Bai Ze
Mythological Narrative
A wise white beast that taught the Yellow Emperor the names and natures of all supernatural creatures — knowledge used to protect humanity from spirits.
Scholarly Commentary & Evolution
## The White Marsh Informant
Baize (hakutaku in Japan) meets the Yellow Emperor and dictates a catalogue of spirits so humans can name and ward them. The Baize tu tradition is the paper trail: an illustrated demonography, much of it lost and reconstructed from citations.
Danger 1: the beast's gift is taxonomy. Later Japanese prints keep the ox-lion face.
## The illustrated catalogue
The *Baize tu*, 'Diagrams of the Baize', is known from Tang manuscripts found at Dunhuang and from quotations in later encyclopaedias. It gave the names and appearances of strange beings so they could be identified and dispelled. In Edo Japan, images of hakutaku were hung or carried as charms against disease and bad luck, especially in years of epidemics.
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Bai Ze.
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