Which is the creation myth of the Chinese? All civilizations have one and it is surprising to know how similar they are to each other. According to an ancient Chinese legend the god Pangu, very powerful, he managed to triumph over chaos and with the help of an ax he created the world we all know. Chaos and mythical heroes are as common in Chinese mythology as in the rest of the mythologies that we know more about. As the Christian and Jewish bible say, as the myths of many African tribes say and as the creation myths of the Mayans say, for example, in the beginning there was chaos, darkness.
The god Pangu was sleeping in that chaos. After 18 thousand years of napping, he woke up one day and when he realized that he was confined in a chaotic and dark environment, he decided to break it. Pangu had a giant and powerful ax so he used it to destroy chaos and to open cracks that allowed light to penetrate the universe. In this way the sky was born and the darkest parts of the chaos fell and became earth. To keep earth from heaven separate, Pangu himself stayed in the middle and thus allowed both heaven and earth to grow a little more each day. So he stayed, working, another 18 thousand years. Then he considered that his work had already been done and he decided to rest.
Pangu's breath turned to winds and clouds, his voice turned to thunder, his right eye to the sun and his left to the moon, and his hair turned to stars. His blood became rivers and lakes, his muscles fertile land and his mineral bones. His sweat turned into rain and his hair turned into forests and grasslands. As you will see, Pangu did not create the human being. That was done by the goddess Nuwa. Nüwa created the human race using yellow clay. First he sculpted each human but realized that he had to change the way to make more beings faster. He got rid of the first attempts and then made all the men together, throwing them everywhere in the form of spots that later became men and women.
Photo: via Cultural China