Gong gong

Gonggong ( Chinese  共 工 , Pinyin Gònggōng ) is a horned demon in Chinese mythology . He fought the Emperor Yao , one of the five great emperors of China.

After his defeat by Emperor Yao in the battle for the throne of heaven, Gonggong fell into a rage. The demon smashed its head against Mount Buzhou, one of the pillars of heaven. The tremor collapsed part of the horizon, flooding occurred, and the earth and the sky were shifted. People suffered great suffering because of the changes.

Goddess Nuwa saw the misery and prevented the collapse of heaven and earth. She cut off the leg of a giant turtle, replacing the mountain that had previously supported the firmament. However, the substitute used by the goddess was slightly lower than the mountain before. The collapse could be avoided with the leg, but the horizon has been sloping since then, which is why the stars, the moon and the sun move to the northwest. The rivers in China, on the other hand, have been flowing southeast into the Pacific Sea since that day .

(225088) Gonggong , an asteroid in the Kuiper Belt , was named after Gonggong.

literature

• Miriam Seeger: Taming the Rivers: Dams and Striving for Productive Landscapes in China , LIT Verlag Münster 2012, ISBN 978-3643124913 , pages 66 ff., Limited preview in Google book search