Pair of Mini Hematite Healing Balls, Shaman Stones + Gift Box, Moqui Marbles Set

Description

One mated pair of fresh-picked mini shaman stones (a.k.a. Moqui marbles) in a tiny gift box!  Sometimes they're prefectly round orbs, others are exquisitely peanut-shaped twins, but most fall somewhere between.  They're often hollow, while the smallest tend to be solid.
Originally used as a source of red pigment by the cultures that existed here before our own, they provide consistent fun & energy while clicking together in your hand.  An all natural fidget device, hematite balls are considered strong medicine in some circles.
The stones are very small, less than 1/4" in diameter.  The box measures only 1 7/8" x 1 1/4" x 5/8"H, so you can imagine how tiny the stones are.
These fun fellows occasionally pop out of the ancient Ozark hills here in the old Gravel Point mining area of southwestern Texas County, Missouri.  The Moqui tribe was never here, so they're not really Moqui marbles, but are basically the same thing - hematite (red) or limonite (yellowish) concretions.  These are thought to have formed underground as rainwater leeched the naturally-occuring iron from of our red-clay soil, concentrating it into solid stone & creating some very interesting little formations.  As the hills erode the shaman stones appear on the ground, but only in very specific spots, in special places that the casual observer would never recognize.  I
t's relatively easy to find broken pieces of the larger stones, and quite difficult to find a whole concretion.
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Iron, lead & zinc ore was reportedly laying on the surface of south-central Missouri when European settlers first arrived here.  USGS estimates that many tons of iron were gathered & used locally before the railroad brought civilization & surveyors to the area.
Then around the turn of the 20th century a lead & zinc boom began in the Tri-State district, 150 miles to the west.  Companies like the Cabool Mining Company, as well as enthusiastic locals, dug exploratory pits all over the area but never found any mother lode.  Timber was more profitable, and as our forests fell the Ozarks began to resemble today's landscape, with rolling pastures & herds of cattle on the savannah.
The days of gathering ore by hand were quickly forgotten, and now over a hundred years later my young son and I have taken it up as a hobby.
(the rocks outnumber people here, a billion to one!)
I intend to list several of our newfound geological & mineralogical oddities soon, so stay tuned!