Chiwen

Dragon on the roof

Chiwen is a roof ornament in traditional Chinese building and art. It shows a dragon with few horns or none, a short body and a very wide mouth, set along a roof ridge as if swallowing the beams. People often compare these ornaments with Western gargoyles, though the two are not related. The same name belongs to a mythical dragon that carries features of a fish, and Chinese myth counts it among the nine sons of the dragon. Those nine also serve as imperial roof decorations.

Origins and history

The roof figure can be traced back to a Han dynasty ornament called chiwei, whose earliest images survive on ceramic models of buildings, on que-towers, and in tomb murals and stone reliefs. Those early pieces were shaped like wings and were linked to the Zhuque. From the Three Kingdoms through the Northern and Southern dynasties they stood on palaces, temples and official buildings, and in the Tang dynasty the private manors of nobles took them up. Glazed roof tiles came in during the Tang, so the ornaments were often glazed green and blue. A fish-like chiwen then appeared alongside the older wing shape, and by the Song dynasty it had replaced it, more dragon-like but still holding on to wings or a bird's head.

Making and placing

Old building manuals set out how the figure should be formed. The technical treatise Yingzao Fashi lists its proper parts and terminology and fixes its construction and measurements, so workshops worked from a shared pattern even as regional styles and colours differed. In use, one figure sits at each end of the ridgepole, and it can also serve as a waterspout. Builders finished it in glazed tile, often in green or blue. Over the centuries the body and tail curled further inward and the ornament grew more elaborate. By the Ming and Qing dynasties it stood widely on traditional buildings, and it is still placed on the roofs of Chinese homes today.

The nine dragons

Chinese tradition lists the chiwen second or third among the Lóng shēng jiǔzǐ, the nine young that the dragon is said to have fathered. These nine creatures became common decorations in feng shui architecture, and each of them has a protective duty. Their name runs through the map of Hong Kong, where Kowloon means nine dragons in Cantonese, and it also appears in the names of many lakes, rivers and small settlements on the mainland. A Ming dynasty text, the Wuzazu, explains the figure on the ridgepole as one that swallows all evil influences.

Japan and nearby

Japan took the names for these roof tiles into its own language as Sino-Japanese words. There the common term is shibi, an ornamental tile for the ridge, rather than chifun or shifun. Japanese myth has a related roof creature, the Shachihoko, a fish with a carp's arched tail, a tiger's head and dragon scales, which is believed to bring rain and to keep a building safe from fire. The character used for it was invented in Japan and can also be read for orca.

How Chiwen is kept

Chiwen belongs to buildings, not to a calendar. A maker shapes the ornament, glazes it, and a builder sets one at each end of the roof ridge, where it can double as a waterspout. In earlier centuries glazed examples in green and blue sat on imperial palaces, temples, government halls and the manors of nobles. Manuals such as the Yingzao Fashi set out the parts, names and measurements of each piece, so workshops shared a pattern while local shapes and colours varied. Today the figure still crowns traditional Chinese homes, and older versions remain on historic buildings.

When and where

Chiwen does not fall on a day of the year. Its place in history is measured in dynasties: the earliest examples come from the Han dynasty, the wing-shaped chiwei gave way to the fish-like chiwen in the middle of the Tang, and the dragon form was settled by the Song. Ming and Qing builders made the most ornate versions.

The tradition belongs to China and is strongest in traditional Chinese building: palaces, temples, official halls, noble manors and ordinary homes. Early images survive in tomb art and on ceramic models, and glazed pieces appear in the Mogao Grottoes murals. Japan borrowed the names for its own roof-ridge tiles. In Hong Kong the name Kowloon means nine dragons, taken from the group of creatures the chiwen belongs to.

What Chiwen means

For the people who put it on a roof, the chiwen is a guard. It is set at the ends of the ridge as though it were swallowing the building's beams, and with them every evil influence. The Tang book Su Shi Yan Yi tells of a sea creature of the same name placed on Han dynasty roofs to keep them from catching fire. Readers of feng shui give it a wider job still: it is said to hold off floods and typhoons. That protective meaning is why the figure is still kept on traditional homes today.

Questions people ask about Chiwen

See also

Chinese knottingA folk craft of cord tied into lucky shapes, made in China and given as charmsChinese paper cuttingChinese cut paper pictures, pasted on windows and doors for luck at New YearChinese herbologyThe traditional Chinese system of preparing and prescribing herbal and natural remediesChinese patchworkA needlework craft joining fabric scraps into protective clothing, quilts and folk art

Good reading and sources

• Chiwen on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-11.