Human-Faced, Jackal-Bodied Serpent That Portends Floods
Mount Yang is stony and bare of vegetation; the Yang River flows from it north into the Yi. In its waters live the Huashe: creatures with a human face, a jackal's body, and bird's wings, yet moving with a serpent's crawl. Their voice sounds like a person shouting rebukes. Wherever one shows itself, that town will be flooded.
The Huashe is a specimen of the composite monster, four bodies stitched into one silhouette — human, jackal, bird and snake. Among the portent beasts of the classic it sits in the flood column beside the Fuzhu, the four-horned white deer of Mount Ao'an, while its neighbor in the same Yi basin, the Mingshe of Mount Xian, governs the opposite sign of drought. One serpent for deluge and one for drought make a matched pair of water omens in the second central sequence.
