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By interpret, do you mean use? I'm sure that they figured out how to do it at some point, especially along the Eastern Seaboard where quartz is plentiful.
"The education of a man is never completed until he dies." Robert E. Lee
No, I mean what did they think of the light and spark generated from banging quartz together. I wonder what they thought that was. I wonder if there is any oral history or lore about it.
I don't really see anyway they could use it for anything, but it's a curiosity they must have seen any time they worked quartz
Rub two pieces of quartz together, and you get little flashes of light (not sparks) from something called Triboluminescence.
The Ute and other groups made use of it in ceremonies, but I'm sure older groups figured out the magic while knapping and grinding edges.
I use the word magic because it still isn't exactly clear how a static charge in quartz can make it glow like it does. Check out a video on YouTube if you want to see it. You'll probably end up in a closet or bathroom without windows rubbing rocks together.
I was sleeping on the couch and there is a fake fur thing that in the dark shoots all kind of sparks when you rub it producing static electricity... I'd guess natural fur would do the same thing, even human hair. or lift up hair after getting charged up. Shaman's tricks I bet lol.
I just saw this . I actually have my quartz packed but don’t you know I’ll try this.
I also took my Grandaughter in the bathroom and took two pieces of flint to show her it sparked ( if we had dry grass ) it could start a fire . She saw the sparks and could smell it . Pretty amazing for a 8 year old .
In a "Quartz" watch there is a quartz crystal placed under quite a bit of physical strain..which produces the little bit of piezo to run the watch... This same effect works in human bone where if you put stress on the "crystalline" structure of bone it, it will produce that tiny electric charge and ions of minerals phosphorus/calcium and other chargeable things etc will flow in one direction or the other....and in some/many cases produces arthritis and accumulation of calcium/bone. same with use it or lose it. Put stress/exercise on bone and it will become stronger. I'm glad we don['t have to think about such things.
In California and the west, quartz was used in shamanic rituals. Sometimes to control weather.
"Exotic pebbles are often found in archaeological sites and, like charm- stones, occasionally accompanied the deceased to their graves (cf. Parkman 1990). Some of these burial-associated pebbles may represent thunder stones, as may quartz crystals. In the Southwest, for example, two quartz crystals were rubbed together to make a spark, and were called "lightning stones" (Tyler 1964:183)."
Creating Thunder: The Western Rain-Making Process
Author
Parkman, E. Breck
Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology
The Navahos are stated to light their ceremonial fire from the sun by means of crystal (Curtis, 1907, p. 53). The Pueblo Indians of the upper Rio Grande during their rain ceremonies beat the drum to imitate thunder, and rubbed together pebbles of white quartz to^produce an incandescent glow simulating lightning (Jeancon, 1923, p. 68). At Pecos, New Mex., A. V. Kidder (1932, p. 93) found a cylinder, set in a rectangle with a shallow groove into which the cylinder exactly fitted, both of white vein quartz. The cylinder is about 3 inches long and Iji inches in diameter. Knowing that "lightning sets" still were used in religious ceremonies at San Ildefonsa, that night he rubbed the cylinder in the groove and finally the stones "became visible in a strange pale glow which flickered and died for all the world like distant lightning." Here we have a perfected machine perhaps 700 years old; the first Indian to observe the luminescence of quartz must have done so centuries earlier.
excerpt from
Anthropological Papers, No. 13 The Mining of Gems and Ornamental Stones by American Indians By SYDNEY H. BALL
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