Other attributes
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.
Classical usages
Kui frequently occurs in Chinese classic texts. Although some early texts are heterogeneous compositions of uncertain dates, the following discussion is presented in roughly chronological order.
Early authors agreed that the mountain dragon-demon Kui had yizu 一足 "one foot" but disagreed whether this also applied to Shun's music master Kui. Since the Chinese word zu 足 ambiguously means "foot; leg" or "enough; sufficient; fully; as much as", yizu can mean "one foot; one leg" or "one is enough". "The Confucianists," explains Eberhard, "who personified K'ui and made him into a 'master of music', detested the idea that K'ui had only one leg and they discussed it 'away'" (e.g., Hanfeizi, Lüshi Chunqiu, and Xunzi below). Instead of straightforwardly reading Kui yi zu 夔一足 as "Kui one foot", Confucianist revisionism construes it as "Kui, one [person like him] was enough." There is further uncertainty whether the mythical Kui was "one footed" or "one legged". Compare the English "one-footed" words uniped "a creature having only one foot (or leg)" and monopod "a creature having only one foot (or leg); a one-legged stand".
Mythic parallels
Monocoli illustration from the 1493 CE Nuremberg Chronicle
In addition to the Kui 夔, Chinese mythology has other uniped creatures. Based on "one-legged" descriptions, Carr compares kui with chi 螭 "hornless dragon; mountain demon" and hui 虺 "snake; python". The Shanhaijing mentions three one-footed creatures. The "Bellow-pot" bird "which looks like an owl; it has a human face but only one foot"; the "Endsquare" bird "which looks like a crane; it has one foot, scarlet markings on a green background, and a white beak"; and
Softsharp Country lies east of the Country of Oneeye. Its people have only one hand and only one foot. Their knees turn backwards so that their foot sticks up in the air. One author states that this is Keepsharp Country, and that the single foot of the people there turns backwards because it is broken.
