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XIV.—Some Account of Charms, Talismans, and Felicitous Appendages worn 
about the person, or hung up in houses, Sc. used by the Chinese.* By Joun 
Rozert Morrison, Esq., Cor. M.R.A.S. 
Read 2d July 1831. 
Charms may be divided into three kinds : 
I. A kind of talisman, worn generally about the person, but sometimes 
also hung up on the walls of houses. 
II. Little sacred books, which are suspended from the girdle in small 
silk bags, and hence called Pei-king, ‘“‘ Girdle-scriptures.” 
III. Spells, called Foo-chow. 
I. Talismans.—Under this head are arranged some charms which are not 
properly speaking talismans, but for which no other generic name could be 
found. 
1. Tséen-héen, ‘‘ Money-swords.” These consist of a number of old 
copper coins called cash, strung together in the form of a sword, and kept 
straight by a piece of iron running up the middle. They are hung at the 
heads of beds, that the supposed presence of the monarchs under whose 
reigns the cash were coined may have the effect of keeping away ghosts 
and evil spirits. They are used chiefly in houses or rooms where persons 
have committed suicide or suffered a violent death. Sick persons use them, 
also, in order to hasten their recovery. 
2. Pih keaso, “ The hundred family-lock.” To obtain this a man goes 
round among his friends, and having obtained from one hundred different 
persons three or four of the copper coins called cash, each, he himseif adds 
whatever money is requisite, and has a lock made, which he hangs on his 
child’s neck, for the purpose of locking him, as it were, to life, and making 
the one hundred persons sureties for his attaining old age. 
* A series of specimens of the articles described in this paper was presented by Mr. Morrison 
to the Royal Asiatic Society at the same time with this paper, and is now arranged in the 
Museum of the Society. 
