xplanations of the
learned which it did not understand. Chinese cosmogony would then
have consisted exclusively of the recondite impersonal metaphysics
which the Chinese mind had entertained or been fed on for the nine
hundred or more years preceding the invention of the P'an Ku myth.

Nue Kua Shih, the Repairer of the Heavens

It is true that there exist one or two other explanations of the
origin of things which introduce a personal creator. There is,
for instance, the legend--first mentioned by Lieh Tzu (to whom we
shall revert later)--which represents Nue Kua Shih (also called Nue
Wa and Nue Hsi), said to have been the sister and successor of Fu
Hsi, the mythical sovereign whose reign is ascribed to the years
2953-2838 B.C., as having been the creator of human beings when
the earth first emerged from Chaos. She (or he, for the sex seems
uncertain), who had the "body of a serpent and head of an ox" (or a
human head and horns of an ox, according to some writers), "moulded
yellow earth and made man." Ssu-ma Cheng, of the eighth century A.D.,
author of the _Historical Records_ and of another work on the three
great legendary emperors, Fu Hsi, Shen Nung, and Huang Ti, gives
the following account of her: "Fu Hsi was succeeded by Nue Kua, who
like him had the surname Feng. Nue Kua had the body of a serpent and
a human head, with the virtuous endowments of a divine sage. Toward
the end of her reign there was among the feudatory princes Kung Kung,
whose functions were the administration of punishment. Violent and
ambitious, he became a rebel, and sought by the influence of water
to overcome that of wood [under which Nue Kua reigned]. He did battle
with Chu Jung [said to have been one of the ministers of Huang Ti,
and later the God of Fire], but was not victorious; whereupon he
struck his head against the Imperfect Mountain, Pu Chou Shan, and
brought it down. The pillars of Heaven were broken and the corners of
the earth gave way. Hereupon Nue Kua melted stones of the five colours
to repair the heavens, and cut off the feet of the tortoise to set
upright the four extremities of the earth. [7] Gathering the ashes
of reeds she stopped the flooding waters, and thus rescued the land
of Chi, Chi Chou [the early seat of the Chinese sovereignty]."

Another account separates the name and makes Nue and Kua brother
and sister, describing them as the only two human beings in
existence. At the creation they were placed at the foot o