MAGIC STONES AND ELECTRIC GEMS 7
in the earth, or hidden away in some safe place.12
The widely spread fancy that rock-crystal is simply congealed water may
have something to do with the choosing of this stone as a ram-maker.
Sumatrans
of Kota Gadanz use a stone whose form roughly resembles that of a cat
in their invocations of rain, a live black cat being supposed in some
parts of this island to have certain rain-producing virtues.13
Perhaps the electric fur of the animal may have suggested a connection
with thunder-storms. Stones of this type, indeed a great many of those
to which magic properties are attributed, are in many cases smeared
with the blood of fowls, or have incense offered to them, this
treatment of such stones being observed by the peasants in Scandinavia
and other parts of Europe as well as in the Far East.
Stone
crosses have sometimes been utilized as rain-bringers, as in the case
of one belonging to St. Mary's Church in the Island of Uist, one of the
outer Hebrides, off the Scottish coast. "When drought prevailed here
the peasants would set up this cross which usually lay flat on the
ground, in the confident belief that rain would ensue. Of course,
sooner or later, it was sure to come, and then the cross, having done
its duty, was quietly replaced in its former horizontal position.14
A mysterious stone mentioned in Eabbinical legend is called the shamir. This
word occurs three times in the Old Testament (Jer. xvii, 1; Ezek. iii,
9; Zech. vii, 12), and in each signifies a material noted for its
hardness. In the first
B H. L. P. Cameron, " Notes on Some Tribes of New South Wales." Joura. of Anthrop. Inst., vol. xiv (1885), p. 362.
"
J. L. van der Toorn, " Het animisme bij den Minangkabaner der
Padangsche Bovenland," Bijdragen tot de Taal-Land-en Volkerkunde van
Neder-landsch Indie," vol. xxrix, 1890, p. 86.
"Martin, " Description of the Western Islands of Scotland," in Pinksrton's " Voyages and Travels," vol. iii, p. 694.
