Zouwu

Benevolent Beast

Five-colored beast of Lin family land that travels a thousand li a day and symbolizes benevolent rule.

Zouwu is the great beast of the Lin family’s land in the Shanhaijing, large as a tiger, covered in five colors, with a tail longer than its body, able to run a thousand li in a day. Later readers identified it with the virtuous Zouyu praised in the Book of Odes — an animal that never kills, whose appearance signals a ruler’s benevolence.