The Legend of Nu Kua

Nü Kua represents the restoral of order and innocence after chaos. She is the tempering influence that calms situations and brings level-headedness. A return to innocence, the ability to adopt a new positive attitude after events threaten to make one jaded.

“Nu Kua is an ancient Chinese creatrix who created and formed people out of yellow clay and invented the flute.  In legends, this serpent-bodied Goddess re-established order on the earth after a terrible rebellion. Nu Kua used melted stones to refashion the sky, tortoise toes to mark the four winds, and reeds to hold back overflowing rivers. Once this was done, the earth returned to its former beauty.

‘From Nu Kua blessings poured
Luck and order be restored.’

She is one of the oldest and most powerful of the female deities from one of the Earth’s oldest civilizations.  She is depicted as a beautiful creature, half-woman, half-dragon…who wanders the Earth.   It is She who created order from the primordial chaos of the Universe, settling the land, the sea, and the sky into place. Some tales make Her the wife of Her older brother, Fu-hsi, one of the first sovereigns, whom She later succeeded.  The following myth tells the story of how the world began.

In the beginning of time, there was nothing but a cosmic egg which was formed of chaos.  A giant named P’an Kun was formed from the chaos; he slept for 18,000 years, and when he awakened, the egg cracked, and darkness poured out…along with the light which had been hidden within the chaos.  The darkness fell to create the Earth, while the light fragments joined together and created the heavens (Yin and Yang). However, P’an Kun feared that chaos might return if the light fell into the dark below, he made it his mission to keep the two separated until he was sure it was safe.

Thousands of years passed by; eventually, P’an Ku sunk down into the Earth in exhaustion and died. His expired breath became wind and clouds while his body and his limbs formed the mountains and hills. His blood began to flow as the streams and the rivers. His hair took root became the vegetation; his teeth became the minerals and the precious gems.

It was then that Nü-Kua emerged from the heavens and roamed the Earth and was awed by all of its beauty, but the world was devoid of creatures, and She had no one but Herself to enjoy it. So, She decided that She would create humans so P’an Ku’s sacrifice would not be in vain. She scooped up the yellow clay and lovingly made scores of men and women, lining them up in front of her, but as perfect as Her creations appeared, they had no life. They were mere statues. She picked them up, and one by one, She breathed Her Divine breath into their lifeless bodies.  At first, She took great pride in molding them, but after awhile, it became so tedious that She began dipping a rope slip into the clay, then shaking it so that drops splattered to the ground.  Thus, two types of humans were born.  From the molded figures came the nobles; from the clay drops, the peasants were born.

In another tale, there was a great battle, the monster Kung-Kung wreaked a lot of havoc, flattening mountains, tilting the earth and tearing a hole in the sky. Fires raged out of control, the waters overran the world, and the cardinal points became misaligned. Nü Kua restored order with five colored stones, fixed the directions on the legs of a tortoise, controlled the water and put out the fires, and repaired the sky.

Another version of the myth calls Nü Kua a goddess-Queen who defeated a powerful King; angered at being beat up by a girl, he ran to the top of a mountain and pulled down the Heavenly Bamboo, tearing the sky in the process, and letting in floods of water from the heavens beyond. Nü Kua then repaired the sky and restored order. The Heavenly Bamboo can be seen as a variant of the axis mundi, or axis or the world, representing the mythical center of the world.

She is also said to have tamed a dangerous giant called King-of-Oxen, by running a rope through his nose. She was said to have brought civilization, taming wild animals and teaching humans irrigation and invented marriage.