Page 117 - Deydier UNDERSTANDING CHINESE ARCHAIC BRONZES

avaricious and gluttonous creature, taotie 饕餮 had an insatiable
appetite for human beings. He eventually became so gluttonous that
he was unable to digest all that he devoured, until one day a human
victim got caught in his throat and he choked, with the result that his
lower body gradually disappeared, leaving only his big greedy face, a
fierce reminder to all of the ill, self-harming effects of avarice, gluttony
and wastefulness.

Interestingly enough, the individual definitions of the two Chinese
characters that make up the name of the mythological creature taotie
饕餮 are, in themselves, quite indicative of the multi-faceted meaning
behind this ancient decorative element. The character tao 饕 which is
formed of the radical shi 食 or ‘eat’ superimposed with the character hao
號, meaning by itself ‘crying out’ or roaring like the wind, has a double
meaning, the first being violent, wild, raging, ferocious and the second,
especially when used in combination with tie 餮, being ‘greedy’, both as
regards food and possessions. The second character in the phrase tie
餮, is also composed of the radical shi 食 ‘eat’ but is superimposed by
the character 殄 tian, ‘annihilate, exterminate’ and means ‘eat greedily’
or ‘annihilate by eating’.

Thus, the combined meanings of the two characters tao 饕 and tie 餮
suggest a violent, fear-inspiring creature with a voracious, self-harming
appetite! And the taotie 饕餮 motif’s prominence on the sacred ritual
vessels used to worship the spirits and ancestors served not only to dispel
bad luck and scare off inauspicious spirits that might interfere with the
efficacy of the ritual being performed, but also to warn all participants,
and especially the nobility of the Shang dynasty, of the ill-effects of
gluttony and wastefulness and the political consequences of such
behavior, since the Shang’s own claim to heaven-granted legitimacy
rested on the correctness of its role in overthrowing the previous Xia 夏
dynasty because of the profligacy and wasteful extravagance of Jie 桀,
the cruel and despotic final ruler of the ill-fated dynasty.

Taotie 饕餮, An All-encompassing Term

From the Song 宋 dynasty (960 – 1279 A.D.) up to recently, the term
taotie 饕餮 has been used indiscriminately to describe almost all animal

Jia, Erligang period (circa 17 /16 – circa 14 centuries B.C.)
th
th
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Height: 34 cm – Meiyintang Collection n° 167.
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