Taotie Pinyin: [tāo tiè]?, a ferocious and gluttonous beast in legend. The Taotie is a mysterious monster in ancient Chinese myths and legends, also known as the Roe Owl. According to the ancient book "The Classic of Mountains and Seas: The Second Classic of the North," its characteristics are: its shape is like a sheep body with a human face, eyes under the armpits, and tiger teeth and human hands. Its name can be compared to a greedy person, and people generally call this kind of person "Gourmet". "Zuo Zhuan" records that Taotie is the son of Jinyun family, not one of the nine sons of Long.
"Taotie" is a ferocious beast in ancient Chinese legends. Its biggest feature is that it can be eaten. It is an imaginary mysterious monster. This kind of monster has no body because it is so good at eating that it eats its own body. It only has a big head and a big mouth. It is very greedy and finally ate itself. It is a symbol of greed, so it is often used to describe gluttonous or greedy people.
The head shape is often used as decoration on ancient bronzes, which is called the Taotie pattern. The so-called Taotie pattern is a common pattern on bronze vessels and is considered to depict the face of the Taotie animal. This kind of decoration appears on the jades of the Liangzhu Culture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, but the Taotie pattern is more common on bronzes, especially tripods. It can be seen as early as the bronzes of the Erlitouxia Culture. Taotie has related images in online games, online novels, and film and television works based on Chinese legends or fantasy martial arts.
The Taotie pattern uses "strange things in mountains and rivers" as its theme, but these strange things are so elusive that they are elusive. Ancient craftsmen, unlike the painters in the prosperous civilization, had the ingenuity of "loving pictures of ghosts and evil dogs and horses". The manuscripts they adopted at first were all loyal to realism, and gradually they were simplified from realism; so the Taotie pattern was adopted Most of the objects and images are derived from common birds and beasts, or are closely related to human beings. The Taotie pattern is the main pattern on the face, with secondary patterns on the feet, body and tail, and the thunder pattern is the ground pattern. The complete main pattern is composed of the crown, nose, eyes, eyebrows, horns, ears, mouth, teeth and other functions.
Extended information:
Taotie Pattern Culture
Taotie is a legendary evil beast that is extremely gluttonous. It is so greedy that it even eats up its own body. Therefore, its shape generally has a head but no body. In ancient Chinese mythology, Taotie is one of the four evil spirits. Legend has it that the Yellow Emperor fought against Chi You, and Chi You was beheaded, and his head fell to the ground and turned into a glutton.
The animal face decorations on Shang and Zhou bronzes reflected people's worship of natural gods at that time, so they had a mysterious and solemn atmosphere. However, there are different opinions on the specific meaning of these mysterious decorations. Bronze ware embodies the consciousness of "respecting gods" among the ancestors of the Yin and Shang dynasties. In the Zhou Dynasty, it developed into "respecting heaven and ancestors", forming a symbol of the trinity of religion, political power, and clan power.
Most scholars believe that the rulers of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties used the "monstrous and terrifying" bronze decorations to express the "mysterious majesty" of royal power and to express their intimidating possession of political power, status and wealth. The slave owners placed all their majesty, will, honor, fantasy and hope in these horrific and ferocious decorations. Mr. Zhang Guangzhi also believes that "bronze is politics and power," but he believes that these animal patterns are not for intimidation, but for communication with gods.
Due to the low level of productivity in primitive society, people attribute many unexplainable phenomena to the power of gods. People are full of awe of gods, beg gods, please gods, and use divine power to control things. Therefore, wizards who "can communicate with gods" have a very high status, and the wizard class has become the original imperial ruling class.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Taotie