Nu Wa is a real historical figure, and the area where Nu Wa lived is recorded in ancient history. This shows that the activities of the Nuwa tribe reach Jiyuan in the north and Taihang Mountain in Mengxian in the south.
Nu Wa is not only the goddess who saves the world, but also the god of nature who creates everything. She has magical power and can create at least 70 things every day. She created the world, so she is called the mother of the earth. She is the creator and mother god, and has been widely worshipped for a long time.
The earliest ancient books about the myth of Nuwa are Shan Hai Jing and Chu Ci in the pre-Qin period (although Shuo Wen Jie Zi recorded a word in the works written by Zhou Xuanwang Taishizhen at the end of the Western Zhou Dynasty, it has been lost and only a rumor).
Social phenomena reflected in the expansion of the Legend of Nu Wa
It is difficult for people to witness "the sky collapses", but devastating disasters happen from time to time. So people's experience has changed. Then the original legend of "the sky is falling" became a symbol of catastrophe or great change. For primitive clan tribes, the demise of the clan is different from "the sky were to fall". Genocide is so common in frequent clan and tribal wars.
This is a great threat to every clan as a whole. Therefore, although "the sky splits" is a natural myth, "mending the sky" has social significance. Even the myth of "the sky were to fall" itself was filled with the smoke of tribal wars. The so-called "* * * workers compete with Zhuan Xu for the emperor" and "the sky is broken and the land is lost", and its most superficial and direct significance is the war disaster.
Robbie said in "The History of Tao": The so-called * * * works, without touching the scene and feeling, are absolutely out of place, and the sky is broken, which is a mess. The so-called goddess mending the sky refers to the chaos of the workers, and the work is still "mending the sky and getting immediate results".
Although this oversimplifies the problem and ignores the transformation of myth from natural content to social content, as well as the concentration, collection, symbolic characteristics and multi-level significance of myth, it sees the connection between "Tianzhu breaks the ground to maintain its uniqueness" and primitive tribal war. This is very noteworthy.
The so-called "mending the sky" is a fable to quell the disaster and save the clan from extinction. Xin Qiji's words said, "The sleeves are colorful, and he can make up the northwest." It is a symbol of "mending the sky" to calm the national disaster. The allusion of "mending the sky" in A Dream of Red Mansions clearly expresses the significance of saving the decline.
This is not the original creation of Xin Qiji and Cao Xueqin, but the transmission of mythological and cultural significance in history. The most fundamental reason why the myth wants Nu Wa to "mend the sky" lies in the reproductive function of Nu Wa. In primitive wars, weapons were nothing more than bows, arrows and sticks, and there was no question of who was more advanced than who. In such a war, the decisive factor is mostly the number of people.
In such a social environment, women's reproductive function is very important. Only by a large number of reproduction, the clan can develop strongly and avoid the fate of "the sky falls and the earth falls". Therefore, only the "Nu Wa" with unlimited fertility can "make up for the sky".
The existence of primitive society made the ancestors solidify their understanding of society into a concept; Solidify the accepted truth into a belief. It makes reproductive worship a potential force and dominates the behavior of the nation. The potential significance of the myth of "Goddess mending Heaven" is to celebrate reproduction as the most sacred and greatest cause.
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