Wuzhiqi

The earliest description of Wuzhiqi can be found in the early 9th century ancient Chinese history Guoshi Bu (國史補) by Li Gongzuo, which briefly tells of a fisherman in Chuzhao (楚州) who encounters a monkey demon with a black body and a white head in the Huai River.[2] Wuzhiqi is also described in the Song dynasty anthology Taiping Guangji as a "monkey-like demon" residing in the Huai River; it is defeated by Yu the Great and imprisoned under Turtle Mountain (龜山), as part of his effort to control the Great Flood.[3]

A cast-iron statue depicting Wuzhiqi was gifted to the German artist Hanna Bekker vom Rath and later housed at the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin. Described as the "most intriguing and puzzling gift" to the museum, it was only identified in 2001 by University of Hawaii professor Poul Andersen.[4] Andersen also documented the emergence of Wuzhiqi-inspired cults in northern Anhui.[5]

A popular argument first forwarded by Huang Zhigang offers that the Journey to the West protagonist Sun Wukong was modeled after Wuzhiqi.[5] Anthony C. Yu writes in his unabridged translation of The Journey to the West that Wuzhiqi "has provided many scholars with a prototype of Sun Wukong" and that the author of Journey himself had "certainly" read of Wuzhiqi; in Chapter 66, it is referred to as the "Water Ape Great Sage" (水猿大聖) that had been brought to submission by the Preceptor of State-King Bodhisattva (國師王菩薩).[6]