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The taotie is an ancient Chinese mythological creature that was commonly emblazoned on bronze and other artifacts during the 1st millennium BCE. Taotie are one of the Four Perils in Chinese classics like the Classic of Mountains and Seas, alongside the Hundun, Qiongqi, and Taowu.
The Taotie is often represented as a motif on dings, which are Chinese ritual bronze vessels from the Shang dynasty () and Zhou dynasty dynasties (256 BCE). The design typically consists of a zoomorphic mask, described as being frontal, bilaterally symmetrical, with a pair of raised eyes and typically no lower jaw area. Some argue that the design can be traced back to jade pieces found at Neolithic sites belonging to the Liangzhu culture (3310–2250 BCE). There are notable similarities with the painted pottery of the Lower Xiajiadian culture (2200–1600 BCE).
Nonetheless, the association of the term taotie is synonymous with the motifs found on the ancient Zhou (and Shang) bronzes. The Lüshi Chunqiu (16/3a, "Prophecy") states:
The taotie on Zhou bronzes ding has a head but no body. When it eats people, it does not swallow them, but harms them.. Lüshi Chunqiu, chapter 先識 ("Prophecy"), quote: 周鼎著饕餮，有首無身，食人未咽，害及其身，以言報更也。
However, Allan believes the second part of the sentence should be translated as follows because the association between gluttony (the meaning in the Zuo Zhuan) and the use of dings for food sacrifices to the "insatiable" spirits of the dead is significant:
It devoured a man, but before it could swallow it, its own body was damaged
Li Zehou, a Chinese scholar of philosophy and intellectual history, thinks the description of the taotie in the Lüshi Chunqiu has a much deeper meaning, and that "the meaning of taotie is not about 'eating people' but making a mysterious communication between people and Heaven (gods)."
The once-popular belief that the faces depicted the animals used in the sacrificial ceremonies has now more or less been rejected (the faces of oxen, tigers, dragons, etc. may not even be meant to depict actual animals). Modern academics favor an interpretation that supports the idea that the faces have meaning in a religious or ceremonial context, as the objects they appear on are almost always associated with such events or roles. As one scholar writes "art styles always carry some social references." Shang divination inscriptions shed no light on the meaning of the taotie.
The historian , of the Southern Song dynasty, connected the Taotie motif to Chiyou, writing in the Lushi that the Yellow Emperor "cut his head off; and for this reason sages later cast his portrait on bronzes to warn the greedy."
In the Book of Imaginary Beings (1957), Jorge Luis Borges interpreted the figures as representing a dog-headed, double-bodied monster that represented greed and gluttony.
It is hard to explain what is implied in this, as so many myths concerning the taotie have been lost, but the indication that it eats people accords fully with its cruel, fearful countenance. To alien clans and tribes, it symbolized fear and force; to its own clan or tribe, it was a symbol of protection. This religious concept, this dual nature, was crystallized in its strange, hideous features. What appears so savage today had a historical, rational quality in its time. It is for precisely this reason that the savage old myths and legends, the tales of barbarism, and the crude, fierce, and terrifying works of art of ancient clans possessed a remarkable aesthetic appeal. As it was with Homer's epic poems and African masks, so it was with the taotie, in whose hideous features was concentrated a deep-seated historic force. It is because of this irresistible historic force that the mystery and terror of the taotie became the beautiful—the exalted.
Bronze motifs
Scholars have long been perplexed; Quote: "To some, the problem of meaning has seemed impenetrable" over the meaning (if any) of this theriomorphic design, and there is still no commonly held single answer. The hypotheses range from Robert Bagley's belief that the design is a result of the casting process, and rather than having an iconographic meaning was the artistic expression of the artists who held the technological know-how to cast bronze, to theories that it depicts ancient face masks that may have once been worn by either shamans or the god-kings who were the link between humankind and their deceased ancestors (Jordan Paper).
Later interpretations
During the Ming dynasty, a number of scholars compiled lists of traditional motifs seen in architecture and applied art, which eventually became codified as the Nine sons of the dragon. In the earliest known list of this type (in which the creatures are not yet called "children of the dragon", and there are 14 of them, rather than 9), given by Lu Rong (1436–1494) in his Miscellaneous records from the bean garden (菽園雜記, Shuyuan zaji), the taotie appears with a rather unlikely description, as a creature that likes water and depicted on bridges.Lu Rong's Shuyuan zaji is quoted in Yang Jingrong and Liu Zhixiong (2008): 饕餮，性好水，故立橋頭。. The full text of Shuyuan zaji can be found at a number of sites online, e.g. here: 菽園雜記 However, a well-known later list of the Nine Children of the Dragon given by Yang Shen (1488–1559) accords with both the ancient and the modern usage of the term:
The taotie likes to eat and drink; it used to appear on the surface of the dings.Yang Shen's Sheng'an Ji (升庵集) quoted in Yang Jingrong and Liu Zhixiong (2008): 饕餮，好飲食，故立於鼎蓋。
Roderick Whitfield (1993). 9780728602038, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. . ISBN 9780728602038 Luo Bi's son, , expanded on this further, writing that:
In popular culture
The Tao Tie (spelled as "Tao Tei") are the primary antagonists in the 2016 historical-fantasy epic film The Great Wall. In the film, they are depicted as green-skinned quadrupedal alien creatures, with shark-like teeth, eyes located on their shoulders, and the Tao Tie motif visible on their heads. They are shown living in a eusocial hive similar to ants, from which they attack the capital of China every 60 years to collect food to feed their queen.
See also
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