女媧 Nüwa, 伏羲 Fuxi, 神農 Shennong, 倉頡 Cangjie Readers of Signs and Creators of Culture in Ancient China

Long ago, when the world was new, Nüwa 女媧 came down to the Yellow River 黃河.

She had a woman's body above and a serpent's tail below. She moved through the reeds without a sound, her long tail sliding through the mud.

The world was empty. The river ran. The wind moved in the grass.

Nüwa knelt in the yellow earth and gathered the mud in her hands. She began to shape.

She shaped them small, with care. Two arms, two legs, a face. When she set them down on the riverbank they stood up, looked around, and began to walk.

This is how the people came.

Then the sky broke.

A pillar that held up heaven cracked and fell. The sky tore open. Fire poured down through one tear, water through another. The four corners of heaven began to slip.

The people ran. They had never seen the sky break before, and they did not know what to do.

Nüwa came down to the river and into the water. She gathered stones — red, yellow, blue, black, white. Five colors. On the riverbank she built a great fire and melted the stones until they ran like honey.

Then she rose. She rose to the place where the sky was torn, pressed the melted stone into the tear, smoothed it with her hands. The sky began to hold.

But the four corners of heaven were still slipping.

By the river there was a great turtle, old as the river itself. Nüwa took the turtle's four legs and set them at the four corners of the world. She propped the sky on them.

The sky held.

The fire stopped pouring down. The water stopped pouring down. The wind moved again in the grass. The people came back to the riverbank, looked up, and saw a sky that was whole.

Nüwa moved away through the reeds.

The world was full of changes the people could not name.

They watched the sun rise and set. They watched the moon fill and empty. They watched the seasons turn.

Fuxi 伏羲 came down to the river. He had a man's body above and a serpent's tail below, and his tail moved through the water as he came. He sat at the river's edge and watched.

He watched the light moving on the water. He watched the wind bending the reeds. He watched the place where the river met the sky at the far end of the world.

He sat for a long time.

Then the river opened.

A creature rose from the water — a dragon-horse 龍馬, scaled and strange, with a long mane and dark eyes. It stood in the shallows and looked at Fuxi.

On its back were markings. Dark lines and whole lines, in patterns Fuxi had never seen before and yet seemed to know.

He looked. He looked for a long time. The dragon-horse stood still in the water and let him look.

Then Fuxi began to read.

He read the lines as pairs — a broken line and a whole line. He read them in threes — three lines stacked, each making a sign. He counted the signs. There were eight. Each one was a way the world could be: heaven, earth, fire, water, mountain, lake, thunder, wind.

Fuxi read the eight signs off the back of the dragon-horse. The dragon-horse turned and went back into the river.

Fuxi gave the eight signs to the people.

He showed them the broken line and the whole line. He showed them how the lines made pairs, how the pairs made signs, how the signs were the eight ways the world could be.

The people learned the signs. They wrote them in the dirt. They carved them in wood. They painted them on cloth. They began to see the world the way Fuxi had read it on the back of the dragon-horse — heaven and earth, fire and water, mountain and lake, thunder and wind.

The world had not changed. But now the people had a way to talk about how it changed.

Fuxi went back to the river, his tail moving through the water as he went.

Many of the people were sick.

They did not know which plants were food and which were poison. They ate roots that hurt them. They chewed leaves that killed them. Children grew weak. Old people died early.

Shennong 神農 saw this.

He had a man's body, an ox's head, and a belly that was clear like glass. He could see what was inside himself.

He went to the mountain to taste every plant.

On the mountain Shennong tasted a leaf. He felt it move inside him. Through the glass of his belly he watched it settle in his stomach. He could read what it was. This one is food.

He tasted a root. He felt it burn. He could read it. This one is poison.

He tasted a flower. He felt the burn cool. He could read it. This one is medicine.

Some plants made him strong. Some made him sleep. Some he had to spit out before they killed him. He wrote down what each one did.

Once, in a single day, he was poisoned seventy times. Each time he found another plant that brought him back.

Shennong gave the people what he had learned.

He showed them which plants to eat and which to leave alone. He showed them which would heal a fever, which would close a wound, which would calm a sick stomach. The people stopped dying from what they ate. The children grew strong.

Then one day Shennong tasted a grass with small yellow flowers. He felt it tear inside him. He looked for a plant that would bring him back. There was none nearby.

This is how Shennong died.

The people remembered him. They wrote his name. They kept his book. They use it still.

The people were trying to remember too many things.

They tied knots in cords to help them. A small knot for one sheep, a big knot for ten. A knot for each day the rain did not come. A knot for each child born. The cords grew long. The knots grew thick. The people forgot what the knots meant.

Cangjie 倉頡 kept the records.

He had four eyes.

The cords were not enough. He went out to walk.

He walked along the river. He walked through the forest. He walked across the soft earth where the rain had passed.

He looked at the ground.

The birds had been there. Each kind of bird had left a different mark. The crane's foot was not the sparrow's foot. The marks were small and clear in the wet earth.

Cangjie looked for a long time.

He could read what the marks meant.

He picked up a stick and drew. A mark for bird. A mark for mountain. A mark for water. A mark for person. The marks looked like the things they meant.

Cangjie made the first writing.

When he finished, two strange things happened. Grain rained down from the sky, and the ghosts wept in the night.

Cangjie gave the writing to the people.

He showed them how to draw a mountain, a river, a bird, a hand, a heart. He showed them how the marks could carry a name across distance, across time. The people could now write what had happened. They could write what they were thinking. They could send marks to people they could not see.