Probably the first objects chosen for personal adornment were those easily strung or bound together,—for instance, certain perforated shells and brilliant seeds; the softer stones, wherein holes could be easily bored by the help of the simplest tools, probably came next, while the harder gems must have been hoarded as pretty toys long before they could be adjusted for use as ornaments.

Unquestionably, when these objects had once been worn, there was a disposition to attribute certain happenings to their influence and power, and in this way there arose a belief in their efficacy, and, finally, the conviction that they were the abodes of powerful spirits. In this, as in many other things, man’s first and instinctive appreciation was the truest, and it has required centuries of enlightenment to bring us back to this love of precious stones for their esthetic beauty alone. Indeed, even to-day, we can see the power of superstitious belief in the case of the opal, which some timid people still fear to wear, although until three or four centuries ago this stone was thought to combine all the virtues of the various colored gems, the hues of which are united in its sparkling light.

A proof that bright and colored objects were attractive in themselves, and were first gathered up and preserved by primitive man for this reason alone, may be found in the fact that certain birds, notable the Chlamydera of Australia, related to our ravens, after constructing for themselves pretty arbors, strew the floors with variegated pebbles, so arranged as to suggest a mosaic pavement. At the entrance of the arbors are heaped up pieces of bone, shells, feathers, and stones, which have often been brought from a considerable distance, this giving evidence that the birds have not selected these objects at random. It is strange that the attraction exercised upon the sense of sight by anything brilliant and colored, which is at the same time easily portable and can be handled or worn, should be overlooked by those who are disposed to assert that all ornaments of this kind were originally selected and preserved solely or principally because of their supposed talismanic qualities.

The theory that colored and brilliant stones were first collected by men because of their beauty rather than because of their talismanic virtues, is corroborated by the statement made that seals select with considerable care the stones they swallow, and observers on the fishing grounds have noted this and believe that pebbles of chalcedony and serpentine found there have been brought by the seals.[9]

The popular derivation of the word “amulet” from an Arabic word hamalât, signifying something suspended or worn, is not accepted by the best Arabic scholars, and it seems probable that the name is of Latin origin, in spite of the fact that no very satisfactory etymology can be given. Pliny’s use of amuletum shows that with him the word did not always denote an object that was worn on the person, although this later became its meaning. The old etymology given by Varro (118-29 B.C.), who derived amuletum from the verb amoliri, “to remove,” “to drive away,” may not be quite in accord with modern philology, but still has something to recommend it as far as the sense goes, for the amulet was certainly believed to hold dangers aloof, or even to remove them. Talisman, however, a word not used in classical times, undoubtedly comes from the Arabic tilsam, this being in turn derived from τέλεσμα, used in late Greek to signify an initiation, or an incantation.

It has been remarked that in the earliest Stone Age there is no trace of either idols or images; the art of this period being entirely profane. In the later Stone Age, however, entirely different ideas seem to have gained the ascendancy, for a majority of the objects of plastic art so far discovered have a religious significance. This has evidently proceeded from the conception that every image of a living object absorbs something of the essence of the object itself, and this conception, while a primitive one, still presupposes a certain degree of development. This rule applies more especially to amulets, which were therefore fashioned as beautifully as primitive art permitted, that they might become fitting abodes for the benevolent spirits believed to animate them and render them efficacious.[10]

A curious idol or talisman from Houaïlou, New Caledonia, is in the collection of Signor Giglioli. This is a stone bearing naturally a rude resemblance to the human form.[11] We can easily understand that such an object was looked upon as the abode of some spirit, for similar strange natural formations have been regarded with a species of superstitious awe by peoples much more civilized than the natives of New Caledonia.

For the Middle Ages and even down to the seventeenth century, the talismanic virtues of precious stones were believed in by high and low, by princes and peasants, by the learned as well as by the ignorant. Here and there, however, a note of scepticism was sometimes apparent, as in the famous reply of the court jester of Emperor Charles V, to the question, “What is the property of the turquoise?” “Why,” replied he, “if you should happen to fall from a high tower whilst you were wearing a turquoise on your finger, the turquoise would remain unbroken.”

The doctrine of sympathy and antipathy found expression in the belief that the very substance of certain stones was liable to modification by the condition of health or even by the thoughts of the wearer. In case of sickness or approaching death the lustre of the stones was dimmed, or else their bright colors were darkened, and unfaithfulness or perjury produced similar phenomena. Concerning the turquoise, the prosaic explanation can be offered that this stone is affected to a certain extent by the secretions of the skin; but popular superstition saw the same phenomena in the ruby, the diamond, and other stones not possessing the sensitiveness of the turquoise. Hence the true explanation is to be found in the prevailing idea that an occult sympathy existed between stone and wearer. The sentiment underlying the conception is well expressed by Emerson in the following lines from “The Amulet”:

Give me an amulet