The Heavenly Dog Eats the Moon

Lunar Eclipse Lore

Folk explanation of eclipses: people beat drums to scare away the dog devouring the moon.

When the moon darkened, villagers said a heavenly dog was devouring it, and they beat drums, clanged gongs and fired crackers to frighten the beast away. The panic was the point: a community shouting together at the sky turned an eclipse from terror into ritual. The dog was later identified with the star-devouring Tian Gou of Han astronomy, but the moon it swallows is the one we all share.