I considered subtitling today’s post after an old Lindsay Buckingham song, but today’s gemstone is birthed in a variety of ways, not all of which involve pressure.
Today, we’re looking at hematite, a simple and beautiful mineral that often goes largely unnoticed. It’s long been used in Native jewelry, usually in beads or as an accent stone. Today, synthetic versions of it are marketed for “health purposes,” invoking its alleged (and entirely artificially applied) magnetic properties to “treat” all manner of physical ailments, from arthritis to neurological disorders to depression. But genuine hematite does sometimes possess some degree of magnetism (and science has found a way to augment those properties externally), although the health benefits remain empirically unproven.
Hematite is one of several iron oxides, one distilled to mineral form (indeed, it is the main ore that is mined from iron today). It manifests in discrete varieties, such as iron rose, kidney ore, and specularite; in compound form, as maghemite (hematite and magnetite), and as an independent solid compound of hematite and limenite when heated to temperatures exceeding 1700 degrees Fahrenheit; and as a pseudomorph of magnetite.
Hematite occurs in banded iron formations, large iron deposits exposed to elemental forces that oxidize the metal, creating byproducts such as hematite. Oxidation, in its most basic form, consists of two intertwined definitional acts: In chemical terms, it is the process by which something loses electrons; and it does so via a process by which the substance combines with oxygen. In geological and mineralogical terms, this often occurs when a substance (metal or mineral) is exposed to air, heat, water, pressure, or any combination(s) thereof over extended periods time.
In the case of banded iron formations, the iron deposits are subject to weathering processes that oxidize portions of the metal, creating other substances known as oxides. One such oxide, hematite, becomes its own mineral. This weathering process involves elemental forces on an epic (and epochal) scale, particularly air and the shifting pressures of earth.
Hematite also occurs in water: in standing pools (i.e., still waters), or in mineral-infused hot springs. One famous example is Yellowstone National Park, where chemicals present in the waters spark a process called precipitation, by which come particles in the liquid recombine to form a solid. In such environments, sedimentation occurs, causing the solid material to descend to the floor of the body of water.
Hematite is also formed by fire, in the form of volcanic activity. In such processes, no water is needed for its formation. NASA’s Mars explorations have reportedly established the presence of hematite there; the mineral is likely the source of its nickname, the “Red Planet.”
So how does a metallic gray stone become responsible for a planet’s red color?
Hematite occurs, generally speaking, in two spectra of dominant colors: gray and red. Most (perhaps all) hematite actually carries, somewhere within its source deposits, streaks or bands of dark red, a product of the iron from which the mineral derives. It’s also the source of its name: The word hematite is rooted in the Greek word haima, or “blood,” a direct reference to the dark red color found in it, whether in streaks within larger gray pieces of rock, or in the color of the whole rock itself. Indeed, red hematite is the coloring agent found in ochre, a powdered pigment: the form found in red ochre is unhydrated hematite; in yellow ochre, the hydrated form is present. In its ochre manifestation, it has been used for millennia by cultures the world over as a coloring agent, in art and for other purposes.
And when I say “for millennia,” I mean on an epic scale: It’s found in mines on Elba that are said to have been mined consistently since the Etruscan Era (between the 8th and 4th Centuries B.C.E.); it has reportedly been found in red chalk mines in Hungary and Poland that date to 5000 B.C.E., in and in residual trace form in ancient graveyards dating to 80,000 years ago.; and thus far, its earliest known use dates back to so-called “Pinnacle-Point Man,” on the coast of South Africa some 164,000 years ago.
Hematite is found all over the world, wherever significant deposits of banded iron exist. One of the most significant contemporary is in the Minas Gerais region of Brazil; there are also deposits across Europe that have been mined for centuries, including Italy, Switzerland, and the specularite-heavy deposits of England’s Cumbria region. Morocco produces significant quantities of gem-grade hematite, while some of the finest crystal specimens come from the fields of South Africa’s Kalahari. Here in the U.S., the Upper Midwest is a primary source: the Menominee Range in Michigan’s aptly named Iron County, and especially the Mesabi Range in Minnesota’s eponymous Iron Range. One area of New York is known to contain hematite deposits, and it’s relatively common here in the desert Southwest. It’s also likely that it has been used, in its red ochre form as face paint and for other spiritual, cultural, and artistic purposes throughout Indian Country for millennia.
The form of hematite used in jewelry, by contrast, is the gray form. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, it was often mislabeled “gunmetal,” because of its odd gray color coupled with a metallic finish: It resembles that difficult-to-define shade that characterizes the barrels of older firearms. Toward the end of the 20th Century, we began to see movement toward reclaiming the mineral’s actual name, and it’s now fairly well established in Native smithing and gemwork.
Hematite can be both useful and difficult when it comes to gemwork: useful because it is actually stronger than iron itself; difficult because it is vastly more brittle. Its crystal structure is that of a rhombohedral lattice, and it often manifests in mineral chunks characterized both by crystal terminii and sheet-like layers. It’s probably why (genuine) hematite cabochons of any significant size are so rare; its brittle nature would make it better suited to small gems, such as accent cabochons and small beads. If you find exceptionally large cabochons or beads labeled “hematite,” it’s probably wise to ask for a mineralogical analysis to ensure that they’re not synthetic. The cabochon in the ring shown above, one from six or seven years ago, is probably the largest single cabochon Wings has ever used in a piece.
Wings uses hematite occasionally in bead form, often as accents in a larger strand of more ordinary gem beads. More often, he uses small cabochons as a focal point of more delicate pieces, or as an accent in pieces featuring larger stones. An example of the former appears immediately below, among a collection of his signature series of Warrior Woman pins from several years ago; the one at the bottom features a hematite cabochon:
An example of the latter, hematite as an accent stone, appears in the image immediately below, one of only two works currently in inventory that contain this mysteriously beautiful mineral. In this pair of earrings, the stones anchor two larger turquoise teardrops in an elemental combining of earth and air, of fire and water. From their description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
The earthy fire of hematite warms these large smooth drops of the Skystone, fallen rain solidified into another precious form. The stones are set into sterling silver bezels hand-stamped on the reverse in flowing, feminine designs reminiscent of traditional pottery and basketry patterns, then suspended from hand-made sterling silver wires. Earrings hang 1-5/16″ below wires (dimensions approximate). Reverse shown below.
Sterling silver; natural blue turquoise
$425 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Occasionally, Wings will create a piece in which the stone is neither sole focus nor accent, but one that shares the stage on equal terms with one other gem. Such is the case with my favorite piece that uses it (also by far my favorite among Wings’s Gifts series, a collection of bangles created last year for his one-man show). It can be found in the Bracelets Gallery, but its true description lies elsewhere, in a post I wrote here last autumn. As I said then, of both its role in the show and its independent identity:
Each silverwork group was related in some way to an entry on the photography portion of the show, sharing a name and particular symbolic qualities.
Among them were a series of six delicate bangle bracelets, each featuring different patterns and gemstones, yet clearly of a piece. They were arrayed, both in the exhibit and here on the site, together, under the heading Emergence, and collectively named Gifts[.]
. . .
Their photographic counterpart in the show was the final image: Emergence, an archetypal image of the Pueblo, but more, of the People themselves. In one spare and simple image, nothing more than a pine ladder propped against the wall of an ancient adobe village home, arising out of the darkness into the golden light beneath a turquoise sky, he encapsulated the people’s existential journey. Its focus was on the blessings given to the people in the act of emergence.
Gifts, its tangible counterpart, created its own metaphorical ladder reaching upward. In spirit, however, it focused on the other side of the journey upward: the obligations of thanksgiving, of generosity of spirit, that accompany that journey, and that must be a part of our ascendance into the light.
As a practical matter, when the bangles in this series were arrayed across the deer antler for display, there was no particular conscious thought given to their order. They were simply aggregated and allowed to fall randomly as they would. Strangely — or perhaps not — they seemed to find their own logical order.
Today’s featured piece is the second from the top; in the terms of the symbolic motif, it’s the penultimate rung on the ladder. It’s appropriate: Accented with precious stones that are themselves products of transformation brought about by extreme external pressures, it embodies the idea that to ascend, to emerge, to live and dance fully in the light, we, too, must transform. If we survive the stresses of the journey, if we adapt and evolve and grow, we will become something beautiful in spirit and in fact.
. . .
[The hematite is] a beautiful stone, wholly of the earth, yet formed and tempered variously by water and fire.
And regardless of shine, it remains a dark-colored stone, an earth tone, one at home in the dimness of the lower regions where we begin our journey.
I think it’s no accident that, alone among all of the bracelets in this collection, he chose a perfectly plain sterling silver round wire to serve as the bangle itself. When undergoing real transformation, adornments, things, become a distraction. More, as the journey progresses, they become unnecessary: Part of the process of emergence exists in recognizing that what one needs is among what is already provided; attempting to hoard and carry things merely weights one down with excess baggage and hinders progress.
And so, the hematite is placed on a fine plain sterling band, no distractions, no diversions. At a modest distance around the top of the slender hoop is one more stopping point, one marked by amber.
. . .
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a piece that so perfectly captures the journey: from the earth, deep within, in the dull and dark regions, upward, directly into the warmth and light of Father Sun.
On a dawn such as this, when they whole sky is hematite and passing storms leave their tears upon the earth, it’s a useful reminder that the light is there, if just beyond our sight at the moment. If we continue our journey and keep to the path, just as the day itself will transform and the sun emerge from beneath the clouds, so, too, shall we: out of the shadows, into the light.
Transformation bangle bracelet: sterling silver; hematite; amber. $325 + shipping, handling, and insurance.
Although this passage was written in October, it’s fitting for a day like today: overcast, the clouds a thin gray veil that part occasionally to bestow shafts of warm glowing light.
Hematite is not, of course, a stone that necessarily contains any particular metaphysical properties for our peoples. It does possess a small degree of magnetism, one not generally evident in most contexts, but I suspect its primary use is due largely to its unusual beauty, one that tends to defy ordinary descriptors.
Non-Native “New Age” practitioners, of course, regard it as having spiritual and healing properties that have no particular relevance or resonance for us: “grounding,” “balancing,” and “stabilizing” are all popular terms. The associations probably derive in part from its magnetic properties.
For us, it’s simply a beautiful gemstone: one that embodies properties of transformation under the force of elemental powers, yes, and one that, in its red form, gives us a ceremonial color. Those properties alone are enough to make it a desirable element in any Native jewelry collection.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
