# Baku (mythology)
The **baku** (獏, also written 貘; *baku*) is a legendary chimeric beast of [Japanese folklore](https://www.edgepedia.org/japanese-folklore) that devours nightmares, leaving the sleeper's bad dreams to vanish instead of returning. It descends from a spirit-beast called *mo* (貘) in Chinese classical texts, but the dream-eating role is a Japanese development, and by the [Edo period](https://www.edgepedia.org/edo-period) (1603–1868) the baku had become a household lucky charm for peaceful sleep[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Nature | A benevolent spirit-beast that eats nightmares; the opposite of a Western nightmare-demon, it removes bad dreams rather than causing them[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku) |
| Origin | The Chinese *mo* (貘) of the classics, an evil-warding beast; dream-eating appears in no Chinese record and is considered a Japanese addition[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku) • [2](https://theonym.jp/figure/baku) |
| Composite form | Elephant's trunk, rhinoceros eyes, ox's tail, tiger's feet, bear's body; the formula traces to Bai Juyi's preface to his Eulogy on the Mo Screen[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku) |
| Chinese description | The *Shuowen Jiezi* calls it bear-like, yellow-black, dwelling in Shu (Sichuan); the *Erya* calls it a "white leopard"; Guo Pu's commentary says it eats copper, iron, and bamboo stalks[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku) |
| Arrival in Japan | Known in Japan by the fifteenth century; an early literary use appears in the Enkyō-bon text of the *Tale of the Heike* (1309–10)[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku) • [3](https://collections.lacma.org/object/89887) |
| Edo-period practice | Baku picture-charms, baku-shaped pillows, and the treasure-ship (takarabune) picture under the pillow on the first nights of the New Year[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku) |
| Real-animal name | The tapir is called *baku* in Japanese because it resembles the legendary beast, a naming that runs in reverse[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku) |
## The Chinese mo
Chinese sources describe the *mo* inconsistently. The *Erya*, the oldest Chinese glossary, classifies it as a "white leopard"; the *Shuowen Jiezi* says it resembles a bear, is yellow-black in color, and lives in the land of Shu, in Sichuan. Guo Pu's commentary on the *Erya* adds that it gnaws on copper, iron, and the stalks of bamboo[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku). This iron-eating habit is thought to reflect a real Sichuan animal, most likely the giant panda[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku).
In China the mo was an apotropaic beast, one that wards off evil. The Tang poet [Bai Juyi](https://www.edgepedia.org/bai-juyi) wrote in the preface to his Eulogy on the Mo Screen that sleeping on a bed laid with the mo's hide wards off plague, and that hanging a picture of its form drives off evil; he also noted that in common speech the creature was called the *baize*, which is why the baku has often been confused with that other evil-warding beast[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku). The composite body formula, "an elephant's trunk, a rhino's eyes, an ox's tail, a tiger's feet," comes from this same preface[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku).
The dream-eating role was not Chinese. A study of the transmission notes that the *Hou Han shu* names the Chinese dream-eating animal as Boqi (Japanese *Hakki*), one of the twelve spirit-beasts in the exorcism rite, while the Chinese mo ate iron, copper, and snakes instead of dreams; the author argues that the two figures were conflated after both reached Japan[4](https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1050001337929722752). Other scholarship reaches a similar conclusion: the tale of a dream-eating baku is absent from old Chinese books and was probably born in Japan[5](https://news.denfaminicogamer.jp/news/250223g).
## Transformation in Japan
The idea of the mo reached Japan through the *Collected Works of Bai Juyi*, a favorite of the Heian court, and by the [Muromachi period](https://www.edgepedia.org/muromachi-period) the beast had changed character into a beneficial animal that devours and purges bad dreams[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku). By the late Muromachi period, pictures of the baku and the written character 獏 were already in use as lucky charms[2](https://theonym.jp/figure/baku). An early seventeenth-century illustrated book, the *Sankai ibutsu*, describes the baku, and prints and books pictured it throughout the eighteenth century[3](https://collections.lacma.org/object/89887). The encyclopedic *Wakan Sansai Zue* of Terashima Ryōan (1712) spread its composite form and evil-warding nature widely[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku).
One detail marks how slowly the new character settled: the baku in the early Edo manuscript *Sankai ibutsu* is introduced as a timid beast that prevents plague and evil, with no dream-eating ability yet mentioned; the dream-eating baku is made explicit only in later Edo imagery[2](https://theonym.jp/figure/baku).
## How the baku was used
**Bedside charms.** A person who wakes from a nightmare calls on the baku, traditionally three times, with words such as "Baku, eat my dream" or "I give last night's dream to the baku"; such charms are recorded in many regions, including Kumamoto, Fukushima, and Akita[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku) • [6](https://100ku100you.com/archive/article-0042/). The character for baku could also be written on a pillow or on a charm card placed beneath it[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku).
**The first dream of the year.** The belief joined the [New Year](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-year) custom of the *hatsuyume*, the first dream of the year. From the night of [New Year's Day](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-years-day) into the second, people slept with a picture of the treasure ship laden with the [Seven Lucky Gods](https://www.edgepedia.org/seven-lucky-gods) under the pillow, with the character for baku written on its sail or on the back of the paper. The picture carried the palindrome poem *naka-kiyo no / tō no neburi no / mina mezame / nami nori-fune no / oto no yoki kana*, recited three times before sleep to bring a good dream. If a bad dream came anyway, the picture was floated down a river the next morning in a rite called "dream release" to wash the misfortune away[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku).
**Buildings and objects.** Baku carvings appear on shrine and temple architecture, on the *kibana* that support roofs and on the *kaerumata* above the beam, charged with keeping fire and calamity at a distance[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku). The Yōmeimon Gate at Nikkō Tōshōgū Shrine carries elephant-like baku among its 714 carved animals and imaginary beasts; because the baku was also said to eat steel and copper, it there symbolizes a peaceful world without weapons[7](https://www.gov-online.go.jp/video/cao/dl/public_html/gov/pdf/hlj/20160601/20160601all.pdf). The beast was a common subject of *netsuke* carvings, and an eighteenth-century example at the [Los Angeles County Museum of Art](https://www.edgepedia.org/los-angeles-county-museum-of-art) shows the standard traits of trunk, tusks, rhinoceros eyes, ox tail, and tiger paws[3](https://collections.lacma.org/object/89887). A wooden pillow shaped like a baku, said to have been used by [Toyotomi Hideyoshi](https://www.edgepedia.org/toyotomi-hideyoshi) (1537–1598), survives in Kyoto; its shape carried a double meaning, since a beast that eats the metals of weapons also signified that swords were not at hand[8](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/en/R1-01731.html).
## Cautions and confusions
Folklore attaches a warning to the summoning. A baku left hungry after one nightmare may eat the dreamer's hopes and ambitions as well, leaving a hollow life, and some traditions say it may consume all dreams, good and bad, or keep a person from sleeping[9](https://hyakumonogatari.com/2012/10/20/baku-the-dream-eater/).
Two confusions recur. The baku is often mistaken for the *hakutaku* (Chinese *bai ze*), another evil-warding beast whose image was used as a charm; a statue called the Baku King at a Tokyo temple was originally a statue of a hakutaku[9](https://hyakumonogatari.com/2012/10/20/baku-the-dream-eater/). And although a baku is sometimes said to appear among Toriyama Sekien's yokai pictures, neither the *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō* nor the *Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki* contains one, a common error[1](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku).
## The tapir question
In Japanese the real tapir shares the name *baku*, usually written in kana as バク, because its long snout recalls the legendary beast's "elephant's trunk"; the animal was named after the legend, not the other way around[10](https://www.nippon.com/en/nipponblog/m00079/). The [Kyoto University](https://www.edgepedia.org/kyoto-university) art historian Hayashi Minao pointed to ancient Chinese bronze ware inscribed with images of the mythical baku and proposed that a tapir-like creature once lived in China and went extinct, surviving in legend[9](https://hyakumonogatari.com/2012/10/20/baku-the-dream-eater/). The linguistic link has fed back into popular imagination, so that tapirs are now associated with dream-eating[10](https://www.nippon.com/en/nipponblog/m00079/).
## The baku in literature and popular culture
The writer [Lafcadio Hearn](https://www.edgepedia.org/lafcadio-hearn) (1850–1904), known for his collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories, described the baku in his essay "The Eater of Dreams" in *Kottō* (1902), reporting the threefold invocation on waking and the protective character placed on pillows[11](https://worldofcreatures.org/creatures/baku/). Edo artists pictured the beast, with Katsushika Hokusai's baku among the best-known images[2](https://theonym.jp/figure/baku).
The creature remains current. By the turn of the twentieth century it was common for Japanese children to sleep with a baku talisman by the bed[12](https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-asia/baku-legend-dream-eater-002383). Modern baku appear in anime, manga, and games, increasingly drawn as tapir-like figures rather than chimeras: the Pokémon Drowzee and Munna lines, the Digimon Bakumon, and a baku in [Mamoru Oshii](https://www.edgepedia.org/mamoru-oshii)'s 1984 animated film *Beautiful Dreamer*[9](https://hyakumonogatari.com/2012/10/20/baku-the-dream-eater/) • [12](https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-asia/baku-legend-dream-eater-002383). A dream researcher surveying nightmare defenses notes that baku amulets and charms were introduced from China and developed in Japan into the nightmare eater, later transforming into the treasure-ship picture that brings good dreams[13](https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1870865117632831616).
## References
1. [Baku: the Dream Eater That Devours Nightmares, YOKAI.JP](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/baku)
2. [獏, THEONYM (Japanese mythology encyclopedia)](https://theonym.jp/figure/baku)
3. [Baku: Monster that Eats Nightmares, LACMA Collections](https://collections.lacma.org/object/89887)
4. [Najima, Sumio (1998). A Supplement to a Historical Perspective of Dream Research in Japan (V): The Issue of Baku and Hakki, Kumamoto University](https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1050001337929722752)
5. [『原神』"夢喰い獏"モチーフの新キャラ分析, Denfaminicogamer](https://news.denfaminicogamer.jp/news/250223g)
6. [42. 獏, 百句百妖漫録](https://100ku100you.com/archive/article-0042/)
7. [Highlighting Japan, Government of Japan (Yōmeimon Gate carvings)](https://www.gov-online.go.jp/video/cao/dl/public_html/gov/pdf/hlj/20160601/20160601all.pdf)
8. [Hideyoshi's Pillow in the Shape of a Baku, Japan Tourism Agency](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/en/R1-01731.html)
9. [Baku – The Dream Eater, Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai (Zack Davisson, 2012)](https://hyakumonogatari.com/2012/10/20/baku-the-dream-eater/)
10. [Real Animals and Mythical Counterparts, Nippon.com (2015)](https://www.nippon.com/en/nipponblog/m00079/)
11. [Baku, World of Creatures (on Hearn's "The Eater of Dreams")](https://worldofcreatures.org/creatures/baku/)
12. [Baku: The Legendary Dream Eating Monster of Japanese Mythology, Ancient Origins](https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-asia/baku-legend-dream-eater-002383)
13. [Hori, Tadao (2005). Cultural note on dreaming and dream study in the future, Sleep and Biological Rhythms](https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1870865117632831616)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Philosophy, religion, and mythology › Mythology and folklore › Legendary creatures and beings › Hybrid beasts and monsters*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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