Fuxi or Fu Hsi<!--Chinese characters in infobox; see WP:MOS-ZH--> is a culture hero in Chinese mythology, credited along with his sister and wife Nüwa with creating humanity and the invention of music, hunting, fishing, domestication, and cooking, as well as the Cangjie system of writing Chinese characters around 2900 BC or 2000BC. He is also said to be the originator of bagua (the eight trigrams) after observing that there were eight fundamental building blocks in nature: heaven, earth, water, fire, thunder, wind, mountain, and lake. These eight are all made of different combinations of yin and yang, which are what came to be called bagua.
Fuxi was counted as the first mythical emperor of China, "a divine being with a serpent's body" who was miraculously born, a Taoist deity, and/or a member of the Three Sovereigns at the beginning of the Chinese dynastic period. Some representations show him as a human with snake-like characteristics, "a leaf-wreathed head growing out of a mountain", "or as a man clothed with animal skins."
However, in some myths, Fuxi was held to be the creator, not Pangu, who worked alone and not with Nüwa.
Fuxi was known as the "original god", and he was said to have been born in the lower-middle reaches of the Yellow River in a place called Chengji () (possibly modern Lantian, Shaanxi province, or Tianshui, Gansu province).
A possible historical interpretation of the myth is that Huaxu (Fuxi's mother) was a leader during the matriarchal society (BC) as early Chinese developed language skill while Fuxi and Nüwa were leaders in the early patriarchal society (BC) when the Chinese began performing marriage rituals.
A divinity Taihao (, "The Great Bright One") appears, vaguely, in sources before the Han dynasty, independent from Fuxi. Later, Fuxi is identified with Taihao, the latter being his courtesy or formal
According to legend, the goddess of the Luo River, Fufei, was the daughter of Fuxi. Additionally, some versions of the legend state that she is Fuxi's consort. She drowned in the Luo River while crossing it and became the spirit of the Luo River.
Creation legend
According to the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Fuxi and Nüwa were the original humans who lived on the mythological Kunlun Mountain (today's Huashan). One day they set up two separated piles of fire, and the fire eventually became one. Under the fire, they decided to become husband and wife. Fuxi and Nüwa used clay to create offspring, and with the divine power they made the clay figures come alive. Alexander Catcott, a Hutchinsonian, identified Fuxi with the Biblical Noah (A Treatise on the Deluge).
Fuxi and Nüwa were also thought to be gods of silk.
Death
thumb|Fuxi temple in [[Xinle, Hebei]]
Fuxi is said to have lived for 197 years altogether and died at a place called Chen (modern Huaiyang, Henan), where a monument to him can still be found and visited as a tourist attraction.