Xiezhi

beast · China · East Asia and Pacific

Xiezhi (獬豸) is the single-horned justice beast of Chinese tradition, usually pictured as a goat-, ox-, or lion-like animal with black fur. In accounts, when disputes were brought before it, it gored the guilty and spared the innocent, making it an emblem of impartial judgment. Its image decorated the robes of imperial censors and judges, and it passed into other East Asian legal symbolism.

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