Pwanku and the Creation of the World

Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.

From Ancient Tales From Many Lands by Rachel M. Fleming, 1922.

In the very beginning of things, nothing had any shape. There was only a mixed mass of muddy water and shapeless rock. There was not even sky or earth, or sun or stars.

In the midst of this confusion there was hatched the first man, Pwanku, much in the same way as a chick is hatched out of a shell. As soon as he was born he was given a very hard task indeed: nothing less than to carve out the heavens and the earth. He must have been very clever indeed, for the only tools he had were a chisel and a mallet, and there was no one to teach him how to use them or to be a help to him in any way.

Fortunately he was not only very big and strong, but each day he grew six feet taller. It took him eighteen thousand years to finish his task, so you may try to guess what a fine big fellow he must have been when he died. He must have looked very strange indeed, for out of his head grew two huge horns. His great teeth jutted out of his mouth like elephants' tusks. His face was wild and fierce, and his giant body was covered with thick, long hair.

Though there were no other human beings on the earth for him to talk to, he was not quite alone. He had three very odd companions, a phoenix, a dragon, and a tortoise. He started cheerfully on his mighty task, and the three animals kept close by his side. Soon he had made the beautiful sky, and the sun, and the moon, and the stars. I am sure he felt pleased when he saw how lovely they were.

There is a Chinese picture of him carving out the mountain tops, holding in his brawny arms the wonderful chisel and mallet. Through the gap in the rocks, which he has just made, can be seen the sky, with the sun, moon, and stars all shining at once on their powerful creator, Pwanku. On his right hand are the phoenix, the dragon, and the tortoise, and if you look closely at the shell of the tortoise, you will see that the artist has drawn marks which look like tadpoles. They are not tadpoles, however, but Chinese writing telling the whole story of the early history of the world. It seems a great pity that the tortoise died, and its shell was lost, for now no one knows the early history of the world, as it was not written anywhere else except on the shell of the tortoise that had watched Pwanku making the earth.

At last Pwanku's task was nearly over, and he was so weary that he lay down and died. His dead body, grown to an enormous size during these eighteen thousand years of toil, was as useful as his living one had been. All sorts of wonderful changes took place in it. His head became the mountain chains, his voice the thunder rolling among them. His left eye became the light of the sun, and his right eye that of the moon. His four limbs became the four cardinal points, north, south, east, and west. His beard changed into stars, his skin and hair into herbs and trees, whilst his breath became the clouds and winds. From his teeth and bones were formed the rocks and metals, whilst the marrow of his bones crystallized into beautiful jewels. The sweat that had poured from him as he wielded his mighty tools, fell upon the earth as rain. His blood flowed in the valleys as the streams and rivers. The fertile fields were formed from his flesh, and all the little hills from his muscles.

The funniest thing that happened, however, was that the tiny insects crawling about his body became the first men and women upon the earth.

Fleming, Rachel M. Ancient Tales From Many Lands. Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1922.

Rachel M. Fleming

World Mythology

A collection of myths, legends, and other stories that teach us something about the world. Note that myths are often tied into the history and religion of the people who tell them, and they should always be treated and read with respect!

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