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Bird with nine heads
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JIU-TOU Niao, (the bird with nine heads), is an evil monster featuring 10 necks connecting nine heads. It is covered in red feathers. The bird is also called gui che, or “ghost-vehicle,” as it always make noises like a running vehicle at night. The evil bird steals children’s souls, and the blood dropping from the necks will bring doom to households.
It is said that it used to have 10 heads. But one is missing and the headless neck constantly weeps blood.
There are two versions of story on how the bird lost one of its head. One version holds that it was bitten off by a fierce mythical dog, while a more widely spread version suggests the Emperor of the Zhou Dynasty (1152-1056 BC) who ordered a hunter to shoot its head off.
But that didn’t stop the evil bird. It continued sneak into villages at night, hurting children and spreading misfortune.
Many families imposed strict rules to protect their families, banning certain behavior. Some banned exposing children’s clothes at night.
Hearing bird with nine heads approaching, people were expected to release their dogs, make loud noises by knocking the beds or doors, and put out candles to ward it off.
Some legends say the bird not only evil but stupid and nearsighted. Others say each of the bird’s heads has a pair of wings as well. With all the 18 wings squeezing against each other, the bird can hardly fly.
And as described in Liu Ji’s article “Birds with Nine Heads” in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), one of the bird’s heads had some food, but the other eight started fighting for the food, so that all nine were hurt.
A duck who saw this mocked them, saying all the food would enter just one stomach, so it didn’t matter which head swallowed it and the fight was stupid and selfish and ignored the greater interest.
Yet, some scholars believe that the bird with nine heads was not that evil and stupid at beginning. Its image very likely comes from the mythical jiu feng (the nine-headed phoenix) worshiped by tribes in the Chu region around today’s Hubei Province. As recorded in “Shan Hai Jing” (Classics of the Mountains and Seas), the phoenix has nine heads with human faces and a bird’s body. It lives in a desolate region. The hatred of the residents of the Zhou Dynasty against those in the Chu region is probably the reason why the nine-headed phoenix fell from its saintly throne and became an annoying monster.
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