White Copper Four Symbols Yuan Dou Pendant

The four images are not simply four animals. The twenty-eight mansions divide into four groups of seven, marked by the Azure Dragon, the White Tiger, the Vermilion Bird and the Black Tortoise, and matched to east, south, west and north, and to the four seasons as well. The Azure Dragon’s seven lie in the east — Horn, Neck, Root, Room, Heart, Tail, Winnowing Basket — and joined up they make the shape of a dragon. Stars joined in the sky and named on earth: the correspondence has been in use for two thousand years. The stars have not changed. The names have turned over several times.

The pendant sets the four images at the four directions with the Dipper at the center. The Dipper here follows the northern constellation: four stars of the bowl in a square and three of the handle pointing away. The two words yuan dou are explained in more than one way. Some take them as the original source of the Dipper, some connect them with the Doumu line, and I will not settle the question for anyone. In form it is a dipper with four beasts around it. How the name is read does not affect the wearing. The direction of the handle turns once a year, and it keeps step with the seasons.

The four beasts have a fixed order: Azure Dragon to the left, White Tiger to the right, Vermilion Bird in front, Black Tortoise behind. The plaque is round, so front, back, left and right become top, bottom, left and right: the Dragon on the left, the Tiger on the right, the Bird above, the Tortoise below. The Black Tortoise is a turtle and a snake entwined, and in the cutting the shell and the snake have to be kept apart or they blur into one mass. The Bird’s tail feathers are the longest element and hang all the way to the edge. The Tiger’s stripes are only a few cuts; more than that and it becomes a cat. No clouds are cut between the beasts, since the empty ground is what keeps them from crowding.

Two versions, gold and silver. The silver is close to the natural color of white copper, with the hollows dark and the outlines of the beasts harder; the gold is warm and reads as a block of yellow from a distance. The diameter is small, each beast takes a corner and the dipper holds the middle, so the composition is tight. Tight has its advantages: there are many elements and there is still something to find after looking a while. In dim light the gold version lets the edges of the beasts run together, and it has to be moved into better light. The silver goes gray in daylight and the gold goes red, and set side by side the difference is plain.

The face carries a lot of information, four beasts and a dipper, and the lines are crowded. Do not look at it too closely; step back and the directions of the four images come out. Copper fears knocks, and the Bird’s tail is the outermost point, so put the piece away by itself. Choose a thin cord, because a thick one covers the upper edge and hides the Bird’s head. When the white copper darkens, the Black Tortoise section goes black first, and the grid of the shell comes out by contrast. The order of the four is east, south, west, north, and back around to east.