Moqui Marbles or Shaman Stones

[educatedindian]

Got a request about this. Not hard to guess the correct answer, but we need to find something definite we can point to. The request asks if there's anything to Moqui marbles widely sold on Nuage site. Nuage claims are that the stones are always either male or female and house spirits of Hopi ancestors.

"If they are indeed sacred to Native American tribes and linked to lore regarding ancestors, then they should most certainly not be dug out of the ground and sold the world over. If the story that they are part of the ancestral lore of tribes like the Hopi is new age woo, then its yet another form in which Native American spirituality is being exploited and that should be exposed."

What I find online so far is just a lot of stones for sale sites.

[Sparks]

What I find online so far is just a lot of stones for sale sites.

I found this site, which states at the top: "Moqui Balls not for sale.":

https://moquiballstory.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/about-moqui-balls/

Mysterious Healings

The Shaman Indians used Moqui Balls for their Shamanic healing such as visioning journeys, meditation, and spiritual rituals to contact their dead. In addition; moqui balls were originally used for physical pain, emotional imbalance, and other healing purposes. They are also uses for energy building, and general balancing. For pain, you place the stones on the body part that is hurting you.

If you hold a round (female) moqui ball in your left hand and a UFO-saucer shaped (male) moqui in your right hand and either, sit or lay down, this will clear away any negative thoughts you might be having. You will feel a calming-relaxing feeling that overcomes you.

The Shaman Indian and the Hopi Indian’s children played marble games with the moqui balls. The older shamans placed the moqui balls in slings and used them for hunting.

Moqui balls have high protective energies because of their ability to absorb bad – negative energy and replace it with strong positive – useful balanced energy.

That part is very vague, very New Age, and who the heck were the "Shaman Indians"?

Well, at least they point to factual geological articles:

Iron oxide concretions
The Navajo Sandstone is also well known among rockhounds for its hundreds of thousands of iron oxide concretions. They are believed to represent an extension of Hopi Native American traditions regarding ancestor worship ("moqui" translates to "the dead" in the Hopi language). Informally, they are called "Moqui marbles" after the local proposed Moqui Native American tribe. Thousands of these concretions weather out of outcrops of the Navajo Sandstone within south-central and southeastern Utah within an area extending from Zion National Park eastward to Arches and Canyonland national parks. They are quite abundant within Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

My emphasis. Unfortunately, the bolded statement is not referenced to sources.

The site also links to: http://www.rocksandminerals.com/specimens/moqui.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concretion  &  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrite

[Sparks]

I found another, very interesting geological description:

https://www.livescience.com/47936-how-moqui-marbles-form.html

This one also hints to "Hopi tradition", also without any reference:

Link to the past

"Moqui" is a Hopi word that means "dear departed ones." According to Hopi tradition, spirits of the dead would play with the marbles at night, leaving them behind in the morning to reassure the living that they were happy in the afterlife.

Just as the moqui marbles embody the Hopi idea of life after death, the iron stones are links to ancient environments on the Colorado Plateau. […]