supposing you were a man of substance, if all the wives of common men could go about similarly bedecked?
Of Obsidian my dictionary says: "A glass produced by volcanoes" (so-called from Obsidius, who
according to Puny discovered it in Ethiopia). Obsidian has been used as
a gem material by many more or less savage races living in close
proximity to volcanic regions, and even European jewellers have from
time to time thought the substance worth a golden setting.
I
once bought an uncommonly lustrous and flawless specimen of this
semi-precious stone in the shape of an egg, and as I was then on my way
to the Southern Islands, I put it by as a potential gift for some
native chief or rajah whose goodwill I might have to secure by a
generous gesture. It had a good interesting appearance and was worth
something more than a large ginger-beer bottle stopper.
As it turned out, the Sultan of Sulu was the fortunate recipient of the volcanic glass egg. His datos, pctnglimas and
all his wise men did not know what to make of this treasure. But as no
one in his senses who valued his life ought to have dared to present a
glass stopper to a prince paramount, I had them all guessing.
In
my own mind I can never dissociate the word obsidian (the Itzli of the
Aztecs) from the bloody sacrificial rites of the Mexicans before the
Spanish Conquest. It was an important part of the ceremonies that the
officiating priest should cut open the victim's breast with a sharply
ground obsidian knife as he lay stretched upon the
