Ox heads & horse faces
|
|
Ox-Head (牛頭) and Horse-Face (馬面) are two fearsome guardians of Underworld in Chinese mythology, where the dead face judgement (and punishment) prior to reincarnation. As indicated by their names, one has the head of an ox, and the other has the head of horse. They are the first people a dead soul meets upon arriving in the Underworld; in many stories they directly escort the newly dead to the Underworld (apparently some try to run away). Usually, the two are mentioned together (牛頭馬面).
In the Chinese classic Journey to the West, at one point Horse-Face and Ox-Head are sent to capture the character Monkey (Sun Wukong, the Monkey King). Monkey overpowers both of them and scares them away. He then breaks into the Underworld and crosses out the names of himself and his people from the record of living souls, hence granting immortality to himself and his monkeys.