Author: George Frederick Kunz Publisher: DigiCat ISBN: Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 351
Book Description
This book is about the folklore surrounding many aspects of jewelry. The author says that in it will be found "an interesting galaxy of anecdote, research, and information upon a fascinating subject." The book is divided into ten chapters each dealing with a particular type of gem, or, its supposed powers and so on.
Author: George Frederick Kunz Publisher: Forgotten Books ISBN: 9781333863647 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 554
Book Description
Excerpt from The Magic of Jewels and Charms Beauty of color or lustre in a stone or some quaint form attracts the eye of the savage, and his choice of material for ornament or adornment is also conditioned by the tough ness of some stones as compared with the facility with which others can be chipped or polished. Whereas a gem might be prized for its beauty by a single individual owner, a stone of curious and suggestive form sometimes claimed the reverence of an entire tribe, since it was thought to be the abode or the chosen instrument of some Spirit or genius. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Author: George Frederick Kunz Publisher: Theclassics.Us ISBN: 9781230295756 Category : Languages : en Pages : 140
Book Description
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ... in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when bezoars were so freely used as poisonantidotes, and for the cure of fevers and other diseases, it has been doubted whether the aborigines of South America ever valued them in any way before the time of the Spanish Conquest. What seems, however, to be a proof that they sometimes did so, is afforded by the discovery of a bezoar, probably taken from the body of a llama, in a tomb at Coji-tambo, in the Canari region of Ecuador. In spite of the contrary opinion expressed by Garcilasso de la Vega, there is reason to believe that such animal concretions were used by these Indians in magic practices. The Quichua name is ilia, and Holquin in his Quichua dictionary says that the natives believed that bezoars were luck-bringing stones. Another name, quicu, is vouched for by Arriaga, who states that the Spaniards found some bezoars stained with the blood of sacrificial victims, thus showing that they were thought to possess a certain religious or mystic significance. Another author, Don Vasco de Contreros y Vievedo, writing in 1650, states that the most highly valued of these concretions among the natives of South America were those taken from the American tapir, which they called danta.23 " Valentini, " Museum museorum, oder Vollstandige Schau-BUhne," Frankfurt am Main, 1714, bk. iii, cap. 13, 1, 2, p. 446. Pancirollus, "The History of Many Memorable Things," London, 1715, p. 288. Ibid., loc. cit. The comparative value of Oriental and Occidental bezoars was still an open question toward the end of the sixteenth century. In a letter written by Sir George Carew to Sir Robert Cecil, on October 10, 1594, the former states that he had submitted a bezoar from the West Indies to a London...
Author: George Frederick Kunz
Author: George Frederick Kunz
Author: George Frederick Kunz
Author: George Frederick Kunz
Author: George Frederick Kunz
Author: Herbert Joseph Spinden
Author: Isidore Kozminsky
Author: George H. Bratley
Author: George Frederick Kunz
Author: George Frederick Kunz