Wei Collection, Middle Volume Radical: Sheep (yáng) Page 951, Entry 06 Pronounced mi (rising tone) According to the Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters (Shuowen Jiezi), this refers to the bleating sound of a sheep. It also denotes a surname; it is the ancestral surname of the Chu state. In the Discourses of the States (Guoyu), it is written: The descendants who flourished from Zhurong were likely the Mi surname. In the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), the chapter on the House of Chu records that Luzhong had six sons; the sixth was called Jilian, whose surname was Mi, and the Chu state were his descendants. The commentary notes that the Mi surname is the origin of the various royal clans of the Chu state. Mi is an onomatopoeic representation of a sheep's bleat. According to the Collected Rhymes (Jiyun), it is sometimes written in the variant form mie.