44 Days Meme

There was a quarrel between two of the more powerful gods, Gong Gong, the God of Water and Zhu Rong, the God of Fire, and they decided to settle it with a fight. They fought all the way from heaven to earth, wreaking havoc everywhere. When the God of Water Gong Gong saw that he was losing, he smashed his head against Mount Buzhou (不周山), a mythical peak supposed to be northwest of the Kunlun range in southern Xinjiang which was said to be a pillar holding up the sky. The pillar collapsed, half the sky fell in, the earth cracked open, forests went up in flames, flood waters sprouted from beneath the earth and dragons, snakes and fierce animals leaped out at the people. Many people were drowned and more were burned or devoured.

Nüwa was grieved that mankind which she had created should undergo such suffering. She decided to mend the sky and end this catastrophe. She melted together the five colored stones and with the molten mixture patched up the sky. Then she killed a giant turtle and used its four legs as four pillars to support the fallen part of the sky. She caught and killed a dragon and this scared the other beasts away from the land of Qi. Then she gathered and burned a huge quantity of reeds and with the ashes stopped the flood from spreading, so that the people could live happily again.

The only trace left of the disaster, the legend says, was that the sky slanted to the northwest and the earth to the southeast, and so, since then, the sun, the moon and all the stars turn towards the west and all the rivers run southeast. Other versions of the story describe Nüwa going up to heaven and filling the gap with her body (half human half serpent) and thus stopping the flood. Because of this legend, some of the minorities in South-Western China hail Nüwa as their goddess and festivals such as the ‘Water-Splashing Festival’ are, in part, a tribute to her sacrifices.