White Copper Southern Dipper Pattern Square Pendant

The six stars of the Southern Dipper are the Dipper mansion, in the constellation Sagittarius, six stars laid out in the shape of a dipper. Folk saying has it that the Southern Dipper records birth and the Northern Dipper records death; in the Records of Searching for Spirits, Guan Lu reads Yan Chao's face and tells him to pray to the Southern Dipper for long life, and the story travelled widely. Daoism counts the Southern Dipper among the powers that extend life, and each of the six stars has a name; the points on this plaque follow that arrangement. In Daoist books each name governs a particular office, and the plaque cuts no names, only the points.

Six points are set on the square plaque, two above and four below, joined into the shape of a dipper. Lines run between the points according to the star positions rather than being drawn at will. The other face carries a single character whose strokes are written over one another, so that it cannot be read. The edges of the plaque are straight, the four corners are drawn in slightly, and the hole is at the top. Look south on a summer night and the handle points west, and the six stars joined up make a figure a size smaller than the Northern Dipper. The lines join only neighbouring points and never cut across the middle, which is what makes it read as a star chart.

The character on the other face is a taboo name. A Daoist taboo name is not read like an ordinary character: the name of the deity is broken apart, written in layers and ringed about, made into a shape that only people inside the tradition recognise. Names for extending life are one class of these, and cutting one into a plaque is a way of hiding the name inside the character. Being unable to read it is normal; such characters were never meant for outsiders. A ring of circles is set around it, and the circles are broken rather than closed. The strokes crowd together, and after looking for a while the whole thing begins to resemble a pattern.

Pendant and necklace are made separately, each in brass and in white copper. Brass is warm and looks older on a dark cord; white copper is cool and looks clean on leather. The necklace version comes with a chain and hangs the plaque at the centre of the chest; the pendant version takes a cord of your own, at whatever length you like. A square plaque reads better against a round chain than against a square one, the round and the square setting each other off. The chain on the necklace is a fixed length and goes on over the head.

The six points are raised and the connecting lines are sunk, so a finger finds each one in turn. The raised points are the first thing to wear flat, and once they are flat the star positions blur, until it is hard to tell six from five. Take the piece off for showering and sleeping to cut down the rubbing. The taboo-name face is densely stroked, and dust in the lines comes out with a soft brush rather than a needle. Worn against the skin it is cold for a moment in winter and warms up soon enough.