Don’t Know Much About® Mythology (53 page)

Try a very old tale featuring Nü Gua, the fertility deity and mother of Creation, who is lonely after the world has come into being. Scooping up some wet clay from the bank of the Yellow River, Nü Gua presses it into tiny figures and impregnates each one with the force of yin or yang, so the figures come to life. Those who receive yang become men, and those who receive yin become women. When Nü Gua tires of molding the figures one by one, she spins clay off the end of a rope, or vine, that she has dragged in furrows across the muddy ground. The misshapen figures that come from the gobs of falling mud become humans born into poverty, while the handsome figures, molded by the goddess’s hand from the clay of the Yellow River, become the Chinese nobility.

Nü Gua also appears in one of several Chinese Flood stories, appropriate for a region prone to violent flooding. (The Yellow River has been called “China’s sorrow” for the ferocity of its devastating floods.) Unlike Flood tales in other civilizations, in which men such as Noah and Deucalion play the dominant roles, the Chinese version features Nü Gua, along with her brother, Fu Hsi, and their father. In this legend, a thunder god who is a fishlike deity with a green face, scales, and fins is angry with Nü Gua’s family. Fearing the god, Nü Gua’s father builds an iron cage outside his house and waits with a pitchfork in case of an attack by the fish god. In the midst of a great storm, the thunder god arrives and threatens Nü Gua’s father. But the clever man is able to trap the god in the cage and plans to cook the fish god. With the thunder deity contained, father goes off to buy spices, so that the thunder god will taste delicious once he is stewed up, but first warns his children not to give the god anything to drink. When the thunder god whimpers that he is thirsty, Nü Gua takes pity on him and gives him a drink. Swallowing the water helps the thunder god regain all of his power, enabling him to break out of the cage. Before he escapes, he gives one of his teeth to the children. They plant it, and a tree soon grows, bearing an enormous gourd.

When the father returns, he sees that the god is gone and a tree is growing. Fearing that the thunder god will take revenge on him, he builds an iron boat and gets into it while the children climb inside the great gourd. When the incessant rains come, both the boat and the gourd float up toward heaven. The father bangs on the door of the king of heaven, who is so surprised by his unexpected visitors that he stops the rain. Instantly, the boat and the gourd fall one thousand miles back to earth. While the father dies, his two children in their gourd are spared, and Nü Gua and her brother Fu Hsi then repopulate the world.

In her book
Chinese Mythology
, Anne Birrell presents a slightly different version of this myth, in which Nü Gua and her brother Fu Hsi—whose name means “prostrate or sacrificial victim”—create humanity but are ashamed of their incest:

By the time of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), these two gods were often depicted as serpent figures with human heads and interlocking tails. And in Chinese tradition, Nü Gua is also the goddess of match-making and a go-between, who helps arrange marriages.

Another popular Flood story involves a god with the body of a serpent and the head of a human, named Gong Gong (Kung Kung or “common work”), who stirs the waters of earth so violently that they threaten the world with chaos. Gong Gong next tries but fails to overthrow his father, Zhu Rong, the benevolent lord of the cosmos. When Gong Gong angrily butts against one of the mountains of heaven that prop up the sky, it causes the cosmos to tip. This myth explains why the rivers on earth flow in a southwestern direction. As the protective creator goddess, Nü Gua restores order by filling the hole in the sky and then propping up the sky with the legs of a giant tortoise.

What role do “family values” play in Chinese myth?

Compared to the sex-obsessed, whoring, cheating, philandering, and otherwise sexually rapacious gods of Greece, Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and the Celts, the Chinese gods seem like models of decorum. Sure, Chinese myths have their share of bad guys, evildoers, and greedy siblings. But there is no serial adulterer like Zeus in the Chinese pantheon. Nor is there a Cuchulainn on the lookout for any opportunity to deflower a maiden. As Anne Birrell comments, “Chinese heroic myth differs from other mythologies in its early emphasis on the moral virtue of the warrior hero.” Chinese myth is rather G-rated and squeaky-clean.

Even when there is a suggestion of incest in Chinese mythology, as in the Flood story featuring Nü Gua and her brother, who repopulate the world, the two siblings feel shame over their behavior and “screen their faces.” Sleeping around is not sanctioned in Chinese myth; “love children” have no place; and little tolerance is shown for feuding in families, which are meant to be honored.

Instead, the Chinese gods are usually hardworking, creative types. Nü Gua’s brother, the god Fu Hsi, for instance, invents nets and teaches the people how to fish. The engineer god Yu figures out how to stop the dangerous flooding of the river and is rewarded with immortality. Huang Di (“Great God Yellow”) invents clothing and coins, while Shen Nong reveals the medicinal value of plants and even dies in the attempt to make new medicines. Author Anne Birrell suggests that the clean-living nature of this pantheon may lie with those who later compiled China’s myths—a post-Confucian set who placed virtue above racy storytelling. “The theme of love is rare,” she writes, “and is narrated in a sexually non-explicit manner, which may suggest early prudish editing.”

WHO’S WHO OF CHINESE GODS

In the Chinese pantheon, there are literally hundreds of gods, both major and minor, who were worshipped locally as well as nationally.
The Classic of Mountains and Seas
specifies more than two hundred different gods. Some of these deities clearly emerge from distant Chinese history and may have been actual early rulers whose accomplishments entitled them to be elevated to the status of a god. Some of these mythical emperors/deities were even assigned dates of their reigns. Three of these were called the “three sovereigns” and three were called the “sage kings.”

Four Ao
The four Ao are water gods who take the form of dragons and are under the command of the Jade Emperor. In control of the rain and sea, each was given an area of land and sea to control.

Fu Hsi
(
Fu Xi
) First of the three sovereigns and the brother of Nü Gua, Fu Hsi (translated as “great brilliance” in some traditions and “sacrificial victim” in others) is a god who, from the fourth century BCE on, is deemed an important creator and protector of the human race, especially in floods and other calamities. Fu Hsi is believed to be responsible for the invention of writing, hunting, and, most important, with the process of divination through the oracle bones, which later became the Book of Changes (I Ching). When Fu Hsi observes the markings on all the birds and beasts, he contemplates the divine order of things, and creates the first written markings from which humans can make prophecies.
In one charming tale, Fu Hsi watches a spider spinning a web and is inspired to devise nets from knotted cords, which he uses to teach humans how to hunt and fish.
By the time of the Han Dynasty, Fu Hsi was declared to have been the first emperor, who ruled from 2852–2737 BCE.

Guan Di
(
Kuan Yu
,
Kuan Kung
) A figure out of Chinese Confucian folklore, Guan Di is a war god who may have once been an actual army general, executed as a prisoner of war during a time of division in China. While perhaps once a man, the god was supposedly nine feet tall with enormous strength, and Guan Di is usually depicted with a red face and a forked beard. But unlike the fierce war gods of other mythologies, Guan Di is known for courtesy, faithfulness, and being most contented when peace prevails. In 1594, Guan Di was recognized as a god by the Chinese emperor, who offered sacrifices to him.

Hou T’ou
(
Ti
,
She
) Known as a “prince of the earth,” Hou T’ou is the agricultural and fertility deity who manifests itself as the whole planet. Each year in ancient China, the emperor and village officials all around the country turned over the first spadeful of earth at planting time as part of a fertility ceremony, reflecting China’s preoccupation with feeding its many people.

Huang Di
(
Huang-Ti
) The third of the three sovereigns and a mythical leader whose name means “great god yellow,” Huang Di is also called the “yellow emperor.”
*
Credited with bringing civilization to China, Huang Di is the supposed inventor of upper and lower garments, weapons, the compass, coins, and government. A peace-loving warrior who has four faces so he can see everything, Huang Di fights four battles. In one battle, he uses water to defeat his brother, the fire god
Yan Di
, the “great god flame,” and gain the sovereignty of the world. In another battle, Huang Di uses drought to defeat the war god “Jest Much,” who has the weapon of rain.
In the Taoist tradition, Huang Di becomes the supreme god and dreams of a paradise where people live in harmony with nature.

Jade Emperor
A deity sometimes known as Yu Huang or Huang Shang-Ti, the Jade Emperor becomes the divine ruler of heaven during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 CE). He lives in a heavenly palace similar to those on earth, and governs through a civil service just like that of China. His consort is
Xi Wang Mu
, “the queen mother of the West,” who is more like the Wicked Witch of the West. A powerful tyrant, Xi Wang Mu sends plagues and punishment down to earth, keeps the elixir of immortality, and presides over paradise.

Lung
Although not really a god, Lung is the benevolent dragon associated in Chinese folklore with clouds, mist, rain, and rivers. Less like the demonic creature done in by St. George and more like the benevolent “Puff, the Magic Dragon” of song fame, Lung is such an appealing creature that sometimes the gods take the form of dragons, which eventually will become the symbol of Chinese royalty. The Chinese dragon probably evolved from the serpent, an early royal symbol deemed immortal, since it was able to renew itself when it shed its skin.

Nü Gua
(
Nü Kua, Nu Wa
) The great creator goddess, Nü Gua is a very ancient fertility deity who has remained popular in myth and legends throughout China’s long history. As the divinity who created humans and saved the universe from catastrophe when Gong Gong (Kung Kung) threatened, she is a powerful protector. In the later Han Dynasty times (202 BCE–220 CE), she is viewed as both Fu Hsi’s sister and his wife. In the latter role, she is credited with teaching people how to procreate and raise children.

Panku
(
Pan Gu
) The primal creator god who is a child of yin and yang, Panku is born from a cosmic egg in one of China’s most important Creation myths. With his death, his body parts become the various bits of the universe and earth, and the insects that come from his body become “the black-haired people” (the Chinese). Many scholars think that Panku may have originated elsewhere in Central Asia and arrived in China in the second or third century CE.

Shen Nong
Depicted as a divine being with a bird’s head, Shen Nong (“fiery emperor”) is the second of the three sovereigns, a legendary emperor who is the inventor of the cart and who teaches people how to farm. Shen Nong is also the ancient god of the pharmacy, who reveals the healing properties of plants to humanity. In myth, he has a see-through stomach, which enables him to view the effects of his experiments with medicinal herbs. Unfortunately, he tests a kind of grass that causes his intestines to burst.

Shun
(
Yu Di Shun
) One of the three sage rulers of antiquity, Shun is another virtuous ruler-god to whom heaven sends birds to weed his crops and pull his plow.

Tsao Chun
(
Zao Jun
) The very ancient “kitchen god” of Chinese myth, Tsao Chun is the most important domestic deity in China and lives in the niche near the cooking stove in Chinese homes. Portrayed as a kindly old man surrounded by children, he supplies the chi, or energy, that aids nourishment. Every New Year, he is said to visit heaven and give an accounting of each household. Before he goes, each household tries to “bribe” him and smears the mouth of Tsao Chun’s idol with sweet paste or honey, to help him speak “sweet words” and avoid saying anything bad when he arrives in heaven.
In her novel
The Kitchen God’s Wife
, Amy Tan has an American character ask if the kitchen god is like Santa Claus. An elderly Chinese woman replies in a huff, “He is not Santa Claus. More like a spy—FBI agent, CIA, Mafia, worse than IRS, that kind of person. And he does not give you gifts, you must give him things. All year long you have to show him respect—give him tea and oranges. When Chinese New Year’s time comes, you must give him even better things—maybe whiskey to drink, cigarettes to smoke, candy to eat, that kind of thing. You are hoping all the time his tongue will be sweet, his head a little drunk, so when he has his meeting with the big boss, maybe he reports good things about you.” Then the Chinese mother adds, “His wife was the good one, not him.”