Pan
Gu and Nu Wa – A Creation Myth from China
From Classical Chinese Myths, Edited by Jan
Walls and Yvonne Walls
Long, long ago,
all of the matter of the universe was inside of a cloud shaped like an egg.
Inside the matter was Pan Gu. Pan Gu was a giant. He slept and grew for 18,000
years. Finally, one day, he woke up. He stretched. The egg broke. The lighter
matter floated up to make the sky and heavens. The heavier matter sank down to
make the earth.
Pan
Gu worried that the sky and earth would mix again. He decided to hold them
apart with the heavens on his head and the earth at his feet. He held them
apart for 18,000 years. He grew. Finally, the heavens were 30,000 miles above the
earth. When Pan Gu knew they were separate, he died.
Pan
Gu's arms and legs became the four directions and the mountains. His blood
became the rivers. His sweat became the rain and dew. His voice became the
thunder, and his breath became the winds. His hair became the grass. His veins
became the roads and paths. His teeth and bones became the minerals and rocks.
His flesh became the soil of the fields. Up above, his left eye became the sun,
and his right eye became the moon. Pan Gu made the world.
Many
centuries later, a goddess named Nu Wa roamed the world. She was lonely. She saw her reflection in a
pond. She knew there was nothing like her in the world. She decided to make
something like herself.
She
took mud from the edge of the pond and shaped it into a human being. When she
set it down on the earth it came alive. It danced. Nu Wa made more human
beings. Soon she was not lonely. She had a crowd of little humans around her.
She made them for two days. She wanted more. She pulled down a long vine and
dragged it through the mud. She swung the vine through the air. Drops of mud
flew everywhere. When they fell, they became more humans, almost as perfect as
the ones she had made. The one she had made became the aristocrats. The ones
spread by the vine became the poor common people. Nu Wa divided the human
beings into male and female so that they could reproduce.
Many
years later, the heavens collapsed. There were holes in the sky. The earth
cracked. Water rushed up from below to flood the earth. Fire jumped from the
earth. Wild beasts ate the people. Nu Wa drove the beasts back and healed the
earth. To fix the sky, she took stones of many colors from the river and melted
them in fire. She fixed the holes in the sky with the melted rock. She used the
four legs of a giant turtle to support the sky again. She died and her body
decorated the world.
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