Kui (Chinese mythology)

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Kui (Chinese: 夔; pinyin: kuí; Wade–Giles: k'uei) is a polysemous figure in
ancient Chinese mythology. Classic texts use this name for the legendary
musician Kui who invented music and dancing; for the one-legged mountain
demon or rain-god Kui variously said to resemble a Chinese dragon, a drum, or a
monkey with a human face; and for the Kuiniu wild yak or buffalo.

A Spring and Autumn period bronze vessel with coiled dragon patterns

Contents

 1Word
o 1.1Characters
o 1.2Etymologies
 2Classical usages
o 2.1Shujing
o 2.2Chunqiu and Zuozhuan
o 2.3Guoyu
o 2.4Xunzi
o 2.5Hanfeizi
 o 2.6Lüshi Chunqiu
o 2.7Zhuangzi
o 2.8Shanhaijing
o 2.9Liji
o 2.10Baopuzi
 3Mythic parallels
 4Notes
 5References
 6External links

Word[edit]

A yak (Bos grunniens)

While Kui 夔 originally named a mythic being, Modern Standard Chinese uses it in

several other expressions. The reduplication kuikui 夔夔 means "awe-struck;
fearful; grave" (see the Shujing below). The compounds kuilong 夔龍 (with
"dragon") and kuiwen 夔紋 (with "pattern; design") name common motifs on Zhou
Dynasty Chinese bronzes. The chengyu idiom yikuiyizu 一夔已足 (lit. one Kui
already enough") means "one able person is enough for the job".
Kui is also a proper name. It is an uncommon one of the Hundred Family
Surnames. Kuiguo 夔國 was a Warring States period state, located in present-
day Zigui County (Hubei), that Chu annexed in 634 BCE. Kuizhou 夔州, located in
present-day Fengjie County of Chongqing (Sichuan), was established in 619 CE as
a Tang Dynasty prefecture.
Kuiniu 夔牛 or 犪牛 is an old name for the "wild ox; wild yak". The (1578
CE) Bencao Gangmu (tr. Read 1931, no. 356) entry for maoniu 氂牛 "wild yak",
which notes medicinal uses such as yak gallstones for "convulsions and delirium",
lists kiuniu as a synonym for weiniu 犩牛, "Larger than a cow. From the hills of
Szechuan, weighing several thousand catties." The biological classification Bos
grunniens (lit. "grunting ox") corresponds with the roaring Kui "god of rain and
thunder" (see the Shanhaijing below). Translating kui 夔 as "walrus" exemplifies
a ghost word. The Wiktionary translation equivalent "1. one-legged monster, 2.
walrus" was copied from the Unihan Database. However, Chinese kui does not
mean "walrus" (haixiang 海象 lit. "sea elephant") and this ghost first appeared in
early Chinese-English dictionaries by Robert Henry Mathews and Herbert
Giles. Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary (1931:538) translates kui as "A one-
legged monster; a walrus; Grave, respectful", which was adapted from A Chinese-
English Dictionary (1912:821) "A one-legged creature; a walrus. Grave;
reverential". Giles's dictionary copied this "walrus" mistake from his translation
(1889:211-2) of the Zhuangzi (see below), "The walrus said to the centipede, 'I hop
about on one leg, but not very successfully. How do you manage all these legs you
have?'" He footnotes, "'Walrus' is of course an analogue. But for the one leg, the
description given by a commentator of the creature mentioned in the text applies
with significant exactitude."

Oracle script for kui 夔 "a demon"

Seal script for kui 夔 "a demon"

Oracle script for nao 夒 "a monkey"

Seal script for nao 夒 "a monkey"

Characters[edit]
The modern 21-stroke Chinese character 夔 for kui combines five
elements": shou 首 "head", zhi 止 "stop", si 巳 "6th (of 12 Earthly
Branches)", ba 八 "8", and zhi 夂 "walk slowly". These enigmatic elements were
graphically simplified from the ancient Oracle bone script and Seal
script pictographs for kui 夔 showing "a face of demon, two arms, a belly, a tail, and
two feet" (Wieger 1927:255).
Excepting the top 丷 element (interpreted as "horns" on the ye 頁 "head"), kui 夔 is
graphically identical with nao 夒 – an old variant for nao 猱 "macaque; rhesus
monkey". The Oracle and Seal script graphs for nao pictured a monkey, and some
Oracle graphs are interpreted as either kui 夔 or nao 夒.
The (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi, which was the first Chinese dictionary of characters,
defines nao 夒 and kui 夔 (tr. Groot 1910:5:496).
 Nao: "a greedy quadruped, generally stated to be a she-monkey resembling a man;
it contains the component head 頁, with 巳, 止, and 夊 representing respectively the
arms and the leg of the beast." 夒: 貪獸也一曰母猴似人 从頁巳止夊其手足。
 Kui: "a [spirit] hü [魖 "a destructive, evil spectre" 1910:5:466] resembling a dragon
with one leg represented by the component 夊, and that the character represents the
beast with horns, hands, and a human face." 夔: 神魖也如龍一足 从夊象有角手人面之
形。
Kui, concludes Groot, "were thought to be a class of one-legged beasts or dragons
with human countenances."
Most Chinese characters are composed of "radicals" or "significs" that
suggest semantic fields and "phonetic" elements that roughly suggest
pronunciation. Both these 夔 and 夒 characters are classified under their
bottom 夂 "walk slowly radical", and Carr (1990:142) notes the semantic similarity
with Kui being "one-legged". Only a few uncommon characters have kui 夔
phonetics. For instance, kui 犪 (with the "ox radical" 牛) in kuiniu 犪牛 "wild ox; wild
yak", and kui 躨 (with the "foot radical"足) in kuiluo 躨跜 "writhe like a dragon".
Etymologies[edit]
The etymology of kui 夔 relates with wei 犩 "yak; buffalo". Eberhard (1968:57-8)
suggested Kui "mountain spirits that looked like a drum and had only one leg" was
"without doubt phonetically related" to the variant name hui 暉; both were classified
as shanxiao 山魈 "mountain demons" ("mandrill" in modern Chinese). He
concludes there were two series of names for "one-legged mountain imps", x
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