The search for real hematite
Peace Chaplet: Real Hematite Beads
Hematite–the real stuff–is an interesting stone with very ancient associations with humanity. Scratch it on a rock and it leaves a red streak. It’s been used as a pigment and for body ornamentation (think body paint or war paint) for thousands of years and was well known to the ancient Egyptians. What it actually is, is iron ore. It’s as tough and hard as iron, but far more brittle. It’s also fairly easy to cut, carve, and make into various beads, shapes, facets, and ornaments. Another property is that it’s anti-ferromagnetic–unless you heat it to temperatures that aren’t normally available outside a laboratory. That’s an important little tidbit to note. It’s not magnetic.
For some reason that I don’t quite understand, the market is flooded with cheap, cheezy, bogus hematite–manmade stuff. It’s uniformly gray and shiny, it cuts into glittering facets and faces, and New Age sorts of people love it–because it’s magnetic!! Zounds! The UltraMegaBeadStore is loaded with fake hematite. They call it something else, but it’s fake hematite. Why do I have trouble understanding this? Because the real stuff does not seem to me to be difficult to find or rare. It’s iron ore.
Once you’ve seen and worked with the real stuff, fake hematite becomes a no-go, and nothing else will do. The genuine hematite beads I’ve seen recently have all had wonderful, earthy inclusions that look like quartz to me. They’ve also been a much warmer, more genuine color than the robot-gunmetal-gray of the fakery. They have a slight reddish or brownish cast–and I suspect that since it’s iron we’re dealing with, the color comes when the metal oxidizes–or rusts. I have a strand on my worktable waiting to be made up into a peace chaplet similar to the one shown here. They’re going to be a joy to work with, and I can’t wait to get started.
Maybe we’ll have to start going to Mars to get our hematite. It is, after all, the Red Planet, and NASA informs us that hematite in various forms is abundantly present there. Who knows what other wonderful minerals and gems we’ll find when we finally get to visit the Red Planet in person! Meanwhile, find yourself some genuine hematite (hints: Rio Grande, Limabeads). Use it to build a rosary that will give glory to its Creator.
