狜

狜 is the first character in 狜猔, an older written name for 古宗.

古宗 refers here to a Tibetan-linked group later associated with Yunnan. A Yuan-era geographical record, later quoted in the regional history 讀史方輿紀要, places 古宗蛮 north of the Iron Bridge. A Ming-era Yunnan gazetteer, a regional reference book, connects 古宗 with the historical label 西番 and records 狜猔 as another spelling. These are historical group names, not extra meanings of 狜.

In 1940, a naming reform changed 狜猔 to 估倧. Both characters in 估倧 use the person component 亻; the reform also replaced some other ethnonym spellings built with the animal component 犭 with similar-sounding or human-component forms.

How do I read or type 狜?

The cited Mandarin readings are gǔ and kǔ; follow your source.

References disagree: Taiwan’s Ministry of Education dictionary gives gǔ, while Unihan, a database of Han characters, gives kǔ. In Mandarin pinyin, both use the third tone, which starts low and rises. gǔ begins with a k-like sound without a strong puff of air; kǔ has the same vowel and tone but starts with a puffed k. With a Chinese pinyin keyboard, enter the reading used by your source and select 狜 from the candidates. 古宗 and 估倧 are historical name forms, not substitutes for 狜 when transcribing the exact spelling.