(sigh)

[wombat1138]

http://stores.ebay.com/wombat1138?refid=store , items 290117473306, 290117475350, 290117475578, and nineteen other listings for various magatama; first written by me for that purpose several years ago:

Nowadays, most people think a magatama is an off-center glass seed bead. But originally, the term belonged to "curved jewels" (the literal translation) like the ones here: stones carved into a comma-like shape whose significance is lost to the ages. Different sources claim it's meant to resemble a drop of water, a sprouting seed, a tongue of flame, or even an embryo-- maybe all of the above, for all I know. Whatever its origin, the magatama has always had a special status in Japan; even now, one of the sacred Imperial treasures is a magatama necklace handed down from the ancestral sun-goddess Amaterasu, or so they say.

http://www.nuimana.com/spellsb.html , about a third of the way down the page:

Magatama-shaped Crystal (Japanese): Most people think a magatama is an off-center glass seed bead. But originally, the term belonged to "curved jewels" (the literal translation): stones carved into a comma-like shape whose significance is lost to the ages. Different sources claim it's meant as mimicry of a drop of water, a sprouting seed, a tongue of flame, or even an embryo -- maybe all of the above, for all I know. Whatever its origin, the magatama has always had a special status in Japan. Even in Modern-day Japan, one of the sacred Imperial treasures is considered to be a magatama necklace handed down from the sun-goddess Amaterasu.

After some hunting around on that site, I eventually found an email address and have requested a proper citation for my text. We'll see if they actually respond. At the moment, not quite feeling incensed/bored enough to rampage around there looking for additional text stolen from other sources; however, subject to change.