This lovely lady is NuWa, a Chinese goddess, whose statue is just behind our school. I did a little research about her, and she is responsible for so many things and there are so many versions of her feats, that I will try to distill it to what is (somewhat) consistent between the different tellings. First, she is NOT a mermaid, she is a goddess with the tail of a serpent.
"As Goddess of Creation, she molded yellow mud into a figure in her likeness, the figure then came alive and was the first human being. She then created more figures, both male and female, and these too came to life."1
She is also credited with saving the world from destruction, as we see her in the above pose, by patching the sky after a great battle between the God of Fire and the God of Water. She then further protected the world by taking giant tortoise legs to hold up the sky.2
What can I say...Girl Power!!
This is by no means a scholarly or comprehensive report of the MANY MANY other feats and powers attributed to her!!
Because I teach classes in plagiarism, I was compelled to cite my sources. :-)
1 comment:
Hi there,
I'm writing a book about mythology which will be published in The Netherlands this year. Is it possible to include your picture of Nuwa in my book? Of course your name will be mentioned as photographer.
Please contact me at: tjarko.evenboer@gmail.com
(Can you please delete this comment when you've contacted me?)
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