Pangu Creates the Earth and Nuwa Creates Humans

In The Beginning

These are two stories form ancient China describing how the world was created and how humans were made.

In the beginning there is nothing but a cosmic egg. Pangu emerges from this egg and the upper part becomes Yin the sky and lower part becomes Yang the earth. He begins to form the earth with the help of Phoenix, Dragon and Tortoise but becomes exhausted and his body becomes the earth itself. Later, Nuwa a goddess with a fish tail comes down to earth but is lonely as she has no one to talk to. She decides to make humans out of mud and clay. She finds it too tiring to fashion them one at time so she finds a better way by splattering mud with a stick. This is how she populates the earth.

The earliest human settlements in what is today called China date back 7000 years. China was ruled by a number of different dynasties and has a very old and rich tradition of legends and mythology. The main characters of these stories are gods, goddesses, ghosts and demons. The main themes reflect various aspects of human nature, human relations and social life.

Pangu is accompanied by three animals that feature in many ancient Chinese stories; Dragon who represents wisdom and power, Tortoise a symbol of strength and immortality and there are stories where the history of the world is written on its shell, and Phoenix, a symbol of rebirth. In the second part of the story we hear about how humans were created by Nuwa also known as Nu-Kua, Nu-Kwa, Nü-Wa a Chinese Creator Goddess and mother of all humans.

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