Nuwa: a Chinese Creation Myth
Nuwa is a badass goddess in ancient Han Chinese legends. Her creative ambitions led her to shape humans out of clay and fight to make the earth a safe place for her children. She shows an abundant spirit of self sacrifice and devotion. She even yelled at the god of water and the god of fire for their petty and destructive wars. Her story explains why sunsets are multicolored, why the land in China slopes down to the southeast, and why the sun, moon, and stars rotate in the sky.
The world only contained mountains and valleys, rivers and oceans, birds, insects, and fish when it was first created. The goddess Nuwa looked down on the world. After living in the Celestial Realm for tens of thousands of years, her days were beginning to blend together like an endless roll of rice paper. She decided to come down and visit the world. She witnessed the bright sun and gentle rains caressing the bountiful land and found the world to be miraculous. She went to a river to wash her hands when she saw her reflection in the water. This gave her an idea. The riverbank was made of yellow clay. She grabbed some and molded it into a doll that looked like her. When she set it down, it became a living, breathing thing. Nuwa’s heart was filled with love. This is how humans came about.
One year, the God of Fire and the God of Water bumped into each other on the road. They were enemies since time immemorial, so of course, they fought, each summoning creatures of the waters and fire. Crabs, turtles, and troops of fish fought dragons and phoenixes. The God of Fire eventually prevailed. In frustration, the God of Water butted his head into one of the pillars that held up the sky. The pillar broke and a large portion of the sky came tumbling down. A flood followed as waters of the Celestial River came pouring out. Broken pieces of the sky rained down as fiery meteorites, setting woods on fire and cracking giant craters in the earth. Nuwa went to the God of Fire and the God of Water and yelled at them for their reckless, selfish behavior. Next, she had to mend the hole in the sky. She melted down five colored stones to mend the sky. They were red, yellow, blue, white, and black — the primary colors from which all other colors on earth are derived.
