358 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
ments and discordant cries might well "rouse" the patient, and perhaps had sometimes good effects in restoring vitality.
An
interesting use of the Eöntgen rays to detect hidden amulets is noted
by Stewart Culin. It was conjectured by Mr. Cushing that some pieces of
turquoise, conceived to be the hearts of fetichistic birds, were
concealed beneath the heavy wrapping of brown yarn that binds the
finger-loops of the prehistoric throwing stick in the Museum of the
University of Pennsylvania. This object was too valuable and too fragile
to permit of its examination, and therefore the Röntgen rays were
used, disclosing the presence of four stone beads, presumably of
turquoise, as Mr. Cushing had indicated.13
As
the Point Barrow Eskimos are so largely dependent on fishing, they
especially favor amulets or talismans referring to this, and in many
cases the peculiar power of the talisman is accentuated by giving it a
specially significant form. Thus, from Utkiavwin was brought a piece of
dark crimson jasper two inches long, rudely fashioned by chipping into
the form of a whale, and also a similar figure made from a water-worn
quartz pebble.14 Another Point Barrow amulet consisted of three small fragments of amber, carefully wrapped up and placed in a cottonwood box iy2 inches
in length. This box was cleverly made of two semicircular pieces of the
wood, the flat faces having been hollowed out so as to leave space for
the amber. They were then bound together by loosely knotted sinew
braid.15
A
black jade, adze-shaped, that may have served as a fisherman's talisman
for the Point Barrow Eskimo, was brought from Utkiavwin. It measured
5.1 inches in length,
u Free Museum of Science and Art, Bulletin No. 4, Jan., 1898, p. 183 (with figures).
" John Murdoch, " The Point Barrow Eskimo," 9th Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1887-88, Washington, 1892, p. 435.
»Ibid., p. 439, fig. 426.
