amulet

An amuletic pendant, Japan. The pendant is in the form of a pair of raised wooden open sandals, geta, with straps of red cord through which a length of purple cord passes for suspension. The practice of using shoes as amulets may derive from Chinese practice. The Chinese word for shoe, xie, is a homonym for ‘evil spirit’.

Collection Information

These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.

The database sometimes uses language taken from historical documents to help research, which may now appear outdated and even offensive. The database also includes information on objects that are considered secret or sacred by some communities.

If you have any further information about objects in our collections or can suggest corrections to our information, please contact us: enquiry@horniman.ac.uk