Creation Stories in Chinese Mythology
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
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Congrats 🎊🍾🎉🎈 you more than deserved it
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Snakes: *exist*
Humans: We could make a religion out of this
Or many
The one true religion.
Snake? Snake! Snnnnnnnaaaaaakkkkkeeeeee
@@shadownightdragon6524 There isn't one true religion.
I mean with how big they were would you think they are a god.
Okay, but are we gonna talk about the dad from the flood myth? This man captured a thunder god with nothing but a spear and a cage, almost ate said god, then proceeded to survive a world ending flood by just building a boat, and when he showed up on heaven’s doorstep, the gods deadass shit themselves out of fear. What a legend.
He must have been an ancestor of Lü Bu
How did he get away with so much shit
@Jack der Hauptsturmführer This is a fantastic post, but your spelling leaves much to be desired
@Jack der Hauptsturmführer English is my second of four languages, so what's your excuse again?
@Jack der Hauptsturmführer gentleman*, singular. That's one, lol
Apparently, in Finnish mythology snakes have been known as creatures that bring luck for the house, so people usually kept them as "pets", giving them milk and food (it was believed that snakes enjoyed milk for some reason). If you treated them well, your livestock would be succesful etc., but if you mistreated or killed them, you'd become very unlucky.
Later, when Finland started to have more biblical influences, snakes became known as evil creations of satan, or even the embodiment of the devil. Sad really ):
Edit: There are speculations that people thought of snakes as luckycharms because they were useful in getting rid of pests, such as rats
I can't believe they went from give lucky noodl boi mmmmilk to *k i l S a t a n s n e k* 😔 😔 😔
At this point, I think you could use the insult of 'rat' to the religious authorities, and it'd be sortof accurate in the sense that all the ratcatchers got demonized.
this also happens in the baltic states i believe!!! or atleast in lithuania
A lot of folklore across Europe has the practice of living milk out for creatures, supernatural or not. This is the first time I've heard of milk being offered to snakes though!
In rural China there’s a saying that every house has a big snake hiding on the ceiling and it protests the family. It is called a house dragon and if you hurt the snake it will be really bad luck.
It's weird, Pangu is startling similar to the myth of Ymir in Norse mythology, whose body became parts of the world when he was slain.
Thanks, I was struck by the similarities too!
A lot of religions have myths like that. I wonder why so many of them looked at the earth and were like “that’s a dead thing”.
@@bananabanana484 My guess? Decomposing bodies all eventually turn into what's effectively dirt. Maybe they figured the whole world was created in a similar process on a much grander scale.
That’s pretty common in mythology, actually; having the land made of somebodies body. Such as the Greek Gaia or Babylonian Tiamat.
Not to mention the whole keeping earth and sky from colliding bit being soo Atlas in Greek mythology.
Vietnam has a similar story with Khong Lo the creator giant who actually creates the earth and sky and builds a pillar to support it until things calm down and the pillar breaks to become the mountains, hills, etc.
Khong Lo is also sometimes said to later become Ong Troi the Skyfather and king of the gods, later equated with the Jade Emperor and renamed Ngoc Hoang via Chinese influence.
I love how specific the creation myth with Pangu is. It details down to the muscles and *bone marrow* in his body to explain what pieces became what.
Never waste part of a primordial entity when stripping him for parts
It's actually pretty similar to Ymir from Norse mythology.
@@Thundernugget Was going to say the same
@@Thundernugget thought the same
@@Thundernugget that’s what I thought the whole time
I was adopted from China and have felt very isolated from my chinese culture. I didn't get the chinese myth dvds but when you tell these stories it fills a big gap in my heart.
"Mental gymnastics to claim that Nuwa was a male god"
Most of creation myths are due to goddesses...I mean... *gestures at women's roles in reproduction and child rearing, as well as lots of worship towards fertility in the past.* Those mental gymnastics are better than the Olympics. XD
I mean, we're talking about a set of myths that includes a golden silkworm turning into a talking dog after being placed in a gourd, then the talking dog turning into a human being to marry a Chinese princess so a transsexual god/dess isn't that strange by comparison.
I do agree though that it makes a ton more sense when gods of creation are female for the reasons of maternal reproduction.
Makes me wonder how many goddess roles in mythology changed due to patriarchal societies downplaying women.
I recently played Shin Megami Tensei, a JRPG where the main plot is that the apocalypse has wiped out most of humanity and various figures of world mythologies are in constant arms in order to recreate the world as they see fit. Most of the figures fall into three main factions: Law (represents order and stability), Chaos (represents freedom and individuality), and Neutral (balances between the two).
Nuwa is featured in this game and she represents the Neutral faction, with her end goal being to recreate the world such that humanity, her favored creation, can thrive on its own without the interference of gods or demons.
Ooh which one
@@Scorpio7500 The latest one. Shin Megami Tensei 5.
OMG the creation story between Nuwa and Fuxi is basically the creation story of the eighteen Hmong tribes! I never thought I’d be hearing such a similar story in Chinese mythology. Although I am not from the Hmong people of China, my family and relatives are White Hmong (“white,” as in a dialect of the Hmong language). I was born in the US and my parents and grandparents immigrated to the US from Laos during the Vietnamese War.
From what I read online, the Hmong creation myth plays out the same way as Nuwa’s and Fuxi’s, except the baby was a gourd and did not include the second trial. The gourd was lumpy and deformed. The brother and sister decided to cut the gourd into different pieces. As the gourd was cut, it bounced outside all around their home. Some bounced on the roof of the house, some bounced into the garden and elsewhere. Depending on where the pieces fell, they were given different names, thus the eighteen Hmong clans were born.
I was just excited to hear of any representation of my culture, even if Nuwa’s and Fuxi’s is originally of Chinese culture and doesn’t even make sense in the context of Nuwa’s and Fuxi’s original legends. I’m also a bit surprised to hear that the Hmong is much more prevalent than I thought in China and in Chinese mythology, which is pretty cool to find out!
When you said "They left me with DVDs while they were out working" I felt that. This is exactly how most chinese kids end up learning really random stuff lol.
I'm from Hawaii, and there aren't any snakes. The closest I can think of is the myth of Maui killing an eel (I think it attacked his wife?) and burying the corpse which grew the first coconut tree.
Yes, this is in the "You're Welcome" song in Moana. The creation myth is also mentioned.
Maui took his brothers out in a canoe and paddled far out into the ocean. He told his brothers to turn their backs and not to look until he said so. Maui dropped his fishook on a line into the ocean and started to pull up a massive continent. Just as the tops of the highest mountains were pulled above the ocean, Maui's youngest brother turned to look. The fishook snapped off and flew into the sky and became the constellation Maui's Fishook (which is the same as the tail of Scorpio). The mountaintops that were above the ocean's surface were the Hawaiian Islands.
I was wondering if Maui’s Fishhook was a real constellation! Thanks for sharing
There are the Mo’o stories though. The big ones got turned into small islands, while the lady ones tend to guard springs and fishponds.
You should look up Kihawahine. Lizards aren't native to Hawai'i, but there are mo'olelo of shape-shifting mo'o wāhine. They're similar to the ones mentioned in legends from S Asia and SE Asia, associated with water sources.
@@joneyC I saw this comment and looked it up and... wow that's literally a monitor lizard. I have so many questions....
I'm really happy that I (being Ukrainian) actually remember the things you're saying because I read about Chinese mythology (along with Native American, Japanese and Persian) when I was a kid. I think we should all tell kids stories from all around the world
In one of Cambodia's creation myths, our kingdom was founded on the union between a Native Naga (sacred serpent) Princess, Soma/Neang Neak, and an Indian merchant Brahmin, Kaundinya/Preah Thong. Also, it would be interesting if you could make videos on ancient Chinese relations with the kingdoms in Southeast Asia :D
9:51 I know that sound. A cat getting ready to throw up a hairball. And probably in the worst spot it could find.
I genuinely enjoyed the video, different cultures' mythologies are always fun to learn about and Chinese mythology has a lot going on. I get quite irritated by missionaries (for a number of reasons) since part of their goal is to erase these sorts of things in the more vulnerable (and thus usually lesser known) cultures they go after. I think it's very important to preserve these things because it not only gives us great insight into the way a culture thought about things (especially over time if you're able to track down ways the myths have changed) but it also can give the person learning about it a different perspective to consider as well.
Cat or small dog they sound about the same, that is definitely what they saw
a lot of the time i can sleep through loud bangs and door knocks, but when my cat makes that sound, i will wake up from my sleep to see where he's gonna puke on
They have two cats, so that's definitely what happened here.
I also thought of a cat throwing up 😂 came to the comments to confirm
@@tleigh878787 you have confirmation. I am guessing since they stayed on camera nothing important was damaged, but that is what it was lol
Tbh you could go off about a single Chinese dude that did absolutely nothing his whole life and I'd listen excitedly
"did you ever see an old picture of a smiling man eating rice and decide to make a video on it? That's me."
I’ve heard Nü Wa’s story before. I always like to think it has roots in some great period of ecological disaster and Neolithic strife. That the mother of humanity and the architect of the world is specifically a goddess (and a snakey one at that) is also extremely interesting.
Nuwa being the sole creator mother goddess in the oldest Chinese tales reminds me of the Sumerian creator goddess Nammu/Namma. She had the idea of creating humanity by herself or giving the idea to her son Enki and using his help. In later version it was attributed more and more to male gods, but Nammu is the earliest. We don't know a lot about her though because most of our current knowledge is through linguistic reconstruction, comparative primary source literature, some archaeology, and inference.
I was thinking the same thing. Enki = Serpent. Enlil = Eagle. War Between the Serpent and Eagle
The story of Pangu reminds me greatly of the Norse myth of Ymir the giant.
He kinda also remind me of Atlas, the Greek Sky God.
@@nadiazahiraputrirachmadi734 not really for me, atlas did not create the world, he only holds up the sky as a punishent.
@@rbck8826 the Greeks and romans did adopt a lot of different cultures gods as their own so it wouldn’t surprise me if their was some story integration during from the trade routes.
@@rbck8826 u mean Chaos? Not Atlas????
@@misslangleysoryuisiconic what? No? I have no idea what uou mean.
Listening to you explaining how the two siblings repopulated the earth reminded me of my history classes. I’m of Hmong descent and listening to the similarities and differences between all of the creation myths interests me! Thank you for your time and effort, and thank you for making me reminisce about Hmong history lessons~!
It's interesting to me how many culture's mythologies for creation myths all start with the idea of a "cosmic egg."
Creation myths are so interesting, no matter the culture. I love learning about things like this!
Xiran Jay Zhao: Talking about the Panhu story
Xiran Jay Zhao: (shows Mr Peanut Butter and Diane 5:41)
Me: *WHEEZE*
This first story is VERY similar to Nordic mythology. The Edda starts fairly similar. It's so interesting how different people that probably never heard from each other had the same base idea.(Or the Vikings reached China at some point and they had a serious conversation about that, ikd.)
Indigenous Australians have stories about a serpent too, which you can find out more below from Mikayla Morgan's response.
(Comment edited to reflect below reply!)
Is it Yurlungur? I remember it thanks to megami tensei series
That sounds like Tiamat! Snakes are everyone in creation myths! She was also downgraded to a monster, once the goddess religions were eradicated. So,that's the same too.
I'm not sure which Northern Native American nation it is, but there's one that says something about a black snake giving it's life for humanity to survive. Also, the Mexika eagle and snake can also be talked about! Some see the eagle as a representation of our ancestors, and the snake as pure energy and the will to live on. When the Mexika were chased by warring tribes they ran to Coatepetl(name might differ slightly?) which was a mountain infested with snakes. The other tribes cut off their supplies and isolated them, but the Mexika decided to eat the snakes to survive, and once they had regained their strength they descended the mountain and escaped, eventually they were chased to the only area no one had inhabited, the Moon Lake and there they built Tenochtitlan, the Land of the Prickly Pear Fruit.
As someone from an Indigenous Australian tribe the Wiradjuri our legend is the serpent was a brown snake symbolic of the Murrumbidgee river due to its colour and length
Also even though some would say indigenous dream time stories are mythos, which would be an incorrect term for it doesn't really explain it. With mythologies such as the Greek, Chinese and many others, it does have a specific time period the dream time stories are always everywhere never in one specific time frame and we do not know the exact time for which it took place. It could have been the past, present or future.
Some explain an event the rainbow serpent story wasn't as much a creation myth as a story on how our earth was made but not the people. For in the story it explains how birds were created. It wasn't seen as a god more as a teacher turned villain. when British settlers first arrived in western Australia where the story of the rainbow serpent originates they saw a painting of the serpent on a rock at a beach. They thought it to be one of three things a sea monster, dragon or God. So that's where the idea of the serpent being worshipped came from. When in reality it was a way of saying help those but don't betray them for they will betray you.
@@mikimorgz Ahh, thank you for the corrections! I appreciate you taking the time to comment.
I've edited my original comment to direct others to your explanation :)
A good book on Chinese Mythology that is in English that I would recommend would be "Dragons, Gods & Spirits from Chinese Mythology" with text written by Tao Tao Liu Sanders and Illustrations by Johnny Pau. It has alot of the myths and legends you mentioned here in your video. Hope that helps a little bit. I originally found it in a library a long time ago and I loved the art and stories from it so much that I bought the book years later from a site that sold old library copies.
In Javanese-Balinese pre-Hindu mythology of Indonesia, there was a great snake named Antaboga who did exist during the creation of the world.
In Central Java, there is a folklore of the great snake of Baru Klinthing and the legend of Rawapening Lake.
In Australian Aboriginal mythology, we also have a creation snake story!! It’s called the Rainbow Serpent. Basically, when the land was still new and it was plain and empty, there was a giant snake that roamed the lands. When she moved, her tracks became rivers and when she slept, she created lakes. Wherever she went she created water and with water comes mud. From the mud of the river banks, animals and plants were formed. The Rainbow Serpent looked after the animals and taught them right from wrong. All the animals that committed evil were turned into rocks and eventually became mountains and hills. All the animals that did especially good however, were turned into something completely different, humans. All the animals that didn’t stand out as particularly good or evil just stayed as animals. There’s even a story that takes place much later where two human brothers try to kill the Rainbow Serpent so she eats them, and when they come back out (either by cutting her open from the inside or she spits them back out, there’s two versions) they turn into cockatoos as punishment.
9:50 Only Nuwa knows what a cat vomiting sounds like 🤣
Yup 🤣
How bad is it that I heard it and automatically started looking for my cats?
Why is Xiran looking so pretty tonight. They always look pretty but tonight in particular they look exceptionally pretty.
Xiran is non-binary?
@@abc_jv_xyz 4 minutes and 40 seconds into Anti Asian Hate Crime video is where they first says they're nonbinary.
Edit:
This one
ruclips.net/video/aYEf8K7cEtQ/видео.html
@@abc_jv_xyz Their instagram also has their pronouns :)
@@Laladust oh, I'm a new subscribber and I think I didn't watch this video yet. Thanks for telling me.
@@fireafire Well, I don't have an Instagram account. Also, are you brazilian?
God I love Folklore, so many stories feel like beautiful fever dreams with some seeds of "explanations" of what people tried to make sense of their surroundings. It's always a fun ride
It's so fascinating that creation stories or just mythology/folklore in general from all around the world can have common/similar themes, events and characters. Huge world-ending floods and boats, snakes, an entity holding up the sky, humans being created in a god/goddess's image, deities and/or other beings with part animal appearances, etc.
I would tell you what is the original native Celtiberian creation myth, hadn't the Romans not fully destroyed their religion (for Christianism to do the same to the Roman religion later on)
Them tell us, I'd loved to hear it! I've searched for many years about celtiberian culture and religion but never found any thing consistent... Could you tell how you know this? im really curious :)
@@OCanalDaMa unfortunately that’s exactly what op means, you can’t find anything consistent because the Romans destroyed everything about it to force christianity into them
So much cool shit lost to time cause people felt burning and destroying shit they disagree with.
YES! I was thinking the exact same thing! it's so sad that we can't even translate the very few things written :(
@@mayaravictorio9510 oh I thought he actually found information about it... :( the ones I've read didn't focus on ancient History and it's a shame pre- roman culture isn't a big interest in the iberian Peninsula (I'm portuguese by the way), the Romans were the first colonizers of Europe and I don't think we should celebrate em without remembering that
Si yu’os ma’åse (thank you in my language) for making this video! I am so excited to learn about Chinese history and culture. I’m also totally nerding out because part of our creation stories are the same! I am both Chinese and CHamoru, and in our CHamoru creation myth, the brother Puntan’s right eye becomes the moon and his left eye becomes the sun! So amazing 🇬🇺🇨🇳🇭🇰
I'm so excited that I recognized so many familiar elements in all versions of the Chinese creation myth you mentioned. I read them from books that document creation myths as told by the Yao, Tai, Miao, and many other ethnic groups in Vietnam. The stories where I find similarities with what you mentioned in the video naturally come from the ethnic groups that migrated South from lands that would eventually be unified and become modern China. I think that's quite interesting angle of research to look into as well, I wonder if one goes around Southeast Asia to find these ethnic groups, collect their stories and compare that to the stories told by the same ethnic groups versus the more modern, mainstream, Han Chinese version, would a clearer picture and pattern of how these stories emerge and evolve? Anyway, to the fun parts! The version of the capture of the Thunder God told by Yao people in Vietnam is even more _hardcore_ in that 1/it's not 1 brother and 1 sister, both children were either grown adults or youthful, strong men and here it comes 2/ they wanted to capture the Thunder God so they (or their king, my memory is hazy) *CAN EAT HIS FLESH*. The Thunder God was kept in a home built from mud, so once he tricked the kids into giving him water, he just spat it at the walls and the house collapsed (which must be part of the reason why people were probably sick of the Thunder God bringing rain and ruining their homes, as he is considered to be the bringer of rain, not another separate deity). He still did give the 2 youths a tooth and told them to plant it, and it also did grow into a gourd. This gourd here thankfully is *not* full of teeth 🤣 it is just full seeds. The 2 brothers still did use the gourd as a vessel to survive the flood, and subsisted by eating the seeds, and then shared the remaining seeds with everyone in their village and even people outside of the village and other ethnic groups, so everyone can enjoy delicious gourds. The father also did not meet such a gruesome end in this story. In this version, he survived the flood by opening his umbrella, turned it upside down and sat on it, rising with the water all the way up to heaven, where the Thunder God had run back to. As the Thunder God answered the door, he recognized his captor and fled, also stopping the flood per the father's threat to recapture him. The father didn't made it all the way down back to earth though, he was stuck on the branches of a banyan tree that grew in heaven. I don't remember what happened to him. But the takeaway of the story (as well as with quite a lot of creation myths for various fruits, trees and other crops) is the exchange of agricultural knowledge amongst different ethnic groups within Vietnam. Somehow there's a lot of varieties of gourds involved there as well??? People were really excited about gourds probably because they are generally easily to cultivate, endure harsh weather well, certain gourds' flesh and seeds are edible, for some whole hard shell can be used as water/alcohol container. Particularly fibrous gourd's innards can also be dried and used as body scrub (like a loofah). The edible ones usually need a lot of water, so I guess that make people not mad at the frequent rain caused by the Thunder God anymore. The joy that gourds bring makes everyone's forget about their previous appetite for the flesh of a literal deity 😂 there's also a creation myth about how all the different ethnicities in Vietnam and they all came out from a gourd too 😂 we just really like gourds I guess.
The creation story from the Yao-Hmong ethnic groups is fascinating, hearing similarities and difference like you said. Growing up Hmong-American, I was told that the creation of the world started with a farmer, the only person left in the world, who's land was unfortunatly burned down by some natural disaster. He found a white gourd, the last of his crops, that was burnt on one side, but fresh on the other. He goes near probably to collect the seeds and eat, but then hears voices inside the gourd, and cuts it open. To his surprise, he saw little people come out in different shades of the color of the gourd. There's another story but with the same outcome that began with the two siblings. Started with a flood and it was just the two left. They married and had a child together, but it was deformed; no limbs and no face. The child resembles a gourd (a lot of gourds in these stories). The gourd child later, shoots out little people everywhere in the farm. Wherever the little people landed determined their clan. And that's how the 18 clans (xeem, like Xìng 姓) of the Hmong were formed. Perhaps this was how the Hmong got their Chinese name (Miao苗). 🤔
You could literally tell me about a Chinese phone book and I would find it interesting as hell. Love your videos!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️ much love from New Orleans!
lmao same
this lmaoo
x2
I'm from Mexico. Ancient Nahua, Toltec, Otomi and Mayan myths of creation involve Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent. Yes, a Snake God.
The only deity we need to know is xiran jay zhao, I heard that the Chinese government has so much fear of their powers that they ban it, but the power of the Bi pi en are too much. Other myths says that their books are arriving after much effort but it will be worth it
Xiran might be an Gov asset attempting to operate inside the PROC.
Sadly whatever the "original" creation stories of my Irish ancestors might have been, they've been fully lost to time. But given that snakes aren't actually native to Ireland, they were probably not involved. Unless the stories continued to include elements of whatever their Iberian ancestors had, of which I don't think there's even a single dot of information.
We just have to settle for the dude who chased the non-existent snakes off the island.
Isn't there a story about beings created from light and darkness?
"Tuath(a) Dé Danann" can be translated as "Tóthail Nathrach" (Descendants of the Snake, Descendants of the Dragon) They were Immortal beings created by a great serpent, the Green Dragon of Erin: Ireland Danu: Water from Heaven that can appear small or large through magic. They invaded Ireland’s energy field through Sliabh an Iarainn: Iron Mountain in County Leitrim.
@@peterwindhorst5775 Source?
@@eldorados_lost_searcher There might be newer stories like that, but afaik the oldest sources mention nothing of the sort.
y'all have fin maccool, right?
I don't recall snakes in the Finnish creation myth. There's a bird that lays some eggs, the eggs gets broken, then the eggshells become the earth and sky, the yolk becomes the Sun, the white becomes the Moon, and still some other egg parts becomes the stars and clouds.
There is a poem later in the epic, where someone has to plow a field full of vipers. He makes armor for himself and his horse to manage it.
10:44 in my family tradition, we were taught that Abba Tuann (亶父, otherwise known as King Tai/周太王 to the Zhou tribesman or Duke Tuann of Zhou/周公亶) established and pass down 2 teachings, one of them is to love and respect our women and don’t belittle them, he even established an example of only marry mistress Jiang (太姜妃) but not other woman and endure other nobility’s trash talk about him for respecting his wife, the family tradition even talk about how he was proud of enduring other nobility’s mockery of lack of “manliness”(mysogeny), aside from that, another teaching he pass down to us is to always try to make friends with good people
There’s this weird thing in mythology I’ve noticed where there’s always an important human-like snake, either half human - half-snake or just a very intelligent snake that’s on the same level as human. I just find it interesting how every culture, myths and religions all have that in common for some reason
It's fascinating how common the great giant becoming the Earth myth is. In Norse mythology he, Ymer, was slain by Odin and his brothers. They created the world basically with the same bodyparts as Pangu.
It's a bit like with Chaoskampf, when the thundergod slays the see serpent, themes that are spread around parts of the world. In some old Judean myths the world seems created by the Leviathan, slain by Javeh.
I would love to see this video's story being told with OverlySarcasticProductions' art. They already do Journey to the West, so maybe?
What a dream collab team
Japan: A cute couple makes island and the first baby made was a blob because the ladies took "the first step" the lady became the LITTERAL GODESS OF DEATH.
China: Snek ladies makes human with crayola model magic after a big hairy guy died.
Pangu maybe created our world physically, but it's still snek mama Nüwa who modeled us after mud.
Suddenly the shape of Chinese dragons make a lot more sense...
One of the funniest stories I have found in my research was about how 17th-18th century European scholars, on first interacting with sources about Chinese history and mythology (usually through reading Jesuit writings about China) and immediately began to try to force Chinese mythology to fit into Christianity. One result was some linguists saying that Chinese was the sole surviving pre-babel language because apparently the people of China weren't involved in building the Tower of Babel? But more related to this, they kept trying to say various figures from Chinese folk religion and mythology were actually Biblical figures all along, for example that Fuxi was Enoch, Sage King Yao was Noah, and in particular Nuwa as Eve because one Prussian Classicist named Siegfried Bayer did some...questionable etymology in reading her name and concluded it meant "Woman who Reaches and is Punished" and therefore she was Eve, which is just hilariously absurd and wrong on so many levels. Others (including Gottfried Leibniz) tried to argue that Fuxi was Hermes Trismagestus, the syncretic fusion of Hermes and Thoth who was a key figure in Classical and Early Modern mysticism and alchemy, because both were associated with languages and symbols. The levels of mental gymanstics involved in all of this is quite frankly hilarious and concerning. For more info, I highly recommend Umberto Eco's The Search for the Perfect Language and David Porter's Ideographia: The Chinese Cipher in Early Modern Europe.
interesting!
At least they were willing to admit, Huangdi predates Abraham by almost a millennia
That's hilarious! I'm guessing these were people before the 19th century? There are some crazy theories about various people around the world, but I think the Chinese have fascinated and sparked the imagination of Europeans for a long time.
@@WalkingSideways A lot of these were 18th century, from the 19th century things became a lot more demeaning and racist (well more racist than they had been).
Lmao that's like trying to force a Japanese creation god lore into... Nordic creation myth?
The first creation myth you described reminds me a lot about the creation myth of Norse mythology! The giant Ymer was slain by the gods Odin, Vile and Ve and his body made up the world. His body became the Earth, his blood became the water, his meat/muscles became ground, his bones became the mountains, and his teeth and broken bones became stones. His head was stretched out over the earth and became the sky. It’s interesting that the myths can be so similar coming from different places!
Lots of people are talking about how Pangu's story is similar to other creation myths, but I'm genuinely stunned by Panhu (the dog)'s story because there are a LOT of later Japanese folklores with almost the EXACT premise (a dog killing an enemy for its ruler in exchange for the ruler's daughter).
It is everywhere! I found your book at my little local bookstore in Australia!
I've read through Iron Widow three times now and each time I pick up on something new.
In Hinduism, Nagini( A goddess who had a snake lower body and human upper body ) is worshipped as a fertility goddess.
Sadly, no snakes in Germanic creation myths but similarly to Pangu, the body parts of the giant Ymir became the earth, sky and everything. The first deity-like figure was the giants' cow Auðumbla who freed the grandfather of the gods Buri from a salt stone by licking it for 3 days.
Scholars believe that Auðumbla the devine cow was part of a larger group of bovine goddesses but she was often described as "The most noble of cows" because Ymir survived on her milk.
Given how important cattle is to Northern Europe, I can absolutely understand why we used to have a whole group of cow goddesses but alas, no snakes :)
Nüwa! I first learnt my chinese mythology through watching my family play [Legend of Sword & Fairy] & asking them to translate for me. My favourite character was Zhao Ling'er, a magical girl who dual-wielded daggers and wore her hair in twin bun+tails style. Later in the story, it's revealed what KIND of fairy she is - a powerful witch with the lower body of a snake, descended from Nüwa herself!
In the second half of the game, Ling'er wears [a santa claus-esque hooded cloak] and wields a double snake-headed staff to REALLY highlight her status as a powerful sorceress - her AOE lightning attacks were a particular favourite of mine. The game has multiple endings, being an RPG, but all of them involve a climactic flood that Ling'er alone can fend off.
The game was adapted to the cdrama "Chinese Paladin", where Ling'er was played... by the actor who went on to be Disney's live-action Mulan.
i grew up obsessed with the Chinese Paladin games & my VHS of Disney's Mulan: no one was more Shooketh when these two worlds collided, then again through Xiran Jay Zhao: if they ever do a video on CRPGs, SOFTSTAR's [Legend of Sword & Fairy] is where to start - it's considered to be one of if not THE first game of the genre, and now has 8+ sequels, an MMORPG, and at least 2 other cdramas to its name.
So far, I'm surprised China and Greece share a (keyword A, as in specifically singular with a well-known single source) creation myth in that "primordial chaos" and "world column" were shared characteristics.
I am Chamorro, Pacific Islander from Micronesia. In our creation story, we have Pontan (Pungu) and Fo'na (Nüwa). Pontan and Fo'na were brother and sister, and they drifted endlessly in "space" until Pontan got sick. He told his sister to use his body to create the universe after he dies from his illness. After he died, Fo'na uses his eyes as the sun and moon, and she uses his body as the Earth. Realizing she was alone, she cried. After creating the ocean with her tears, she didn't want to live anymore, so on the shore of a small island, she turned herself into stone. As her body crumbled away, the pieces of stone that fell became the humans and animals. Chamorros are said to have come from the same people that the Chinese came from, so maybe this is a connection?
I recently learned of the snake god from Shin Megami Tensai 5. She's a boss.
Learning the mythology through bedtime stories was EXACTLY the way I first experienced them!
It wasn't until I was 7/8 that I read them on my own. I never did finish that very book though. I remember a story about a dude being punished by eating his own flesh or something fucked up like that.
Edit:
Wow, this video is just flashbacks to my childhood for me.
I'm so glad for the SMT franchise...despite barely knowing anything about Chinese mythology I knew it'd be about nuwa
So, at the exact moment she looked down and right in a panic the "ad beginning in 5 seconds" button appeared and it was GLORIOUS
I am so happy someone is talking about Chinese Mythology. Massive thanks and much love to you.
In Hinduism, it is believed that Brahma the creator, created the universe, although not the first or only universe, but one amongst many and that he split himself into a man and woman who created humanity, there's also the samudra kandam, which talks about the origin of the nectar of immortality amrita and the planets and stars and what makes up our universe as a result of churning the ocean of milk, if you google samudra manthan, you'll find similarities to the big bang theory
Hey, Xiran Jay Zhao. I'm from the Hmong ethnicity. Though to save ourselves from a headache, I'm not ethnically Miao Hmong. Hmong creation mythology is almost similar how you described at 13:00. If I remember correctly, long ago, there was a great flood. Two siblings, a boy and a girl, got into a barrel and survived the oncoming storm. They were the only humans left and were tasked to repopulated the earth. They had a child, but as a product of incest, the baby was a still-born. So the sibling couple dismembered their child and scattered it around the world, thus creating the 18 Hmong clans.
So I'm a pretty well knowledgeable pagan and I don't know too much about Chinese mythology but I already knew about Nuwa (not to this extent and I love the content) and what I'm getting at is her legend as a powerful matriarchal goddess who literally saved the Earth from calamity in myth is not lost to the random history lovers out there. The patriarchy did not nerf her thankfully 🌈🌈🌈 ps. Typical tho men tried to erase her status
Why was you yelling into the corner so funny?
* has mouth full of tea*
" give it back America. "
* almost loses mouth full of tea *
RUclips algorithm somehow blessed me with your channel out of the blue. It might be because I'm currently playing Shin Megami Tensei V and Nuwa is a central major character in it.
Anyway love the channel and subbed.
I definitely didnt know that theres a world flooding myth in chinese mythology as well ! I feel like there are a suspicous amount of world flooding myths 🧐🧐also awesome video !!
"And then saving us from the great flood, By Her Damn Self!" is kinda gold XD
I'm Canadian Lebanese. Not a creation myth, but one of the myths of my pagan ancestors involve the storm god Baal fighting the giant sea serpent (Luwyatan/Leviathan), which is very reminiscent of the storm gods Zeus and Thor battling Typhon and Jormungandr, respectively.
Funny enough, a battle between a storm god and a giant sea serpent did involve the creation of the world where the Hindu storm god Indra shoots a thunderbolt at Vritra.
It's interesting to note how that not only do you find a storm god battling a sea snake, but also that a lot of creation myths involve a giant and their various body parts creating the land. You find this in a lot of Indo-European and ancient Middle Eastern religions.
Also one more note of interest that you mentioned: where Fu Xi creates a writing system by tying knots is very very similar to the writing system of the Inca.
4:27 Interestingly, it seems the story of Panhu went on to be adapted in the Japanese epic novel series, Nansō Satomi Hakkenden from the Edo period. Except the princess was impregnated by spirit puppies, who after she killed herself to uphold Confucian honor (despite gods and buddhas insisting it was fine and resurrecting her a few times), were reincarnated as samurai embodying a single Confucian virtue. Part of the Edo period tradition of adapting Chinese literature for a Japanese audience.
This was fascinating, you're such a natural speaker (that gesticulation game!). Thank you for your hard work on these videos, it doesn't go unappreciated.
Do I sit and refresh over and over again until my girl-crush posts something new? Uhh.... Not entirely...
The creation myth of Pangu is one of the most common myths all around the world, found in most of the mythologies. It's known as the 'Cosmic Egg Myth' in the study of Comparative Religions.
In fact, a part of this myth was also adopted later in the Mahayana Buddhism from an earlier version present in Vedic Hinduism.
In this Indian version which is one among the earliest, the man born of the 'golden egg' is called Hiranyagarbha, later identified with the Creator God Brahma (or sometimes Vishnu); in his form known as Purusha (literally, 'the man'), he is killed or sacrificed and from his various body parts emerge mountains, earth, wind, etc.
The Buddhists adopted most of the myths of Vishnu into the myths of Avalokiteshvara (greatest of the Bodhisattvas, known in China in his female form - Chundi or Guanyin). In this adaptation, there's no egg but the universe is created from the various parts of Avalokiteshvara, instead of Purusha / Vishnu, in the exact same manner.
Since the legend of Pangu appears in Chinese mythology much later, is it possible that it travelled there later from India, maybe with early Buddhism?
13:18 "Thus they asked the Kevins for guidence" I had to listen to it a few times to know it was actually " Heavens"
Yes I also got tired of the snake deities constantly stealing my pizza
A series of videos on Chinese folk religion would be amazing!
In slavic mythology the story of creation depends on what region we are talking about, but it starts with there only being darkness. Rod (father of gods) was floating in this darkness in deep and harmonious slumber. With him in this darkness there was a golden egg. Here is where the stories begin to vary, in one creation story Rod wakes up and starts creating opposites (slavs had a very deep understanding of opposition, like how there would be no life without death). To help him he decided that he needed to bind the opposites with love, only with love would there not be chaos. So he created Lada, the goddess of love, she was also responsible for creating humans. After that he made more gods*desses, like Morana/Morena the goddess of death.
In another story in the egg there was Svarog. As Svarog hatched the eggshells became the sacred tree that held the heavens and earth separated. He used the golden powder to create the underworld, the world and the sun and moon. The debris from the bottom of the egg he used to create the first animals and humans.
Don't quote me on this, these are just tales I learned over the years. If someone know more, I would love to listen. It's just sad to know that my culture was striped away from its religion by Christianity (like so many others)
It is fascinating how various creation myths have some common parts
It truly is amazing how many cultures have legends of humans being created from mud/clay such as the story of Nüwa. Despite our many differences, we are far more similar than we realize. Perhaps it is our differences that unify us as one.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_of_life_from_clay
ok so like i have to put out that the whitest and saddest thing that ever happened to me was taking a mythology class where we got to a whole thing of studying various forms of flood myth and because I was like a mythology nerd I was kinda confused reading the one involving nuwa but it got worse because my white and honestly pretty racist professor proceeded to be like Nuwa and Noah sound the same therefore we can assume something something joseph cambell's hero journey something something all roads lead back to jesus. It was like the most embarrassing thing I have ever born witness and now every time i hear Nuwa's name i get flashbacks to an old white lady flattening all culture and this great balm for said wound
Your work is phenomenal, keep it up!
9:52 Nüwa may be the only other witness, but that's the unmistakable sound of a cat barfing/coughing up a hairball.
I also did not expect that amount of furries and scalies(?) in chinese mythology.
At 9:50 it sounds like the cat might be puking. I have four cats and I recognize the sound now XD
I’m currently writing a story loosely based on round the world myths and China was one of my targets, thanks a million for this!
@21:30
*Look at Each Item held in Both Hands*
Sceptres. The sceptre, or rod, is one of the oldest and most enduring symbols associated with royalty and the deities. Two types of sceptres are found in Egyptian art. The was, a symbol of power and dominion, has a straight shaft, a crooked handle in the shape of an animal head and a forked base.
14:13 that is spoken about in the Mahabharata, where a blind queen Gandhari had been pregnant for a very long time, but the pandavas had already been born to Kunti, angry upon hearing this, she asked her maids to strike her belly with a pole and similarly, she delivered a huge mass of flesh, she sent out to the sage vyasa who instructed her maids to cut the flesh into 101 pieces and place them in individual pots filled with clarified butter splashed with cool water, after some time 100 sons and a daughter was born
Chinese mythology is super interesting, thanks for another great video. :) Interestingly, pre-Christianity, animals play a large role in various European mythologies too! For example, the Irish Salmon of Knowledge (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_of_Knowledge) and snakes were often featured in stories relating to older beliefs, like The White Snake (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Snake)! :)
Nuwa's creation of humanity is very similar to the Hebrew creation story. When the Hebrew God created man in his image by breathing life into the soil. There is also a lot of stories about great floods to all over the place. It's always very interesting when very different cultures have commonality in there myths and religious beliefs. It makes me wonder if some of these ideas are just universally present in the human subconscious.
the only chinese folktales/mythos that i know are from watching that live-action tv show about sunwukong that was made in the 80's, because that is what my mother watched when she was still living in china
edit: ALSO i keep thinking about how pangu's eyes turned into the sun and the moon, because in japanese mythology, the sun goddess amaterasu is born from izanagi's left eye, while her brother tsukuyomi is born from izanagi's right eye
As a Maya, Kukulkan was a creator god of wind and knowledge. In many legends, Kukulkan appears when the sacrifice is accepted and given what information you are asking or be used to see the message from the ancestor that you are asking for. Kukulkan (also known as Quetzalcoatl) was a neutral god who have the appearance is a feathered serpent and also a name of a heroic lord of Toltec that started a religious movement that spread throw the end of the Aztec Empire. I am surprised that Chinese mythology contains Snake Creation Gods and the only difference, except for stories and roles in mythology, is their appearances in their mythology. Also, regardless of the land of my fellow people who live above Mexico,, to Ancient Chinese artifacts, the USA loves stealing things that do not belong to them.
the first myth reminds me of Sedna, shes a Inuit Tale about a woman who was tricked into marrying a raven, and when her father went to rescue her a great storm showed up and tried to knock over their boat so sednas father took a Ulu and cut her hands from the tips of her fingers down past her wrists and her hands became the sea life
this video really makes me wish i could sit at a camp fire with you and have you tell stories. it also makes me hella excited to read Iron Widow because if youre this good at retelling stories i cant wait to see how you throw down your own creations!
In Gael mythology two people came out of the endless void ,Danu and Donn, and had children. These children where forever stuck between their parents so Brian ,one of their children cut his father into nine pieces. Danu, stricken with grief began to weep and her tears created the seas mixed with Donn’s blood. This sea swept away the three children and they are still there today, Donn’s crown became the sky, his brain the clouds, his face the sun, his mind the moon, his breath the wind, his flesh the soil and his bones the sun. Then all that was left was two seeds that turned into the first trees
If I have got any thing wrong please tell me, this was on memory alone
Finnish creation story: Ilmatar (the goddess of air) was peacefully sleeping, a bird laid an egg on her knee, she stirred in her sleep so the egg fell and broke, and out of it came the first man. From that point on, everything went downhill really :D
pangu was a real one 😌 i wouldn't sacrifice my body to create the planet. nu-uh. 🤣
Im honestly surprised by how incredibly precise the chinese creation story is with every single possible thing Pangu's body turned into. I dont think any other creation myth goes this hard in details
I’m still wondering about his penis
No, a lot of them do if you look at the primary sources. It's just that many people retelling the myths don't like to include extraneous details.
Gosh I love with how much gusto you tell these tales, it just puts a big dumb smile on my face
"only nu wa knows what i saw"
true, but that's the sort of yell pet owners let out whenever their pets do something they shouldn't. like eating weird stuff, or peeing/pooping out of their designated area, or, heavens forbid, vomiting.
9:50 Has such a "Oh my god what is that? Oh my god! WHAT IS THAT?" energy