A shuihu or shui hu (Chinese: 水虎; Wade–Giles: shui-hu; Japanese pronunciation: suiko; lit. 'water tiger'),[b] is a legendary creature said to have inhabited river systems in what is now Hubei Province in China.
The water tiger is described as similar (in size) to a 3 or 4-year old human child, with tiger-like attributes in the lower limb and perhaps the head, though interpretations have varied. The modern interpretation is that the tiger-like (head), claws, etc., are always submerged and hidden, but the kneecap is exposed to view, although if a human tries to tamper with he may be killed.
Japanese books during the Tokugawa Period read the Chinese text rather differently. Wakan Sansai Zue, an influential encyclopedia of the early 18th-century, gave a considerably divergent reading and stated that the suiko possessed kneecaps like tiger-claws. This odd feature was replicated in its woodcut illustration, and propagated in Toriyama Sekien's drawing of the suiko in his yōkai anthology.
Past Japanese writers also sometimes used "suiko (water-tiger)" as a stilted Sinitic term for the kappa (aka kawatarō) in native folklore, even though Wakan Sansai Zue had distinguished these as two separate beings.
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