Kong koi

What it is

Kong koi, or Phi Kong Koi, belongs to the ghost lore of Laos and Thailand. Witnesses disagree about its shape. Many describe a one-legged phantom that hops and shouts 'Koi, koi, koi'. Some give it a mouth like a fly's tube; others liken it to a monkey or a langur. Nearly everyone who tells of it calls it ugly and notes that it cannot climb trees, which is odd for a jungle creature. The belief at its centre is that it drinks blood from the toes of a traveller asleep in the forest, and the custom that follows is to sleep with the feet together or crossed.

Where it comes from

The name carries its own history. Phi is the Thai word for ghost, and the creature also goes by Phi Pong, Phi Pong Kang ('mineral lick ghost') and Phi Teen Diao ('one-footed ghost'). The element koi, or koy, is listed in the Royal Institute Dictionary as a term for a dark-skinned, curly-haired people of the Malay Peninsula also known as Sakai, most likely the Orang Asli or the Semang. One line of explanation, drawn from a reported encounter, holds that the beings taken for ghosts were Kha Ra Dae people hunting intruders in the forest.

How it is done

There is no rite to perform. The custom is protective: a traveller sleeping in the jungle keeps the feet together or crossed. In one account, two monks travelling in Khammouane, Laos, sat meditating through the night and were shielded from a group of the creatures, which at dawn gave up and invited them home. A forest ranger in Khao Yai National Park chanted prayers without effect, then thought of a monk he respected and struck at the thing with a cloth.

Tools and materials

The creature is given few possessions. In the Khammouane account it carried small crossbows or arrows. Among Tai Dam people in Nong Sung district, Mukdahan province, fish or valuables found along forest paths are held to belong to the Kong koi, which will come back to claim them, so such finds are not taken. Beyond these the stories name no charms, stones or instruments, only the body of the ghost: one leg, and sometimes the fly-like mouth or the monkey face.

What it is for

The belief gives a shape and a name to danger in the forest. It explains a sleeper waking drained, a night patrol feeling something drop from a tree, knocking that starts on a bedroom wall. One suggestion holds that the beings behind such stories were Kha Ra Dae people hunting intruding humans and carrying off meat. For the communities who tell them, the tales also carry a rule about property: what lies on a forest path may belong to someone else.

Peoples and places

Lao and Thai people share the Kong koi, and accounts differ by community. In the Tai Dam faith of Nong Sung district, Mukdahan province, it is a very small, long-haired woman with feet pointing backwards, who speaks the reverse of what is true. The Karen picture a small, quick shrew-like animal with sharp teeth and fangs for drawing blood. A story told in Laos by two monks places the creatures in Khammouane. Sightings are reported from Loei, Surin and Prachuap Khiri Khan, with the habitat given as deep jungle in northeast Thailand and western Laos.

What people believe

Behind the tales is a world where the forest is populated. Ghosts are a normal part of it, and monks carry a protective power: meditation held the Khammouane travellers safe, while a ranger's chanted prayers did not, until he fixed his mind on a monk he revered. The Tai Dam hold that the Kong koi's speech runs backwards, matching its backward feet. Some people hold that it is not a spirit at all but an ethnic group, the Kha Ra Dae, long unseen; in 2016 a local cultural official said as much.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Researchers read the reports cautiously. The suggestion that the Kong koi are Kha Ra Dae people comes from an anthropology-minded reading of a single story, and the dictionary sense of koi points to ethnic groups of the Malay Peninsula. After footprints were found in a Loei cave in September 2016, Dr Weerachai Phutdhawong of the Faculty of Science at Kasetsart University offered a physical explanation: a human print in ash or salt can expand as moisture evaporates, making it look larger. A 2018 video said to show the creature was widely dismissed by observers as staged, with the figure called a puppet.

Compare and confuse

The one-legged figure recurs across cultures. Chinese folklore has the jiangshi, a hopping vampire, and the shanxiao, a hairy one-legged mountain creature. Japan has the Sansei, a one-legged yōkai with a backward foot. Patasola is a one-legged female vampire of South American jungle stories; the Nasnas is a one-legged jinn in Arabian lore; Madagascar's Kalanoro has backward feet and sharp claws. Madam Koi Koi, an African figure, hops on one heel. Within Thailand the same ghost is called Phi Pong Kang or Phi Teen Diao.

Today

The Kong koi has moved from forest paths into film and online rumour. Yong Tod, a character in Sunthorn Phu's early Rattanakosin epic Phra Aphai Mani, is an undead forest being with magic and immortality. The 2025 horror adventure Death Whisperer III calls the spirit Phi Pong Kang, gives it a small monkey-like body, membranous structures on the back, group living, speed through trees, a taste for travellers' blood and a weakness to fire. The 2026 Thai and Lao film Wrecked draws on the legend too.

Questions people ask about Kong koi

Good reading and sources

• Kong koi on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data