- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Pair of plaster pigeon figures [.1,.2], amulets against choking, with a small paper bag [.3] with inscription. [El.B 19/11/2013]
- Cultural groups
- Japanese
- Person
- Field collector Walter Leo Hildburgh
- PRM source Wellcome Institute
- PRM source Wellcome Historical Medical Museum
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1907
- Date collected
- 1907
- Acquisition information
- Loaned: 1985
- Materials and processes
- Material Plaster, Material Pigment, Material Paper Plant, Process Painted, Process Printed
- Dimensions
- Width: max 9 mm, Width: max 38 mm, Length: max 20 mm, Length: max 52 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1985.53.687.1 Accession number: 1985.53.687.2 Accession number: 1985.53.687.3 Other numbers: 07 42
- Research and responses
The inscription on this object was transcribed and translated by Fusa McLynn who volunteered at the Museum in 2013 as: (Printed on the paper bag) “Asakusa Nakamise Isekan hanbai”, Sold at a shop called Isekan in Nakamise of Asakusa Nakamise is a street to Senso-ji temple lined with small shops. [FB 11/03/2015]
- Associated publications
- Illustrated in colour in the pamphlet accompanying the Reading Room displays at the Welcome Collection with the caption “Majinai pigeons Plaster Japan RRa0239/1985.53.687 Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. AT the Asakusa Temple in Tokyo, tiny plaster pigeons are sold as a majinai (or charm) to protect against choking.” [FB 15/8/2016] Illustrated in colour on page 205 in ‘Reading Room Companion consisting of a rare and valuable collection of diverse curiosities acquired by and for Henry Wellcome with a great variety of books’ Written and compiled by Anna Faherty published in 2014 by the Wellcome collection, with the caption “Anti-choking pigeons Japan RRa00239/1985.53.687 Pitt Rivers Museum In Hildburgh’s time, small representations of pigeons were commonly found at the Asakusa Temple in Tokyo, where they were sold as a majinai (or charm) against choking. Setting them out at every meal, the diner would offer each item of food to the birds with their chopsticks before eating it. Hildburgh attributed their ‘power’ to the fact that live pigeons have very large throats and are never choked by their food. More pragmatically, he also pointed out that taking the time to offer food to the birds would force people to eat slowly, therefore reducing the risk of choking. “…If a man carries a Planets Seal, or a Ring, or some Part of a Beast, believing strongly, that it will help him to obtain his Love; or to keep him from danger of hurt in Fight; or to prevail in a Sute; &c, it may make him more Active, and Industrious; and again, more Confident and Persisting, than otherwise he would be.” English Philosopher Francis Bacon in Sylva Sylvarum, 1626.” [FB 15/8/2016]
Search terms: Religion, Figure, Writing, Amulet, Bird Figure, Inscription