As to greenstone, it is in the island of Jamaica, where the notion is
general that axes of a hard greenstone fall from the sky--"during the
rains." (_Jour. Inst. Jamaica_, 2-4.) Some other time we shall inquire
into this localization of objects of a specific material. "They are of a
stone nowhere else to be found in Jamaica." (_Notes and Queries_,
2-8-24.)
In my own tendency to exclude, or in the attitude of one peasant or
savage who thinks he is not to be classed with other peasants or
savages, I am not very much impressed with what natives think. It would
be hard to tell why. If the word of a Lord Kelvin carries no more
weight, upon scientific subjects, than the word of a Sitting Bull,
unless it be in agreement with conventional opinion--I think it must be
because savages have bad table manners. However, my snobbishness, in
this respect, loosens up somewhat before very widespread belief by
savages and peasants. And the notion of "thunderstones" is as wide as
geography itself.
The natives of Burma, China, Japan, according to Blinkenberg (_Thunder
Weapons_, p. 100)--not, of course, that Blinkenberg accepts one word of
it--think that carved stone objects have fallen from the sky, because
they think they have seen such objects fall from the sky. Such objects
are called "thunderbolts" in these countries. They are called
"thunderstones" in Moravia, Holland, Belgium, France, Cambodia, Sumatra,
and Siberia. They're called "storm stones" in Lausitz; "sky arrows" in
Slavonia; "thunder axes" in England and Scotland; "lightning stones" in
Spain and Portugal; "sky axes" in Greece; "lightning flashes" in Brazil;
"thunder teeth" in Amboina.
The belief is as widespread as is belief in ghosts and witches, which
only the superstitious deny today.
As to beliefs by North American Indians, Tyler gives a list of
references (_Primitive Culture_, 2-237). As to South American
Indians--"Certain stone hatchets are said to have fallen from the
heavens." (_Jour. Amer. Folk Lore_, 17-203.)
If you, too, revolt against coincidence after coincidence after
coincidence, but find our interpretation of "thunderstones" just a
little too strong or rich for digestion, we recommend the explanation of
one, Tallius, written in 1649:
"The naturalists say they are generated in the sky by fulgurous
exhalation conglobed in a cloud by the circumfused humor."
Of course the paper in the _Cornhill Magazine_ was written with no
intention of trying really to investigate this subject, but to deride
the notion that worked-stone objects have ever fallen from the sky. A
writer in the _Amer. Jour. Sci._, 1-21-325, read this paper and thinks
it remarkable "that any man of ordinary reasoning powers should write a
paper to prove that thunderbolts do not exist."
I confess that we're a little flattered by that.
Over and over:
"It is scarcely necessary to suggest to the intelligent reader that
thunderstones are a myth."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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