A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

Yayu has markedly different bodies and narrative positions across the Shanhaijing. In the first Northern Mountains itinerary, Mount Shaoxian contains a beast resembling an ox, with a red body, human face, and horse feet. Its voice resembles a baby, and it eats humans. The passage does not say that the baby-like sound deliberately attracts victims. Its predation is explicit, but a particular victim or attack is not narrated.

The Inner Western Seas chapter instead describes the corpse of a human-faced, serpent-bodied Yayu near Kunlun. Six named shamans surround it, each holding an immortality drug. The sentence depicts their intervention around the corpse; its exact verb should not be silently expanded into a complete successful resurrection scene. This body is not simply the Northern passage’s bovine monster with extra snake features attached.

An earlier Inner Western paragraph identifies Wei, minister of Erfu, and Erfu as Yayu’s killers. The ruler punishes Wei by fastening his right foot, binding his hands behind him with his hair, and tying him to a tree on Mount Shushu. The Inner Northern chapter repeats a closely related killing-and-punishment account. The punishment belongs to the killer, not to Yayu’s own body. Repeated passages help establish a transmitted narrative connection while their location within the received compilation remains a textual question.

These witnesses put the name in three roles: a dangerous living mountain beast, a murdered serpent-bodied figure, and a corpse attended by medicinal shamans. They do not by themselves explain every anatomical difference through one chronological transformation. A reader may compare a possible relationship, but the cited text does not state all of the steps needed to reconstruct that biography. The profile therefore preserves the parallel descriptions and the explicit murder episode without inventing how a serpent became a red ox, or claiming that the surrounding drugs certainly restored it to life.

Ox-like bodyRed bodyHuman faceHorse feetBaby-like cryHuman-eater
01

Origins & earliest records

China; Shanhaijing Northern Mountains

02

Records & interpretation

Named primary-text transcription directly read; exact historical illustration pending.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Shanhaijing, Northern Mountains

    Anonymous received text

    First northern itinerary; Mount Shaoxian

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

Direct primary record

Shanhaijing

Northern Mountains. First northern itinerary; Mount Shaoxian

Directly read primary-text transcription. Identifying passage: 赤身、人面、馬足；是食人. Historical plate not yet matched.

Inspect the digitized plate · Source collection manifest

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Primary text transcriptionShanhaijing: Northern Mountains, received primary textResearch access: 2026-10-05
  2. Primary text transcriptionShanhaijing Inner Western Seas: Wei/Erfu killing and shaman-attended corpseResearch access: 2026-10-05
  3. Primary text transcriptionShanhaijing Inner Northern Seas: repeated killing and punishmentResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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