Hou 犼 (hǒu)

Watercolor and Alcohol Markers, 2020
Wen Ting Dong 董文婷

Hou is a beast from Chinese legends that are both known to be a celestial and godly beast and a savage fierce beast. Hou has the horn of a deer, head of a camel, ears of a cat, eyes of a shrimp, mouth of a mule, neck of a snake, body of a serpent, scales like a koi, front limbs like eagle claws, and back limbs of a tiger. Legends claim that this beast existed since the creation of the world and was extremely powerful but too frisky and curious, causing great harm to humans. The ancient gods of creation had to join forces to fight him but they were unable to defeat him and resorted to sealing his soul with a spell. But Hou’s soul was too strong and eventually escaped his body and part of it possessed the body of Hanba who later became a powerful zombie. Then in the possessed body of Hanba, Hou evolved into the most powerful zombie in the Ming dynasty where it was able to regain its beast form. It’s definitely agreed upon that Hou is an extremely fierce beast. It’s known to eat humans, but most striking is that it is also known to prey on dragons,  and its favorite food is dragon brains. But oddly a more glamorous duty of Hou is the protector of the imperial family, especially the Emperor which Hou also supervises in his duties. This beast’s name literally means “roar”, which is what it will do if the Emperor was not performing his duties, hence the name. Its offspring, however, is Qilin, which definitely has a better reputation than Hou did.
Fun Fact - Today in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, there still stands stone carvings of Hou on the top of the four main pillars. The two facing outside of the imperial palace were in charge of roaring to the emperor when he stayed away from the palace too long, two facing inside of the palace will roar at the Emperor if he was wasting his time on entertainment to go back to his duties.