Bizarre Tales About Bezoar Stones

An amulet set with a bezoar stone is said to have possessed such a power to prevent bleeding that when a Malacca prince was killed in a battle with his rebellious subjects, no blood was flowing from any of his numerous wounds. On stripping the body a golden armlet set with a bezoar came to view, and the moment this was removed blood began to flow freely from the wounds.

Mercato writes of a marvellous Occidental bezoar, sent from Peru to Rome in 1534, as a gift to Pope Gregory XIII. It weighed no less than fifty-six ounces, although it was defective, since a large portion of the exterior crust was missing, the second layer was partly broken away, and even the third layer was damaged in some places. This wonderful concretion had been dedicated to one of the Peruvian gods, as a rare and precious object, and it was taken away by the Spaniards when they spoiled the temple. Mercato says that this bezoar was "of a truly monstrous size, unheard of in all previous centuries, and it is still the largest in the whole realm of nature."

The bezoars of the New World seem to have differed considerably from those of India. They had a rough surface, were usually of a gray color, of various sizes and forms, and composed of a number of superimposed, coalescing layers, much thicker than those of the Oriental, or Indian, bezoar. They were usually of considerable size, either hollow within or containing seeds, needles and similar substances. They came from the West Indies, especially from Peru, and were brought thence by the Spaniards and Portuguese. The greater number were found in a kind of chamois; however, we are told that the bezoar was not found in all these animals, "but only in the old ones."

A letter written in the sixteenth century by one who had travelled extensively in India and in Peru, illustrates the ideas of that time regarding both Oriental and Occidental bezoars:

A gentleman living about twenty-eight years in these Countries, writes to his Friend, that he saw those Animals out of which comes the Bezoar, and saith, they are very like Goats, only they have no Horns; and are so swift, that they are fore'd to shoot them with guns. He tells us, that he and some Friends, on the 10th of June 1568, hunted some of these Creatures, and in five Days kill'd many of them; and that in one of the oldest of them, they made diligent Search for the stone, but found it not, neither in the Ventricle, nor in any other Part of the Animal. They ask'd the Indians that attended upon them, where the Stones lay; they denied they knew anything of them, being very envious and unwilling to disclose such a Secret. At length (he saith) a Boy about twelve years old perceiving us to be very inquisitive, and to be very desirous of Satisfaction in that Particular, shew'd us a certain Receptacle and (as it were) a Purse, into which they receive their eaten herbs, which afterwards when churned, they convey into the Ventricle.

The same circumstances were observed by this informant in regard to the Peruvian bezoars, and from the "pouch" of one of these animals were taken no less than nine stones, "which, by the help of nature, seemed to be made of the Juice of those salutiferous Herbs, which were crammed up into this little Pouch."

While the Occidental bezoar from South America enjoyed a special repute in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when bezoars were so freely used as poison-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 Ilama, in a tomb at Cojitambo, 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 illa, 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.

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 pound100, 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. Nevertheless he would not care to buy this one before having tested its virtues experimentally.

That good Queen Bess shared the beliefs of her age as to the virtues of stones is well known, and she appears to have regarded her bezoars as worthy of a place among the treasures of the Crown, for in the inventory of the jewels made at the accession of James I we read:

Also one greate Bezar stone, sett in goulde that was Queene Elizabeth's, with some Unicorne's Horne, in a paper; and one other large Bezar stone, broken in peeces, delivered to our owne handes, by the Lord Brooke, the two and twentith day of Januarie, one thousand sixe hundred and twenty and two.

After the death of Rudolph II, in 1612, the Venetian envoy, Girolamo Soranzo, wrote to the Doge, "No other monarch has ever accumulated so many jewels." He also communicates the fact that some at least of these gems were to follow him to the grave, for when interred, his head was covered with a cap adorned with many valuable precious stones. However, Rudolph's fondness for the more splendid gems and jewels was accompanied by a very particular taste for the collection of Oriental bezoars, of which a large number are noted as in his possession at the time of his death. These ranged in weight from 1 loth (1/2 oz. Troy) to 25 1/2 loth (a little more than one pound Troy); most of them were provided with a rich gold setting, and one especially prized bezoar, weighing about 8 ounces, reposed in a silver box decorated with 32 diamonds and 26 rubies. Another of very singular shape, resembling "four toes," is also entered on the list. Besides these the imperial collection included several other curious animal concretions, probably regarded as having therapeutic virtues, such, for instance, as a "stone" from the body of a doe; this had been found by a certain Helmhardt Jorger and by him presented to the emperor; another of these treasured concretions came from the stomach of a stag. A specimen of the famed "eagle-stone" is also listed; this had a double gold setting, and on it were inscribed the words "Piedra Geodas," showing that the real character of this stone as a geode was then well understood.

Some of the gold-mounted bezoars of Rudolph II are still to be seen in the Hofmuseum, at Vienna. One is surrounded by a gold band with a scroll pattern; another has a capping of gold and stands upon a golden base, and still another, capped and belted with gold, is attached by a chain to a golden bowl. This was probably to be used as a test of the freedom from poison of any beverage in the vessel. A bezoar of the eighteenth century is mounted upon a tree of gold, against the trunk of which a wild boar is leaning. This may be only a decorative adjunct, or it might be an indication of the particular animal source of this special bezoar.

The bezoars of Borneo are taken either from monkeys or porcupines. For medicinal use, the gratings are dissolved in water and the solution is administered as required. Skeats relates that he was once asked $200 by a native for a small stone, erroneously asserted to be a bezoar. This stone was carefully wrapped up in cotton and preserved in a tin box with some grains of rice, the owner firmly believing that the stone fed on the rice. A red monkey (semnopithecus) furnishes many of these bezoars, but those from the porcupine are supposed to be so much the more efficacious that the Sultan of Saik claims all bezoars of this kind found in his dominions as his personal property; nevertheless, many are said to be surreptitiously taken out of the country by Malayan or Chinese traders. A remarkably fine specimen in the possession of the Sultan is valued at $900; small ones may be worth no more than $40, but the value increases very rapidly with the size of the concretion. Though it is confidently believed that the bezoars work wonderful cures in diseases of the bowels and of the respiratory organs, the natives value them chiefly as aphrodisiacs, this action being secured either by wearing them or by taking them in solution.

The Chinese work entitled P'ing-chou-k'o-t'an, by Chu Yu, written in the first quarter of the twelfth century, mentions the mo-so stone (the bezoar) and states that it was worn in finger rings. Should anyone have reason to suppose that he had taken poison, all he had to do in order to escape any bad effects was to lick the bezoar-stone set in his ring. The Chinese writer adds that it might thus be justly called "a life preserver."