OxOrigin

The character “牛” (ox) is one of the oldest pictographs in the Chinese writing system. It already appears in Shang-dynasty oracle-bone inscriptions, where it is a frontal depiction of an ox’s head: the upper section shows two upward-curving horns, the middle a pair of upright ears, and the lower section the outline of the animal’s face. The entire form is simple yet forceful and instantly recognizable as the head of an ox.

By the Western Zhou period, the bronze-inscription form of “牛” had changed slightly: the horns became more exaggerated and curved more strongly upward, while the ears were gradually simplified, though the frontal structure of the ox’s head remained intact. In Qin small-seal script, the strokes became smoother and more standardized, while the horn form remained clearly recognizable. By the Han dynasty, clerical script flattened and abstracted the strokes further, gradually moving away from direct pictorial representation and toward the square form familiar today. After the Northern and Southern Dynasties, regular script became standardized, and the shape of the character “牛” became essentially identical to that of the modern graph.

In terms of character formation, “牛” is an independent pictograph: its form directly depicts the most distinctive part of an ox—its head and horns. In ancient Chinese writing, most animal pictographs depict the full body or a side silhouette, but “牛” uniquely adopts a frontal close-up of the head. This unusual visual perspective reflects the special place the ox occupied in the minds of early Chinese peoples: the ox was the most important sacrificial animal, and the frontal presentation of its head was one of the most solemn and sacred images in ritual ceremonies.

Within the Chinese writing system, several hundred characters use “牛” as a radical, covering nearly every aspect associated with cattle—from breeds, such as 牦 and 犟, to body parts, such as 犄 and 牾, movements, such as 牴 and 犒, and uses, such as 牺牲 and 牢. Among them, the characters 牺, 牲, and 牢 carry particularly rich cultural implications:

* 牺: composed of 牛 and 西, with 西 serving as the phonetic component and also carrying the sense of “complete”; its original meaning referred to an entire ox of pure coat color used in sacrifice.
* 牲: composed of 牛 and 生, with 生 serving as the phonetic component and also carrying the sense of “living sacrificial offering”; its original meaning referred to a whole ox or sheep used in sacrifice.
* 牢: composed of 宀 and 牛—“a roof” with an ox inside; its original meaning was an enclosure for cattle and other livestock, later extended to mean a prison, where people are confined much as cattle are enclosed in a pen.

The construction of these characters vividly demonstrates how central the ox was to ancient Chinese society: it was a medium through which humans communicated with divine powers in sacrifice, the most valuable source of agricultural labor, and an important measure of wealth and social status through the number of cattle kept in one’s enclosures.

Chou hour runs from 1:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. Through long observation, the ancients noticed that cattle displayed a distinctive habit during the deep night: rumination. As ruminants, cattle bring up the forage they consumed during the day and chew it again slowly for further digestion when the night is quiet. Chou hour is precisely when cattle have finished their daytime labor, lie down to rest, and calmly ruminate.

Li Changqing of the Ming dynasty explained it in the *Songxiaguan Zhuiyan* (《松霞馆赘言》): “牛，大畜也。其足四趾，偶数，属地。丑时，牛食尽，复吐咀嚼，故丑属牛。” The meaning is that the ox is a large domestic animal with four toes, an even number associated with Yin and the earth, corresponding to the Yin Earthly Branch “Chou.” During Chou hour, cattle repeatedly chew and digest the forage they consumed during the day and enter their period of rumination and rest. The Yuan-dynasty scholar Wu Cheng also noted in the *Yueling Qishier Hou Jijie* (《月令七十二候集解》) that Chou month, the twelfth lunar month, is a season when “Yang qi remains faint and the myriad things lie hidden.” This was regarded as closely matching the ox’s gentle, steady temperament and its quality of bearing all things with deep and enduring virtue.

The ancients saw the ox’s ruminating habit—“finishing its food and bringing it back up”—as a symbol of the movement of the myriad things from activity into stillness and from the external into the internal. The ox at Chou hour no longer runs or labors, but lies quietly and ruminates, transforming external food into inner nourishment. This was precisely what “地辟于丑” symbolized: the earth absorbs, stores, transforms, and gives form to all things.

As with the Rat, the Ox’s position in the zodiac was also linked to the odd or even number of its toes. Ancient Chinese scholars divided animals into two categories according to Yin-Yang concepts, using the parity of their toes as the criterion.

Lang Ying of the Ming dynasty discussed this in detail in *Qixiu Leigao · Volume Four* (《七修类稿·卷四》): “十二生肖之配，以足之奇偶也。鼠前足四、后足五，奇偶兼备，故配子。子者，阳生之初也。牛足四，偶也，故配丑。丑，阴也。” This means that the twelve zodiac pairings were determined by whether the animals’ toes were odd or even in number. The rat has four toes on its forefeet and five on its hind feet, combining even and odd, Yin and Yang, and thus corresponds to the first position, Zi, when Yang qi is first born. The ox has four toes, an even number belonging to Yin, and therefore corresponds to the second position, Chou, itself a Yin branch.

The Song-dynasty scholar Hong Xun expressed a similar view in *Yanggu Manlu* (《旸谷漫录》): “牛之足四，偶也，属阴。丑时，阴气尚盛，故丑配牛。” The ox’s four toes are even and thus correspond to the Yin branch Chou. Among the Twelve Earthly Branches, Chou belongs to Yin Earth, stable and substantial, qualities that accord with the temperament of the ox. Lang Ying also noted that Chou hour is when cattle move most slowly and quietly, corresponding to the natural condition represented by Chou, when Yin qi remains strong and the myriad things are contracted inward. Thus, the pairing of “Chou” and “Ox” was understood as a perfect fit.

The ancients believed that the earth is Yin, inclusive, and capable of bearing the myriad things. The ox’s four toes, an even number, were therefore seen as embodying the qualities of Yin and the earth’s virtue of carrying all things. “地辟于丑”—the earth opens and takes form at Chou—and the ox itself becomes an embodiment of the earth: practical, steady, silently laboring, a human-world manifestation of “the strength of the earth.”

In 1975, the *Daozhe* section of the bamboo-slip *Rishu* excavated from Qin Tomb No. 11 at Shuihudi in Yunmeng County, Hubei, recorded a set of pairings related to the twelve zodiac animals: “子，鼠也。丑，牛也。寅，虎也。卯，兔也。辰，龍也。巳，蟲也。午，鹿也。未，馬也。申，環（猿）也。酉，水（雉）也。戌，老羊也。亥，豕也。” Although this list differs in several respects from the standardized modern zodiac—Wu corresponds to deer rather than horse, Wei to horse rather than goat, Shen to ape rather than monkey, You to pheasant rather than rooster, and Xu to old sheep rather than dog—the pairing of “Chou” with the ox was already unmistakably established. This shows that although the zodiac had not yet become fully standardized from the late Warring States to the Qin period, the relationship binding the ox to the second Earthly Branch Chou was already essentially fixed.

The same pattern appears in Qin bamboo slips excavated at Fangmatan in Tianshui, Gansu. The Fangmatan slips, dating to around the third century BCE, also record divinatory material connected with the twelve zodiac animals, and the pairing of Chou and ox is highly consistent across both discoveries. This proves that by at least the third century BCE, in the late Warring States period, the cultural concept of associating the ox with Chou had already circulated widely across different regions of China.

In numerous pre-Qin classics, the ox appears repeatedly, and its social status and cultural significance were already highly prominent.

The *Book of Songs · Xiaoya · Dadong* (《诗经·小雅·大东》) contains the line “睆彼牵牛，不以服箱”, comparing the celestial Oxherd star to an ox used to pull a cart. This reflects the real role of cattle as draft animals and also constitutes one of the earliest textual sources associated with the later legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. The *Liji · Wangzhi* (《礼记·王制》) records: “天子社稷皆太牢，诸侯社稷皆少牢。” Here, “Tailao” refers to the sacrificial triad of ox, sheep, and pig, with the ox placed first, while “Shaolao” uses sheep and pig without an ox. The ox’s central place within the sacrificial system is evident. The *Zhouli · Diguan · Niuren* (《周礼·地官·牛人》) specifically records the official position of the “Cattle Officer”: “牛人掌养国之公牛，以待国之政令。” This demonstrates that by the Western Zhou period, officials were already specifically assigned to the breeding and management of cattle. The *Dayu* chapter of the Qin-dynasty *Lüshi Chunqiu* also discusses the story of a horse-treading-on-a-rat motif cast on a Zhou bronze vessel, using cattle as an important reference for measuring the quality of state governance. The *Shanhaijing* (《山海经》) records several extraordinary bovine creatures, including Kui Ox (夔牛) and Si (兕), showing that cattle already possessed supernatural and divine qualities in pre-Qin mythology.

Among transmitted texts, the earliest record of the same twelve zodiac animals used today appears in Wang Chong’s Eastern Han *Lunheng* (《论衡》). In the *Wushi* chapter, Wang Chong explicitly wrote: “丑，土也，其禽牛也。” He also wrote simply: “丑，牛也。” Wang Chong listed all twelve animals, and his pairing of Chou and ox is already identical to the modern zodiac. This shows that by the Eastern Han period, in the first century CE, the ox’s position and ranking within the twelve-animal system had become fully fixed.

As a philosophical work distinguished by its critical spirit, the *Lunheng* cites the twelve zodiac animals as supporting evidence in discussions of the mutual overcoming relationships among the Five Phases. This demonstrates that by the Eastern Han period, the twelve-animal zodiac had become widely known and commonly used cultural knowledge among intellectuals. The pairing of the ox with Chou had, at the latest, reached its final standardized form by this time.

The twelve zodiac figurines, also known as the Twelve Earthly-Branch deity figurines, are a distinctive category of burial object in ancient Chinese funerary culture. The ancients associated the twelve zodiac animals with individual destiny and transformed them into deified figurines, arranging them in tombs according to prescribed orientations, where they were believed to guard the tomb, ward off evil, and protect the spirit of the deceased. The earliest zodiac figurines yet discovered archaeologically were excavated from the Northern Wei Cui-family tomb at Linzi in Shandong, dating to the sixth century CE, and the ox figurine was already recognizably developed. The earliest textual record of zodiac figurines being used as burial objects appears in the *Tang Huiyao*: “三品以上明器九十事，四神十二时在内园宅方五尺下，帐高方三尺共置五十。……五品以上明器六十事，四神十二时在内园宅方三尺下，帐高方一尺共置三十。” This shows that by the Tang dynasty, ritual regulations governing zodiac figurines as grave goods had already formed. As an important member of the set, the ox figurine was usually placed in the position representing the northeast, more specifically north-by-northeast, corresponding to Chou among the directional associations of the Twelve Earthly Branches.

The Tang-dynasty painted ceramic zodiac figurines excavated from a tomb at Hansenzhai in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, and now housed in the National Museum of China, form one of the most representative surviving sets of Tang zodiac figures. Measuring 40 to 42 centimeters in height, all have animal heads and human bodies: the heads depict the twelve respective animals, while the bodies are human, dressed in open-collared, wide-sleeved robes falling to the feet, with both hands clasped before the chest, combining elegance with a subtle sense of humor. The ox figurine has the head of a powerful water buffalo, with curved horns projecting forward and round eyes staring directly ahead. Experts have noted that only through Tang sculptors’ long-term, careful observation of different animal forms, combined with consummate sculptural skill, could these animals have been rendered with such lifelike vitality. This set provides important material evidence for the study of Tang-dynasty zodiac culture, funerary institutions, and sculptural art.

The Shaanxi History Museum likewise preserves Tang-dynasty painted ceramic zodiac figurines. Its ox figure has a majestic and powerful animal head combined with the attire of a civil official: a long wide-sleeved robe and a court tablet held before the chest. It therefore combines the ox’s natural animal features with a human social identity, symbolizing the animal’s multiple identities as beast, divinity, and official.

The bronze ox head from the Old Summer Palace formed part of the hydraulic clock system at Haiyantang, created during the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty around 1750 under the design direction of the Italian missionary Giuseppe Castiglione and supervision of the Frenchman Michel Benoist. Twelve animal-headed human-bodied statues were arranged in two diverging rows beside the fountain before Haiyantang. On the southern bank stood the rat, tiger, dragon, horse, monkey, and dog; on the northern bank stood the ox, rabbit, snake, goat, rooster, and pig. At each double-hour, the corresponding animal head spouted water from its mouth to mark the time. During Chou hour, from 1:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m., the ox head emitted a column of water, marking the arrival of the deepest and quietest period of the new day. The twelve zodiac sculptures fused Eastern and Western artistic styles: the heads were realistic representations of Chinese zodiac animals, while the bodies—originally carved in stone—formed part of a Western Baroque fountain ensemble.

In 1860, the Anglo-French forces burned the Old Summer Palace, and the twelve zodiac bronzes were looted and dispersed overseas. In 2000, the ox head was repurchased by the China Poly Group for HK$7 million and is now housed in the Poly Art Museum in Beijing.

Along the rivers of China, dozens of iron oxen for subduing floods cast during the Ming and Qing dynasties still survive, providing distinctive material evidence of ox culture within the history of hydraulic engineering. Among the most representative are the Kaifeng Iron Rhinoceros for Subduing the Yellow River, located at Tieniu Village northeast of Kaifeng in Henan, cast in the eleventh year of the Zhengtong reign of the Ming dynasty, in 1446, under the direction of Yu Qian, then governor of Henan, with the *Inscription on the Iron Rhinoceros for Subduing the River* composed by Yu Qian himself on its back; and the Jingzhou Iron Ox for Subduing the Waters beside the Yangtze River at Shashi in Jingzhou, Hubei, cast during the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty, shown lying down with its head raised toward the river and carrying Eight-Trigram motifs on its back. Tradition also holds that during the Warring States period, when Li Bing, governor of Shu Commandery, built the Dujiangyan irrigation system, he placed several stone oxen in the river as hydrological markers, a practice widely imitated by later generations.

The existence of these flood-subduing iron oxen shows that, in the Chinese imagination, the ox was not merely a draft animal that plowed the fields, but also a divine beast capable of suppressing evil and controlling water. It could overcome Water through Earth—Chou belongs to Earth—and restrain Yang through Yin. These philosophical ideas were embodied materially in iron oxen and transmitted from generation to generation.

Shang-Dynasty Bronze Ox Zun: The bronze ox-shaped vessel excavated at Hengyang in Hunan, also known as a “sacrificial zun” or “ox-shaped zun,” is among the earliest and finest bronze vessels in bovine form yet discovered. It stands around 14 centimeters high and measures 19 centimeters long. Shaped as a standing ox, it has an opening on the back leading into an internal cavity used for holding wine. The animal is powerfully built, with four straight legs, upward-curving horns, and prominent round eyes, while its body is richly decorated with cloud-and-thunder motifs and animal-mask designs. This shows that by the Shang dynasty, the image of the ox had already entered the ritual bronze tradition and possessed sacred religious significance.

Han-Dynasty Pictorial Stones of Ox Plowing: Numerous Han-dynasty carved pictorial stones unearthed in Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi, and elsewhere depict scenes of ox plowing, with one or two cattle pulling iron plows while farmers guide the plow from behind. These images provide visual evidence for the widespread adoption of ox-plowing technology during the Han dynasty.

Han Huang’s *Five Oxen* of the Tang Dynasty: This is the earliest surviving and most celebrated Chinese painting on paper devoted to cattle. The five oxen are depicted in differing poses and temperaments, combining physical form with expressive spirit. Zhao Mengfu of the Yuan dynasty praised it as “a marvelous work of the brush.” It is now housed in the Palace Museum in Beijing and is regarded as a national treasure.

Ox-Shaped Ceramic Figurines of the Northern Dynasties: Large numbers of ceramic ox-cart figurines have been excavated from Northern Dynasties tombs in Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, and elsewhere. Ox-drawn carts were an important form of transportation during the Northern Dynasties, reflecting another major role that cattle played in social life.

As zodiac culture spread, it absorbed local cultural elements in different countries, and the image of the ox took on distinct forms across East Asia.

This is the most classic and widely circulated explanation of why cattle plow the fields in the human world, and it exists in numerous versions.

Classic Version —— “Scatter One Handful Every Three Steps”

According to legend, in ancient times the ox was originally an attendant before the Jade Emperor, responsible for carrying imperial commands in the celestial palace and frequently traveling between Heaven and Earth. One day, a farmer asked the ox to carry a message to the Jade Emperor: the human world was barren, without even a blade of grass, and the people lived in hardship. He begged the Jade Emperor to send grass seeds to the human world so that green vegetation and crops might grow. After hearing the ox’s report, the Jade Emperor agreed and instructed the ox that once it reached the human world it should scatter one handful of grass seed every three steps. Another version says the instruction was to scatter one handful every three *chi*.

The ox received the command and happily departed from Heaven. Yet it traveled too hurriedly and fell along the way. The fall left it dazed, and it forgot much of the Jade Emperor’s instruction, mistakenly remembering it as scatter three handfuls every one step. Another version says it misremembered the command as “one handful every three *cun*.” When the ox arrived in the human world, it followed the mistaken command and scattered three handfuls at every step, covering the earth with enormous quantities of grass seed. When spring came, wild grasses spread across the land and mountains in overwhelming abundance, smothering the crops so completely that they could scarcely grow. The people cried out in distress and lodged complaints with the Jade Emperor.

When the Jade Emperor learned what had happened, he became furious and summoned the ox back to Heaven for questioning. Terrified, the ox knelt and begged forgiveness, repeatedly kowtowing and admitting its mistake. Still angry, the Jade Emperor punished the ox by banishing it to the human world, ordering its descendants to plow fields and pull carts for farmers for generations and endure hardship. He further ordered that the ox’s upper teeth be removed so that it could eat only grass and no longer consume grain. The Jade Emperor even kicked the ox in the upper jaw, knocking out all its upper front teeth. From then on, cattle had no upper incisors—their dental anatomy consists of a toothless upper front jaw with a dental pad and incisors only in the lower jaw, a typical feature of ruminants. Folk legend thus provides a vivid explanation for this biological characteristic.

Regional Variants Explaining the Loss of the Ox’s Upper Teeth

Different regions preserve other explanations for why cattle lack upper teeth. One says that in a fit of rage, the Jade Emperor kicked the ox in the mouth and knocked out all its upper teeth, forcing it to live on grass rather than grain. Some folk tales add that cattle originally possessed two complete rows of beautiful white teeth, but after the upper row was kicked out, they could only use their lower teeth together with the tongue and could no longer chew grain properly, forcing them to rely on rumination to digest forage; this, in turn, explains why cattle ruminate during Chou hour. Another version says the Jade Emperor commanded the ox to eat grass in the human world but required it to regurgitate and chew the grass repeatedly as punishment for its carelessness. Yet another says that cattle originally had excellent teeth and could eat both grass and grain; after banishing the ox, the Jade Emperor used magic to transform all its upper teeth into a dental pad so that it would not compete with humans for food.

The Ox King as a Celestial Divine Beast —— The “Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions” Version

Another legend says that the Ox King was originally the Ox Mansion (牛宿) among the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions, one of the seven northern mansions of the Black Tortoise constellation, responsible for affairs relating to cattle in the celestial palace. When a divine ox secretly descended to the human world and stole crops, the Ox Mansion was blamed for failing in its supervisory duties and was banished by the Jade Emperor as well, condemned to plow the fields of humankind for generations. This legend connects the ox directly with astronomy through the celestial Ox Mansion.

In the world-famous legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, a spiritually aware old ox plays a crucial role. It is not only the Cowherd’s most faithful companion but also the facilitator of his marriage to the Weaver Girl. Although this story is known throughout China, the ox’s roles as “spirit beast” and “divine matchmaker” give it an exceptionally elevated mythological status.

According to legend, an orphaned boy who had lost both parents lived with his elder brother and sister-in-law. His sister-in-law treated him harshly, sending him out every day to tend an old ox while giving him very little food. Kind-hearted by nature, the orphan and the old ox depended on one another, and people came to call him Niulang, the Cowherd. One day, the old ox suddenly spoke and told Niulang that the Weaver Girl from Heaven would descend to bathe in a river in the human world and that he should go meet her. Niulang followed its advice and indeed encountered the Weaver Girl, granddaughter of the Heavenly Emperor, who wove celestial brocade in Heaven each day. The two fell in love at first sight, became husband and wife, and lived a happy life in which the man farmed and the woman wove. Yet when the Heavenly Emperor learned that the Weaver Girl had secretly descended and married a mortal, he sent celestial troops to seize her and return her to Heaven. The old ox spoke once more. It told Niulang that it was about to die and instructed him to remove its hide after death and wear it, for the hide would allow him to fly to Heaven and search for the Weaver Girl. In tears, Niulang followed the ox’s instructions, put on the ox hide, carried his two children, and flew into Heaven in pursuit of his wife. Just as he was about to catch her, the Queen Mother removed the golden hairpin from her head and drew a line across the sky, creating the Milky Way between them and separating the Cowherd and Weaver Girl on opposite banks. From then on, they could only gaze across the river at one another, meeting once each year on the Magpie Bridge during Qixi.

In this legend, the old ox possesses multiple mythic qualities: it speaks human language, foresees the future, sacrifices itself for a righteous cause, and connects the human and divine realms. The ox hide worn by Niulang possesses the magical power of flight. In ritual contexts, ox hide had long functioned as a medium linking humans and divine beings, since sacrificial animals such as cattle were offered to the gods in ancient ritual. This narrative detail therefore reflects the sacred position of the ox in ancient Chinese religious ceremony.

In Chinese Daoist culture, the ox is the mount of Taishang Laojun, or Laozi. Legend says that Laozi rode an azure ox, meaning a black ox in an ancient color usage, westward through Hangu Pass on his journey to transmit the Dao in the Western Regions. When he approached Hangu Pass, the gatekeeper Yin Xi saw purple qi arriving from the east—the famous allusion “紫气东来”, “purple qi coming from the east”—and knew that a sage was approaching. Laozi soon appeared, slowly riding his azure ox. Yin Xi respectfully begged him to leave behind a written teaching, and Laozi composed the five-thousand-character *Daodejing* at Hangu Pass before continuing westward on the ox and disappearing from history.

The legend of Laozi riding an azure ox through the pass exerted a profound influence on Chinese culture. The azure ox became a sacred Daoist symbol representing the naturalness, non-action, and yielding quality of the Dao; “purple qi coming from the east” became one of the most auspicious omens in traditional Chinese culture. As Laozi’s mount, the ox itself became a living embodiment of Daoist ideas such as “the soft overcoming the hard” and “the weak prevailing over the strong.” Though immensely powerful, the ox is gentle and obedient, echoing the *Daodejing*: “天下之至柔，驰骋天下之至坚.” In some folk legends, Laozi’s azure ox is itself the celestial Ox Mansion among the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions descended to earth, possessing extraordinary supernatural powers and wisdom.

In ancient Chinese mythology, the Battle of Zhuolu between the Yellow Emperor and Chiyou is regarded as a key event in the formation of the Chinese nation. Chiyou’s image is closely connected with the ox. According to such ancient texts as the *Shuyi Ji* (《述异记》) and the *Shanhaijing*, Chiyou was depicted as “ox-headed and human-bodied”—with the head of an ox and the body of a human. This image suggests that the tribe to which Chiyou belonged took the ox as its totem. Chiyou was known as the “Lord of the Jiuli”, leader of the Dongyi grouping, and was famed for his courage and military prowess in warfare against the Yellow Emperor. Later generations revered him as “Bingzhu,” the Lord of War.

The image of the Yan Emperor Shennong is likewise connected with the ox. Legend describes him as “human-bodied and ox-headed”, born near the Jiang River in the area of present-day Baoji, Shaanxi, and revered as an ancestor of agricultural civilization. The Yan Emperor’s tribe took the ox as its totem. He taught people agriculture, tasted the hundred herbs, and created medicine. Thus, among the most important ancestral figures of ancient China, the ox occupied a strikingly elevated position: the Yan Emperor, human-bodied and ox-headed, was a god of agriculture, while Chiyou, ox-headed and human-bodied, was a god of war. This shows that the ox possessed totemic prestige at the very origins of ancient Chinese civilization.

The *Shanhaijing* records numerous extraordinary bovine creatures. These reflect early reverence for cattle while also providing rich material for later Ox zodiac mythology.

Kui Ox (夔牛): The *Dahuang Dongjing* chapter of the *Shanhaijing* records: “东海中有流波山，入海七千里。其上有兽，状如牛，苍身而无角，一足，出入水则必风雨，其光如日月，其声如雷，其名曰夔。” The Kui Ox is an ancient divine beast shaped like an ox but possessing only one leg; whenever it enters or leaves the water, wind, rain, thunder, and lightning accompany it. The Yellow Emperor used its hide to make a war drum whose sound could be heard five hundred *li* away and whose power awed the world.

Si (兕): The *Shanhaijing* mentions “Si” several times. It is described as a fierce beast resembling an ox, blue-black throughout its body and possessing a single horn; some interpret it as a type of rhinoceros. The *Analects · Jishi* records Confucius saying: “虎兕出于柙，龟玉毁于椟中，是谁之过与？” By pairing the Si with the tiger, the passage conveys its ferocity.

These divine bovine creatures show that already in the pre-Qin period, the ox had been endowed with supernatural sacred qualities. It was not merely livestock of the mortal world but a spirit beast linking Heaven and the underworld.

In many parts of China, especially among ethnic minorities in the south, beliefs in an “Ox King” or “Ox Deity” are widely circulated, accompanied by dedicated festivals known as the “Ox King Festival” or “Ox Birthday.”

The Ox King Descends to Earth: Folk legend says that the Ox King was originally a star deity in Heaven, the Ox Mansion. Seeing how hard the people of the human world labored and how little grain they possessed, he asked the Jade Emperor for permission to descend and help humankind plow the fields. The Jade Emperor agreed, but required that once on earth the Ox King must eat grass and give milk, pull carts and plow fields, never again enjoying the blessings of Heaven. The Ox King resolutely descended and became one of humanity’s most important agricultural companions. Because he was regarded as a deity from Heaven, people gave cattle the day off during the Ox King Festival, fed them the finest fodder, and decorated their horns with red silk in reverence.

The Zhuang Ox King Festival: In Zhuang legend, the Ox King is a divine ox sent by the Jade Emperor to help the ancestors of the Zhuang people cultivate the land. Every year on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, the Zhuang celebrate the Ox King Festival. On this day, people wash their cattle, feed them glutinous rice, and allow them to rest rather than plow, thanking them for a year of hard labor.

The Miao Ox King Festival: In Miao legend, the Ox King is one of the ancestral figures of the Miao people. Every year on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, the Miao hold solemn sacrificial ceremonies for the Ox King and make ox-shaped offerings from glutinous rice.

The Dong “Ox Deity Festival”: In Dong legend, the Ox Deity descends to the human world once each year to inspect agricultural production and protect cattle from illness. Every year on either the eighth day of the fourth lunar month or the sixth day of the sixth lunar month, the Dong hold ceremonies in honor of the Ox Deity.

This cross-ethnic system of folk belief surrounding the Ox King Festival concentrates and expresses the central position of cattle in Chinese agricultural civilization: cattle are not merely tools of production but living beings endowed with sacredness, worthy of gratitude and worship.

In legends of Yu the Great controlling the floods, the ox also plays an important role. Tradition holds that whenever Yu completed work on a river channel or finished constructing an embankment along the Yellow River, he cast an iron ox and submerged it in the riverbed in order to suppress floods and preserve peace. This story began to be widely recorded from the Tang dynasty onward and gave rise to the material folk tradition of iron oxen for subduing the waters across China. According to the Tang-dynasty *Yuanhe Junxian Tuzhi* (《元和郡县图志》), Yu cast several iron oxen while regulating the Yellow River and threw them into the river to suppress water demons. By the Ming and Qing dynasties, numerous cast-iron flood-subduing oxen could still be found along the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers.

From the mythic idea that “the ox subdues the waters” to the physical tradition of “casting iron oxen to suppress floods,” belief in the ox’s water-subduing power runs through three thousand years of Chinese hydraulic history. Behind it lies a straightforward ancient logic: the ox is immensely strong and can hold rivers in check; it ruminates during Chou hour, and Chou belongs to Earth, while Earth overcomes Water. Thus, the idea forms a complete conceptual circle with the Five-Phase doctrine in which “Chou is Earth, and Earth overcomes Water.”

These myths and legends show that the cultural meaning of the Ox zodiac extends far beyond that of an “agricultural companion.” The ox is a celestial deity banished to the human world, a spirit beast that brings about marriage, the mount of a sage, the totem of a war god, and a divine beast that subdues rivers. In folk narrative, the ox presents a rich image in which divine and mortal, sacred and ordinary coexist.

The rat’s image throughout Chinese history is famously complex and varied. The ox may not display such sharp contradictions, but its image is equally rich and multidimensional: it is both the most sacred sacrificial victim upon the altar and the hardest-working draft animal in the fields; both the mount of a Daoist sage and the protagonist of folk festivals. This perfect fusion of “sacred” and “mundane” is precisely what makes the myths and legends of the Ox zodiac so moving.

Looking across the origins and evolution of the Ox zodiac, a clear trajectory emerges: the ox’s position as second among the twelve zodiac animals is by no means accidental. Written characters and texts tell us that the ox became inseparably linked with “Chou” because it ruminates during Chou hour and because its four toes form an even number associated with Yin. The Qin bamboo-slip *Rishu* and the Eastern Han *Lunheng* fixed this relationship within an institutionalized zodiac system, while zodiac figurines from the Northern Wei through the Tang dynasty transformed it into a visible embodiment of belief. Zooarchaeology further reveals that since the Neolithic period, cattle and Chinese civilization have developed side by side: from hunted animals to sacrificial victims, from agricultural power to symbols of wealth, the changing role of cattle is itself a condensed history of the development of Chinese agricultural civilization.

Yet what truly gives the Ox zodiac its soul is the vast body of myths and legends surrounding it. In these folk narratives, the ox is far more than a long-suffering draft animal. It is a celestial deity banished to the human world, a spirit beast that brings together the Cowherd and Weaver Girl, Laozi’s mount on his westward journey beyond the pass, the ox-headed war-god totem of Chiyou, a divine beast guarding rivers and subduing floods, and the “Ox King” solemnly worshipped each year by the Zhuang, Miao, Dong, and other ethnic groups. This richly layered image in which the divine and mortal coexist, and the sacred and ordinary merge, reveals the very essence of zodiac culture: it is not a scholastic philosophy imposed from above, but folk wisdom growing from below—a cultural sediment that has continuously developed and accumulated through centuries upon centuries of oral transmission.

When the Ox zodiac moved beyond the Central Plains and spread to Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and other regions, it acquired new forms within different cultures—Japan’s image of diligence and honest devotion, Vietnam’s guardian of rice cultivation, and the Buddhist and Hindu dimensions of Southeast Asia—yet always retained its honored position as second among the twelve zodiac animals. This perhaps suggests that the vitality of a cultural symbol lies not in whether it is “pure,” but in whether it possesses enough inclusiveness to allow the storytellers of every age to find their own voices within it. The Ox zodiac is precisely such a symbol. It moves from the sacrificial altar into the fields, falls from the celestial palace into the human world, and through a posture of silent labor sustained across millennia, plows one of the deepest furrows into the soil of Chinese civilization.

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