214 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
antidotes,
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 Ula, 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.zs
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
jeweler named Josepho, who had told him that had the substance come
from the East Indies he would value it as high as £100, but that never
having made trial of West Indian bezoars, he would not venture on an
estimate, although he did not doubt but that they were quite as good.
■E.
Verneau and P. Rivet, "Ethnologie ancienne de l'Equateur," Paris, 1912
; vol. vi of Mission du service géologique de l'armée pour la mesure
d'un arc de méridien equatorial en Amérique du Sud, 1899-1906, pp. 235,
236; figure (nat. size) on p. 235.
