Tanzanite - The rarest gem on earth you can buy
Though modern day gemoglogists only discovered Tanzanite in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro in 1967 the Maasai people of Tanzania have woven a rich tapestry of folklore, divine origin stories, and spiritual traditions around its striking blue-violet gemstone.
The most famous legend surrounding tanzanite explains how the stone got its intense blue hue. Maasai lore says the earth’s surface was once covered only in dull, brown rocks. A powerful bolt of divine lightning sent from their Creator Enkai, struck the Merelani Hills, triggering a massive transformation. When the fires died down, the Maasai herders returning with their cattle discovered that the divine lightning bolt was a gift from Heaven and the fire had magically transformed the drab brown rocks into shimmering, radiant blue-violet gems.
Another localized piece of folklore follows a Maasai leader named Queen Ayanda. During a devastating period of drought and suffering where the land turned completely barren, the tribe's King made a perilous trek up Mount Kilimanjaro to plead with the gods. He never returned.
His daughter, Ayanda, took over to care for her people. She was later visited by a dream where her father led her to a vast, violet-blue lake. Believing the dream was a message of hope, Ayanda set out across the arid plains and eventually found a hidden, deep blue-violet body of water in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, saving her people from starvation and drought.
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