Once in a while, Wings will choose to use a stone that is not indigenous to this land, one that seems, at first glance, wholly European in origin. This is not uncommon with Native artisans, who do as artists the world over do, and interpret their visions through beauty in a wide variety of forms and from a diversity of sources. But sometimes, a stone chosen for one reason will prove to have deeper links to our own peoples and histories and existence. So it is with today’s gemstone, one that truly appears “born to the purple,” but with very different roots indeed.
It’s charoite.
Charoite belongs to the silicate family; its chemical composition includes potassium, calcium, silicon, hydrogen, and oxygen. it is classified as a rare mineral, due to its method of formation and its appearance (thus far, at least) in only one very specific region of the world.
The stone is said to have been first “discovered” (in other words, for modern sensibilities) sometime in the 1940s, but then only by locals. It was not “described” — i.e., analyzed in chemical and mineralogical terms, with the results published publicly — until 1978, which is generally accepted as the date at which the rest of the world became aware of its existence. Because of this, New Age “crystal” practitioners label it a “stone of the New Age,” and believe that it has specific qualities intended for use at this particular time in the world’s history. In actuality, I would not be surprised to learn that it has probably been well-known for centuries, perhaps for millennia, to those people indigenous to the area where it is found.
So where does this beautifully, mysteriously swirled stone come from?
Siberia.
Specifically, one region of Siberia: the Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia, in the far eastern reaches of what is once again Russia. The Chara River, which flows through the area’s dunes and mountains, is what gives charoite its name. Yakutia is named for the Yakut people, an indigenous people ethnically related to Turks; their modern name reportedly is a corruption of the Turkish zhaqut, meaning “ruby” or “red.”
They were not, of course, the first people to inhabit this region; they migrated to the area in what is estimated to be the 13th or 14th Century, overtaking and displacing the smaller groups of indigenous PaleoSiberian populations scattered across the area. By the 1600s, those indigenous groups are alleged to have been virtually wholly assimilated into the larger Yakut population. The Yakut victory would be short-lived, however: During that same century, Imperial Russia began its conquest of the area, aided and abetted by one Yakut king who made his own pact with the imperialist devil in hopes of wiping out competing indigenous populations (and their would-be leaders). Within a century, however, ordinary Russians had begun colonizing the region, and today the region’s population is a mixture of European and Central Asian ethnicities.
Does this history sound familiar? It should. So, too, should the name of the people: Red.
It makes it perhaps appropriate that, among the vast array of stones non-indigenous to his own lands available to him for use, Wings should have chosen this particular stone. Rare, long known locally but only relatively recently exploited by outsiders, a jewel of a colonized and displaced population — and a population, so the anthropologists tell us, who are ethnically perhaps among our closest cousins.
Charoite is unusual in geologic terms, as well. It’s not simply that it occurs (so far as is currently known, anyway) in only one location; within that location, it occurs only in a very specific way.
Charoite occurs in a geologic formation called the Murunskii Massif. A massif is a very specific type of formation: It’s a section of the earth’s crust itself that possesses particular characteristics. Among these traits is flexibility, due to fault lines and what are known as flexures (sections of the crust that have been bent by forces that include weight and pressure, such as the movement of glacial ice, over time on a geologic scale). Because of the presence of these fault lines and flexures, when that section of crust moves, the material of which it is composed maintains its internal mineral structure. Such movement, over time on an epic (and epoch) scale, creates mountains, and the word is sometimes used to refer to the main mass that constitutes a mountain created by this process. To give you some idea of the scale of a massif, it is smaller than a tectonic plate (remember those from third-grade science?), but is categorized, according to the Wiki page, as the “fourth[-]largest driving force in geomorphology” (the study of the earth’s surface structures, as formed by physical and chemical processes and forces). And, yes, the word is indicative: It’s a French word, translating to the English “massive,” and it fits.
At any rate, even within massif mineralogical formations, charoite seems to be unique. One of the materials a massif produces is known as a syenite, an intrusive igneous rock, coarse in grain and lacking (entirely or almost entirely) in quartz. Quartz is reportedly the second-most common mineral on the planet, so its absence here is notable. Syenites occur over geologic time, as well, usually as a product of the melting of granite (and occasionally, as the precipitate of cooled magma). In the Murunskii Massif, this syenite has intruded from the crust into local deposits of limestone, creating what is known as a metasomatite composed of potassium feldspar.
In chemical and mineralogical and geologic terms, all of this is rare enough. But charoite’s color (or, rather, colors, plural) puts it in a whole other category altogether. According to the literature, charoite appears very unassuming on the surface: dull brown and gray earth tones, nothing to distinguish it, particularly, from the ordinary rock surrounding it. But on the inside, it’s a stone worthy of royalty.
Charoite’s essential color is purple. Very purple. Purple in multiple shades, sometimes all swirled into the same chunk of stone, palest lavender and lilac and pure purple and violet and dark royal plum. It also contains inclusions that contrast subtly with the main color, underscoring its beauty: whorls of white and whirling lines deep coppery reddish brown. The oval stone in the turtle pin immediately above exhibits these coppery inclusions at lower left and upper right, surrounded by pale lavender fading into deep plum in the center.
Charoite appears opaque, but its translucence is apparent in its crystal form (i.e., uncabbed and unpolished). It’s also characterized by a nearly pearlescent effect, sometimes actual chatoyance, and it captures and refracts light beautifully. The cabochon in the Turtle pin featured at the top of this post is a good example of this pearlescent effect, the purple spiraling with white in a pinwheel effect, a look of liquid opalescence.
Compared to many of the gems Wings uses in his work, it is not particularly expensive — it’s possible to find high-grade cabochons of a decently sizeable carat weight for well under three figures. (It’s also possible to find cheaper-grade calibrated cabs in bulk at far, far lower prices yet, but those are not the calibre of stone Wings uses for feature pieces and commissioned works).
It is considered a valuable stone, however. At one time (and recently, too), it was used explicitly in lieu of money: After World War II, the Soviet Union used slabs of charoite in great bulk to pay off a portion of its war debt; there is reportedly a vault in Budapest, Hungary, that is to this day filled with the stone.
Wings began working with the stone for one very specific reason: the two turtles shown here. They were commissioned by a dear friend for her husband, for whom Turtle holds special significance, and whose favorite color is purple. She did not want a translucent stone like amethyst (and to get the size needed in the quality and intensity of color needed, amethyst would likely have been cost-prohibitive anyway). We searched for just the rights stone, and found the charoite cabs shown here. Both required additional lapidary work: Wings needed to cut them to size and shape, and to preserve the best aspects of the stone’s swirling mystical matrix while doing so. The result was the pair of turtles featured here, with a small slab of the stone remaining, shown immediately below:
This slab shows charoite in all its royal glory: darkest violet and plum shades touched with bronze, every gradation of lilac and lavender and thistle fading into swirls of pearly opalescent white, the whole touched here and there with warm coppery reds and golden browns. It is, at the moment, the only charoite remaining in his inventory of stones; if it speaks to you, and you’d like to inquire about commissioning a piece made with it, simple use the Contact form at left.
As noted above, it has been adopted as a “crystal of the New Age,” with all sorts of wondrous powers imputed to it: a stone allegedly of universal love and healing, of dreams and visions and enlightenment, of political prisoners and past lives. To us, of course, it’s none of those things — indeed, despite the fact that Native jewelers and silversmiths regularly use stones indigenous to lands other than our own, I have never seen a Native artisan use charoite . . . except for Wings.
Perhaps he was drawn to this stone because of its story, because of its connection with a migratory and colonized indigenous people, ethnic cousins of our own. It’s appropriate that he should choose a stone in the purple of leadership that is inextricably, timelessly linked with a people called Red.
~ 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.
