Fox Spirit

The concept of fox spirits is not solely found in Chinese mythology; traces of fox spirits can be found throughout Asian mythology. In Japanese culture, they are called Kitsune; in Korea, they are Kumiho.

Fox spirits are revered yet feared. Foxes fall in between ghosts and humans, at times they will act like ghosts, absorbing energy from a human, haunting and bewitching people, causing sickness or death. On the other hand, they will assume the role of an ancestor, bringing forth fortune and prosperity. Many wealthy people ascribe their good fortune to their careful worship. In many places fox spirits were addressed as cáishén (財神) god of wealth - they are believed to bring prosperity to the devotee. However, they are not deities, but creatures endowed with supernatural powers of transformation. Sometimes they can appear as a young beautiful woman ensuing fertility or healing the sick, or they can appear as a old grey-haired man providing moral guidance.

Samuel Couling, a former missionary, described fox spirits as having the form similar to a fox, a creature with man’s ears, who gets on roofs and crawls along the beams of houses, only appearing after dark and frequently not in its own form.

Despite all that is said about them, one must remember Fox Spirits are tricksters.

Tales of foxes assuming human form go back 2,000 years. One famous legend is of Dájǐ. Dájǐ was once the beautiful daughter of the chief of the minor state Su. Dájǐ was forcibly taken as a concubine by the tyrant, Zhòu xīn (纣辛) the last ruler of the Shang (Yin) dynasty. He died ca. 1150 BC. In a fifteenth-century Ming novel, The Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen Yanyi), Zhòu xīn is vilified as a moral degenerate who committed all manner of evil and cruel deeds, under the influence of a possessed Dájǐ. According to legend, Zhòu xīn offended a malevolent nine-tailed fox spirit, who then expelled the real Dájǐ’s (妲己) soul from her body then possessed it. Traditionally, the Chinese frequently blame human illness on foxes.

The mythological origin of foot binding is ascribed to the possessed Shang Empress Dájǐ- the fox spirit tried to deceive the last ruler by binding her paws and ordering all women to do the same.

The Exhibit

Mayborn Museum