Gems and Superstitions

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Gems as Living Things

It was believed in various cultures (notably pre-modern India and Medieval Europe) that gems were given life just as we are, and that like us they are subject to old age, disease, and death. They are said to become pale if mistreated, an indication (to the people of the time anyway) that the gem had taken offense to its mistreatment. A diamond was said to be offended if it were sold to someone instead of given as a gift. In this case, the spirit within the diamond would become so offended that it would leave the diamond, so that its new owner would not experience the good fortune it had given its previous owner. It was widely believed that gems could sense things in regards to its bearer and could show its reaction by changing its appearance. As Kunz states: “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 the 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 a similar phenomena” (Kunz, 24).

Gemstones were thought to have genders, with the darker ones seen as male, and the lighter ones as female. Some took this idea to the next level and believed that gems could produce offspring. Even into the sixteenth century, this idea was accepted by a great deal of people. Pearl fishers in Borneo believed that every ninth pearl they acquired had the ability to produce offspring, and thus they would stick it in a bottle with two grains of rice so that the pearl may reproduce. Emeralds were thought by some European thinkers in the 17th century to grow like fruit, with the part of the Emerald being closest to the sun being the first to gain color.

A picture of an Emerald with
a dark green side and a much lighter
opposite side, which is likely what gave
people the idea that it grew like a fruit.
The picture can be found here.
Photo courtesy of www.galleries.com

The idea that gems had all these attributes led many cultures to classify certain gems as something other than stones. One of the more prominent examples of this can be found with the diamond. "The people of East India called the rock-crystal an un-ripe diamond, and the real jewel a ripe diamond. Their notion evidently was that it was a vegetable. In parts of Europe, during the Middle Ages, it was classed as an animal" (Hershey,10).