The 16th and 17th centuries could well be called the golden age of the bezoar. Period documentation attests to the wide variety available to the discerning buyer. New terms were coined to differentiate between types, most broadly between the more desirable lapis bezoar orientalis from Asia and the lapis bezoar occidentalis imported by the Spanish from the New World. While its exact origins are uncertain, our bezoar stone is described by the Rijksmuseum as a varkensteen, and in the 19th century catalog from the Koninklijk Kabinet van Zeldzaamheden, as a pedro del porco.Reinier Pieter van der Kasteele, Handleiding tot de bezigtiging van het Koninklijk Kabinet van Zeldzaamheden op Mauritshuis, in 's Gravenhage, (‘s Gravenhage: s.n., 1823), 101. These were terms denoting specific types of Southeast Asian bezoars that were perceived as being especially potent and desirable. Although these terms would seem to refer to bezoars from pigs, the secrecy surrounding the origin and collection of such bezoars, coupled with the nascent state of taxonomy in the 16th and early 17th century makes this somewhat meaningless as a descriptor. Bezoars described this way could come from a variety of animals. While these regions had wild pigs, most bezoars so described came from deer and most notably, porcupines.I. H. Burkill, A Dictionary of the Economic Products of the Malay Peninsula (London: The Crown agents for the colonies, 1935), 322. Burkill believes the term may have arisen out of a confusion of hogs and hog deer. In the later 17th and early 18th centuries, as Europe became increasingly interested in organizing and classifying the natural world, the definition of a pedro del porco became somewhat less nebulous. Rumphius, for example, notes,
“The true Pig stone derives from the gall of the Porcupine, called Hystrix in Latin… This one is small, no larger than a musket ball, russet, smooth like Spanish soap, particularly if one wets it, at the slightest touch conveying its bitterness to the tongue…”G. E. Rumphius, The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), 333.
He goes on to describe several other types of Asian bezoars that have also been referred to as pedras del porco, and how they differed from the ‘genuine’ Pig (or porcupine) stone. While complete certainty is impossible, our object resembles a porcupine bezoar stone. This would have been a major selling point since a ‘true’ porcupine stone was one of the costliest types of bezoar in the early-modern European world.Borschberg, “The Euro-Asian Trade in Bezoar Stones (Approx. 1500 to 1700).,” 34. In the Malay world, however, these differentiations seemed to be less important, with the focus being more on largeness and bitterness, rather than animal origin.Skeat, Malay Magic, 277. As a class, bezoar stones from animals (and stones found inside plants) were referred to in Malay as guliga. A bezoar’s origin was only important insofar as it might change some of the magical properties of the bezoar.
This European obsession with naming and classifying these bezoars likely came partially from the high risk of a buying a fake stone. The supply of any type of guliga was small, but the most prized, such as porcupine bezoars from Siak (guliga landak) were particularly rare. A guliga’s unremarkable, misshapen appearance made it relatively easy to counterfeit, and since actual efficacy was debatable (or at the very least, varied wildly), authentication was often highly problematic. Many of the European primary sources on these stones contain tests for detecting fraudulent guliga taught to them by Malay or Chinese traders. These tests often included checking for bitterness, lightness, or by rubbing the surface with lime powder, but how effective these tests actually were, is a matter of some doubt.Rumphius, The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet, 334. A classic way of checking for authenticity was breaking open the stone and looking for an onion-like internal structure (Figures 1 and 2), but merchants were typically not very happy to have prospective buyers break open their stones. By the late 17th century, the VOC was largely avoiding the trade in bezoars, including pedras del porco or porcupine stones, due to the high incidence of fraud and the necessity of bartering directly with the indigenous people for one or two at a time. As they put it succinctly, “moeijte niet weert.”“Not worth the trouble.” In Borschberg, “The Euro-Asian Trade in Bezoar Stones (Approx. 1500 to 1700).,” 33, and Generale Missiven van Gouverneurs-Generaal en Raaden aan Heren XVII der Verenigde Ostindische Compagnie (The Hague, 1975), vol. 7A, 1697, 180.
