”153
There was in the South Kensington Museum, in London, a splendid sapphire of a peculiar tint. In the daylight it shows a beautiful rich blue color, while by artificial light it has a violet hue and resembles an amethyst. In the eighteenth century this stone was in the collection of Count de Walicki, a Polish nobleman, and Mme. de Genlis used it as the theme of one of her stories, entitled “Le Saphire Merveilleux.” Here the sapphire is used as a test of female virtue, the change of color indicating unfaithfulness on the part of the wearer. If the owner of the stone wished to prove that the subject of the test was innocent, she was made to wear the sapphire for three hours of daylight; but in the opposite case the test was so timed that it began in daylight and ended when the candles or lamps had been lighted. This sapphire, still known as the “Saphire Merveilleux,” was for a time in the collection of the Duke of Orleans, who bore the name of Philippe Egalité during the French Revolution.
The star sapphire is that variety of sapphire in which, when the stone is cut and rounded off horizontal with the dome of the crystal, the light is condensed across the three lines of crystalline interference. Three cross lines produce a star which moves as a source of light, or as it is moved from the source of light. Star sapphires very rarely possess the deep blue color of the fine blue sapphire; generally the color is somewhat impure, or of a milky-blue, or else a blue-gray, or sometimes almost a pure white. The blue-gray, gray, and white stones frequently show a much more distinct star, possibly from the fact that there are more inclusions between the layers of the crystals than with the darker blue stones, as it is the set of interference bands that produces the peculiar light. Just as the eye agate was used in some countries to preserve against the Evil Eye, so the moving star is believed by the Cingalese to serve as a protection and a guard against witchcraft of all kinds.
The great Oriental traveller, Sir Richard Francis Burton, had a large star sapphire or asteria, as it was called. He referred to it as his talisman, for it always brought him good horses and prompt attention wherever he went; in fact, it was only in those places where he received proper attention that he would show it to the natives, a favor they greatly appreciated, because the sight of the stone was believed to bring good luck. The fame of Burton’s asteria travelled ahead of him, and it served him well as a guiding-star. De Boot, writing in the seventeenth century, states that such a stone was called Siegstein (victory-stone) among the Germans.
The remarkable asteria, known as the “Star of India,” in the Morgan-Tiffany Collection in the American Museum of Natural History, has a more or less indefinite historic record of some three centuries, but after its many wanderings it has now found a worthy resting-place in the great Museum. Its weight is 543 carats.154
The asteria, or star sapphire, might be called a “Stone of Destiny,” as the three cross-bars which traverse it are believed to represent Faith, Hope, and Destiny. As the stone is moved, or the light changes, a living star appears. As a guiding gem, warding off ill omen and the Evil Eye, the star-sapphire is worn for the same reasons as were the oculus mundi and the oculus Beli. One of the most unique of talismanic stones, it is said to be so potent that it continues to exercise its good influence over the first wearer even when it has passed into other hands.
The sard was regarded as a protection against incantations and sorcery, and was believed to sharpen the wits of the wearer, rendering him fearless, victorious, and happy.155 The red hue of this stone was supposed to neutralize the malign influence of the dark onyx, driving away the bad dreams caused by the latter and dispelling the melancholy thoughts it inspired.
The Italian peasants of to-day believe that pebbles of green serpentine afford protection from the bites of venomous creatures. These stones are usually green with streaks or veins of white, and the name was derived from their fancied resemblance to a serpent’s skin. In addition to their prophylactic powers, if any one has been bitten by such a creature, the stone, when applied to the wound, is supposed to draw out the poison. Here, as in the case of coral, the hand of man must not have shaped the amulet; it should be in its natural state. As a general rule, however, the belief that the touch of any iron instrument, such as the tool of the gem-cutter, destroys the magic efficacy of the substance, is less firmly held in regard to stones than in reference to coral.156
See Chrysolite.
While there was a tendency to attribute the virtues originally ascribed to one particular stone to others of the same or similar color and appearance, certain stones were regarded as possessing special virtues not commonly attributed to others. A notable instance of this is the quality supposed to inhere in the turquoise. This stone was known in Egypt from a very early period and is later described by Pliny under the name of callais. For Pliny, and for all those who derived their information from him or from the sources he used, the turquoise only participated in the virtues assigned to all blue or greenish-blue stones; but from the thirteenth century, when the name turquoise was first employed, we read that the stone possessed the power to protect the wearer from injury by falling, more especially from horseback; later, this was extended to cover falls from a building or over a precipice. A fourteenth century authority, the “Lapidaire” of Sir John Mandeville, states that the turquoise protected horses from the ill-effects resulting from drinking cold water when overheated by exertion, and it is said that the Turks often attached these stones to the bridles and frontlets of their horses as amulets. They are also so used in Samarcand and Persia. We might therefore be justified in supposing that the turquoise was originally used in the East as a “horse-amulet,” and the belief in its power to protect from falls may have arisen from the idea that it rendered the horse more sure-footed and enduring. As the horse was often regarded as a symbol of the sun in its rapid course through the blue heavens, the celestial hue of the turquoise may have caused it to be associated in some way with the horse. We can only hazard this as a plausible conjecture.
Probably the earliest notice of the peculiar superstition in regard to the turquoise—namely, that it preserves the wearer from injury in case of falling—is contained in Volmar’s thirteenth century “Steinbuch,” where we read:
Whoever owns the true turquoise set in gold will not injure any of his limbs when he falls, whether he be riding or walking, so long as he has the stone with him.157
Anselmus de Boot, court physician of Emperor Rudolph II, tells a story of a turquoise that, after being thirty years in the possession of a Spaniard, was offered for sale with the rest of the owner’s property. Every one was amazed to find it had entirely lost its color; nevertheless De Boot’s father bought it for a trifling sum. On his return home, however, ashamed to wear so mean-looking a gem, he gave it to his son, saying, “Son, as the virtues of the turquoise are said to exist only when the stone has been given, I will try its efficacy by bestowing it upon thee.” Little appreciating the gift, the recipient had his arms engraved on it as though it had been only a common agate and wore it as a signet. He had scarcely worn it a month, however, before it resumed its pristine beauty and daily seemed to increase in splendor. Could we accept this statement as true we would have here an altogether unique instance of the recovery by a turquoise of the blue color it had lost.
Not long after, the powers of De Boot’s turquoise were put to the test. As he was returning to Bohemia from Padua, where he had just taken his degree, he was forced to traverse a narrow and dangerous road at night. Suddenly his horse stumbled and threw him heavily to the ground, but, strange to say, neither horse nor rider was injured by the fall. Next morning, while washing his hands, De Boot remarked that about a quarter of his turquoise had broken away. Nevertheless the stone did not lose its virtue. Some time afterward, when the wearer was lifting a very heavy pole, he felt all at once a sharp pain in his side and heard his ribs crack, so that he feared he had injured himself seriously. However, it turned out that he had not broken any bones but had simply strained himself; but, on looking at his turquoise, he saw that it had again broken into two pieces.158
A singular virtue ascribed to the turquoise was that of striking the hour correctly, if the stone were suspended from a thread held between the thumb and index-finger in such a way that a slight vibration would make the stone strike against the side of a glass. De Boot states that he made the experiment successfully, but he very sensibly explains the apparent wonder by the unconscious effect of the mind on the body. The expectation that the stone was going to strike a certain number of times induced an involuntary movement of the hand.159
The turquoise seems to have been worn almost exclusively by men at the beginning of the seventeenth century, for De Boot, writing in 1609, said that it was so highly regarded by men that no man considered his hand to be well adorned unless he wore a fine turquoise. Women, however, rarely wore this gem.160 This custom was much in vogue among the Englishmen who travelled in the Orient, until a score of years ago.
The Persians fully appreciate the beauty and power of this, their national stone, and they have a saying that to escape evil and attain good fortune one must see the reflection of the new moon either on the face of a friend, on a copy of the Koran, or on a turquoise,161 thus ranking this stone with two most precious things, a friend and the source and warrant of religion. Possibly we should take this proverbial saying to indicate that whoever has a true friend, a copy of the sacred volume or a turquoise will be preserved from harm.
The turquoise of the Los Cerillos mines in New Mexico is rudely extracted by building large fires at the base of the rock until it becomes heated, when cold water is dashed over it, the sharp change of temperature splitting up the rock. Some of the fragmentary material thus secured is worked up in the region into heart-shaped ornaments, or amulets, locally called malacates. The religious veneration with which many of the New Mexico Indians still regard the turquoise was noted by Major Hyde, when he explored the region in 1880, for some Pueblo Indians from Santo Domingo, New Mexico, expressed strong disapproval of his action in extracting turquoise from the old mine, as they looked upon this as a sacred stone which should not pass into the possession of those whose Saviour was not a Montezuma.162
The ruins called Los Muertos, situated nine miles from Tempe, Arizona, have furnished a peculiarly interesting amulet or fetish of Zuñi workmanship. This is a seashell which has been coated with black pitch, in which are encrusted turquoises and garnets so disposed in mosaic as to represent clearly enough the figure of a toad, the sacred emblem of the Zuñis.163
The sacred character with which this stone was invested is shown by the wealth of turquoise ornaments found in some of the burials, notably in those of Pueblo Bonito, unearthed by Mr. George H. Pepper in 1896.164 This is one of the Chaco Cañon groups of ruins, in the northwestern part of New Mexico. In one case nearly nine thousand beads and pendants of turquoise were found on or about a single skeleton. There was abundant evidence in the special care bestowed upon the burial that the deceased must have been a man of high rank, and the condition of the skull plainly indicated that he had met a violent death. The 1980 beads found on the breast of the skeleton are believed to have been strung as a necklace, and the position of other masses of these beads renders it probable that they had been used for bracelets or anklets, the strings having decayed and disappeared in the course of time. The most interesting of the turquoise objects are, however, the pendants worked into various forms designed to favor the entrance of some guardian spirit into the stone. In this single burial were found pendants shaped more or less roughly into the forms of a rabbit, a bird, an insect (?), a human foot and a shoe. Around another burial in the same chamber were strewn nearly six thousand turquoise beads and pendants.165 In all 24,932 beads were found in these burials.
Another very interesting object from Pueblo Bonito, and one having probably a special ceremonial use and value, is a turquoise basket,—that is to say, a cylindrical basket three inches in diameter and six inches long, originally made of slender splints with a coating of gum in which 1214 small pieces of turquoise have been set. These are very closely set and form a complete mosaic covering for the object. The legends of the Navahos contain allusions to “turquoise jewel baskets,” and Mr. Pepper raises the question whether or no this can refer to those made by the Pueblo Indians.166
The Apache name for the turquoise is duklij, which signifies either a green or a blue stone, no distinction being made between the two colors. This stone is highly prized for its talismanic virtues. Indeed the possession of a turquoise was indispensable for a medicine-man, as without it he would not receive proper recognition. That some of the powers of the thunder-stone were ascribed to the turquoise by the tribes appears from the fancy that a man who could go to the end of a rainbow after a storm and search in the damp earth would find a turquoise. One of its supposed powers was to aid the warrior or hunter by assuring the accuracy of his aim, for if a turquoise were affixed to a gun or bow the shot sped from the weapon would go straight to the mark.167
A lady prominent in the London world is said to possess the power of restoring to their pristine hue turquoises that have grown pale. According to report, this lady is often called upon to use her peculiar gift by friends whose turquoises have faded.168 While the improvement supposed to be noted may be more imaginary than real in many cases, there is little doubt that this stone is exceptionally sensitive to the action of certain emanations, and may, at times, be influenced by the wearer’s general state of health. The writer believes that a turquoise, like an egg, can never be restored to its original state.