[2][3][4] According to the Song dynasty history book Lushi, Chiyou's surname was Jiang (姜), and he was a descendant of the Flame Emperor.

[11] In some sources, Chiyou had certain features associated with various mythological bovines: his head was that of a bull with two horns, although the body was human, and his hindquarters were those of a bear.

[10] However, his exact ethnic affiliations are quite complex, with multiple sources reporting him as belonging to various tribes, in addition to a number of diverse peoples supposed to have directly descended from him.

Modern Han Chinese scholar Weng Dujian considers Jiuli and San Miao to be Man southerners.

[10] Legend has it that in ancient times, the Miao people lived on the edge of the Yellow River, with a total of "eighty-one" villages.

Chi You led the Miao people to fight bravely and defeated Red Dragon and Huang Long many times.

Zhang Tianshi from Longhu Mountain in Jiangxi Province was summoned to the court to tell the emperor that the lack of salt produced Chi You, and that he could be killed by Guan Gong.

The Yellow Emperor then called upon the drought demon Nüba (女魃), who blew away the storm clouds and cleared the battlefield.

In one mythical episode, after Chiyou had claimed he could not be conquered,[3] the goddess Nuwa dropped a stone tablet on him from Mount Tai.

From then on, the 5-finger-shaped stone tablet, inscribed "Mount Tai shigandang" (泰山石敢當) became a spiritual weapon to ward off evil and disasters.

The historian Luo Bi [zh], in his work the Lushi, writes of Chiyou that the Yellow Emperor "cut his head off; and for this reason sages later cast his portrait on bronzes to warn the greedy.

[21]In Chinese honghuang novels and online literature, Chiyou ranks first among the "Ten Great Demon Gods of Ancient Times", including Xingtian, Kuafu, Gonggong, Feilian, Pingyi, Shentu and Yulei, Houqing, Hanba, and Yinlingzi.