The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1904-04-01
OF my
LADY'S' JEWELRY
Personal Adornments Were
Objects Of Magic-.Es-
thetic Uses.
THE PRlMITIvEs' JEWELRY
It Consisted of Substances Easily Per.
forated, Such as Shells, Teeth and
Claws of Animals, Seeds Of
Plants, Eetc. y

Boston Transcript: Professor w,
Ridgeway. in a paper on 1.-The Origin
Of Jewelry,' read before the British
association. said: Personal orna-
ments In civilized countries consist OF
precious stones or limitations Of stones,
pearls (Which are the product of
shellsl, or shells themselves. amber, jet
and occasionally various other objects,
such as tigers claws, etc. It has hith-
erto ben held that men and women
were led by purely esthetic considera-
lions to adorn themselves with such
objects; but a little research into the
history of such ornaments leads to a
very different conclusion. The fact is
that mankind was led to wear such
objects by magic rather than by aes-
thetic considerations. The jewelry of
primitive peoples consisted of small
stones with natural p~erforations. e. g.,
silicitied spoons or joints of coniferae,
Or Of substances easily perforated. such
as amber, the seeds Of plants, shells,
the teeth and claws of animals, bones
Or pieces of bone. pieces of wood of
popular kinds
Later on they learned to bore hard
stones, such as roc crystal. hematite,
agate, garnet, etc, and obtain the met
ais. All people value for magical pur-
poses small stones Of peculiar form
Or color long before they can wear
them as ornaments; e. e., Australians
and tribes Of New Guinea use crystals
'or rain making, although they cannot
bore them, and it Is a powerful amulet
in Uganda fastened into leather. Sor-
rowers in Africa carry a small bag OF
pebbles as an important part Of their
equipment. So it was in Greece. The
crystal was used to light sacrificiai
Are, and was SO employed in the church
1nSSn IN tho fffaanth rantI1rv ~ Tho
Egyptians under the twelfth dynasty
used it largely, piercing it along Its
axis after rubbing off the pyramid
points Of the crystal, sometimes leav-
ing the natural six sides. or else
grinding it into a complete cylinder.
cylindrical beads made later by the
Egyptians, from which modern artifl-
cial cylindrical glass beads are de-
scended.
1.-The beryl, a natural hexagonal prism,
lent, itself still more readily to the
same form, e. g., the cylindrical beryl
beads found in Rhodian tombs. The
Babylonian cylinders found without
any engraving on them on the wrists
IF the dead in early B%abylonian graves
had a similar origin. 1t has been uni
v~ersally held that Babylonian cylin-
iers, Egyptian scarabs and Mycenean
gems were primarily signets; but as
the cylinders are found u~nengraved,
and as many as 500 scarabs are found
On m mummy, and as Mycenean
stones are often found without any en-
craving, It is clear that the primary
use was not for signets. but for anu
let's. The .Orphic Lithfca gives a clear
account of the special virtue of each
stone. and 1t Is plain that they acted
chiefly by sympathetic magic, e. g.
green jasper and the tree agates make
the vegetation grow, etc. The Greeks
and Asiatics used stones primarily as
amulets, e. &, Mithridates had a whole
cabinet Of gems as antidotes to poison.
To enhance the natural power Of the
stone a device was cut on it, e. G., the
/ Arabian cut on a green Jasper, the
special amulet of the Gnostics. The
use Of the stone for sealing was simply
secondary, and may have arisen first
J FOR sacred ~purDOsas -