PenghouEdo-Period Scholarly Edition (Bibliographic and Picture Scroll Tradition)

An Edo-period rendering of Penghou, organized within the Japanese concept of kodama after scholars and painters absorbed Chinese narratives. It is depicted as a dog with a human face, tied to venerable camphors and other old trees. Echoes in the mountains were taken as the work of tree spirits, and notes on Penghou informed dog-shaped variants within yamabiko imagery. Early modern natural histories cite Chinese texts explicitly, layering foreign entries atop local lore rather than reporting concrete regional怪談, so place-specific tales are scarce. Japanese accounts treat it as a “tree spirit,” equating kimoki with kodama, linking it to taboos on felling and the cult of ancient trees. Details vary across sources, but two elements persist: it appears bleeding from an old tree, and it bears a human-faced canine form. This version eschews embellished fiction to show how Chinese originals were received in Japanese encyclopedias.