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Related Images

  • Fig. 1: A talismanic design against the pelesit spirit from a 19th c. Patani or Kelantan manuscript in Yahya, Magic and Divination in Malay Illustrated Manuscripts, 2016, Leiden, p. 94. Complex rules governed the making and use of talismans. This text is an example of a talismanic design, with a description of its function and a drawing which might need to be inscribed on the talisman.
  • Fig. 2: An example of an amulet worn near the navel in Yahya, Magic and Divination in Malay Illustrated Manuscripts, 2016, Leiden, p.90. Bezoars were sometimes wrapped in cloth and worn in a similar fashion.
  • Fig. 3: A man being dosed with a bezoar stone after poisoning in von Cuba, Hortus Sanitatis, 1491, Mainz. The Hortus Sanitatis is one of the first European natural history texts to introduce the bezoar stone to a Medieval European audience, explaining its Persian origin and use as an antidote.
  • Fig. 4: A handwritten recipe describing when and how to use a pedro del porco bezoar. The recipe is also quoted by Rumphius in his 1705 D’Amboinsche Rariteitkamer. Leiden, Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, Archive No. A557.
  • Fig. 5: Wooden Apothecary Chest, The Netherlands, 1750-1900. Wood, metal, chalk, paint, cardboard, assorted materials. H. 130,0 cm, W 61,0. Rotterdam, Museum Rotterdam. Inv. No. 43009-1-32. Bezoars were a common component of the 18th century European medicine cabinet.

"The Upas loses its venom, And Poison loses its venom, And the Sea-Snake loses its venom, And the poison-tree of Borneo loses its venom, Everything that is venomous loses its venom, By virtue of my use of the Prayer of the Magic Bezoar-Stone."_Yahya, Magic and Divination in Malay Illustrated Manuscripts, 28.

Malay charm to be chanted by while drinking a tincture of grated bezoar stone.

Bezoar stones have been used in the Malay world for centuries. As in Persia, bezoar stones were thought to be a powerful antidote to poison. Since there is a history of trade with the Middle East, including a trade in bezoars, there is a possibility that ideas about their magico-medical properties were exchanged then. China also seems to have been a source for lore about the healing properties of bezoar stones. In the Malay world, our bezoar would have been the favored tool of a shaman, alongside a damascened kris and magical-medical bowl (mangkuk penawar) inscribed with ritual words or verses from the Qur’an. A patient would be given the shavings grated off the bezoar mixed with a little water. This was believed to be a nearly infallible medicine for chest or bowel illnesses, as well as for fevers and cholera. Bezoars were also worn as talismans, perhaps inscribed with magic words (Figure 1), tied in a piece of cloth and strung around the belly (Figure 2). Worn this way, they were believed to serve as powerful aphrodisiacs and to protect the wearer from evil spirits.Skeat, Malay Magic, 277.

In Europe and the Netherlands, beliefs about the magico-medical properties of the bezoar were somewhat similar. Some of the earliest descriptions of its use there are as an antidote to poisons (Figure 3). Although bezoars were occasionally found in the bellies of ailing Western European ruminants, it was the Arab world that first introduced the idea that these organic concretions could have miraculous healing and apotropaic properties. The term bezoar appears to come from the Persian pa(d) (poison) and zahar (expeller), transformed to ba-zahar in Arabic literature before finally settling into the familiar bezoar or bezaar in early European lapidaries and medical texts by the 15th century.Peter Borschberg, “The Euro-Asian Trade in Bezoar Stones (Approx. 1500 to 1700).,” Artistic and Cultural Exchanges between Europe and Asia, 1400 - 1900, 2010, 30. Bezoars as described in these early manuscripts referred to stones found in the stomachs of the wild goats of Khorasan and Northern India, but with time the term grew to encompass a variety of concretions.Garcia de Orta and Francisco Manuel de Melo Ficalho, Colloquies on the Simples & Drugs of India (London, H. Sotheran & Co., 1913), 362. As in Malaysia, the bezoar was ground, mixed with water and then drunk. They were also frequently worn close to the skin as amulets.

Pedras del Porco or porcupine stones were thought to be especially potent, and developed their own specific recipes and associated lore, some of which seems to have traveled with the stones from the East-Indies. An old manuscript associated with one of the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave’s bezoars (Figure 4), describes the powers of the “Pedra de Porco” to cure cholera and other diseases of the bowels, as well as worms, fevers, palpitations, and epilepsy. To use it, the stone is soaked in a little water and given to the patient, or if the illness is severe, a small amount is scraped off and mixed in. The bezoar was also a frequent addition to Western medicine cabinets from the late 17th century, along with a number of other exotic ingredients (Figure 5). Despite numerous (often macabre) attempts by skeptics to disprove any beneficial or antidotal properties of bezoars, they remained popular into the early 19th century.