Amulet AtlasWords
Amulet, talisman, charm, ta'wiz, omamori, nazar — and what each one actually says.
Arabic (3)
A word that is a number. Five — for the fingers — is what the object is called in Arabic, and hamesh, also five, in Hebrew usage.
A word for a glance that has ended up as the name of a glass disc. Naẓar in Arabic is sight, surveillance, attention.
The word across the Muslim world for a worn written charm and, by extension, for the object it is folded into: a pendant, letters carved on metal, a framed prayer.
Chinese (1)
960 CE to now
One character, printed on a square of red paper and pasted at the entrance, usually turned upside down.
English (12)
1450 CE to now
The English cover-word for a protective object, and the word this atlas is written in.
500 BCE to now
The scholar's adjective, and nobody's own. No wearer calls a bead apotropaic.
1300 CE to now
A word that has been three things in sequence and is still all three. A charm is a said or sung formula; a charm is a small object worn against harm or for luck; charm…
1610 CE to now
A European word, applied from outside, to objects Europeans met on the West African coast and could not file.
1860 CE to now
In central West Africa — Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Cameroon, Ghana — juju names a body of practice and the objects and spells inside it. In looser English it means magical…
1480 CE to now
The word the whole 'good luck charm' category hangs on in English, and a late arrival that came in through a card game.
1867 CE to now
The only word in this batch whose modern sense is a job. A mascot is a human, an animal or an object thought to bring luck, or anything that stands for a group with a…
1920 CE to now
In Hoodoo, the African American spiritual tradition, mojo is both the conjure work and the bag that holds it — Wikipedia's article calls a mojo bag a prayer in a bag, a…
1500 CE to now
An English word for an amulet worn hung round the neck, defined by the hanging rather than by the shape or the material. It is close to dead.
700 CE to now
The English verb for what the carriers of every object in this atlas say it does. Ward off: fend off, repel, turn aside.
Fon (1)
1658 CE to now
Two religions and one misspelling. Vodún is the religion of Aja, Ewe and Fon people in Benin, Togo, Ghana and Nigeria, with priesthoods, initiatory societies and the…
French (1)
A word that names a small cloth sack worn on the person, holding Qur'anic verses written on paper and a set number of small objects.
Japanese (1)
The Japanese word for a shrine or temple charm, and a rare case of a name that says who is doing the protecting rather than what the thing is made of.
Latin (1)
100 CE to now
A word that was an object. Written out as a shrinking triangle on a piece of parchment and hung at the neck, it was a prescription — the earliest surviving instruction…
Sanskrit (1)
1000 BCE to now
A machine. That is the word's plain sense and it has never gone away: yantra is an instrument, a thing built to hold and to do work.