• Credited with creating mankind
• First defined by Xu Shen (c. 58-147) in the earliest Chinese dictionary
  
• Associated with fertility and grants children to couples
• Sometimes sister, other times the wife of Fu Xi
• Pictured with a snake or dragon-like tail in the eastern Han Dynasty mural in the Wu-liang Temple at Jiaxiang county, Shandong province AD. 25-220.
• Credited with the invention of the sheng reed pipes, marriage, instructed humans in the art of building dams and irrigation channels
• Celebrated as the most popular goddess.
• Intermediator between men and women
• She holds a compass, the symbol of Earth
• Is the same as the Japanese Jokwa
• Appears in Tai myths with rats and birds instead of beasts and birds

The earth was a beautiful place with blossoming trees and flowers, and full of animals, birds, fish and all living creatures. But as she wandered about it Nv Wa felt very lonely. She bent down and took up a handful of earth, mixed it with water and molded a figure in her likeness. As she kneaded it the figure came alive - the first human being. Nv Wa was so pleased with her creation that she went on making more figures both men and women. They danced around her cheerily and loneliness was dispelled.

Since this process was too tedious and time-consuming, she dipped a rope into the mud and then swung it about her. Soon the earth around her was covered the lumps of mud.

The handmade figurines became the wealthy and the noble; those that arose from the splashes of mud were the poor and the common.

Two deities, called in one version Gong Gong, the God of Water and Zhu Rong, the God of Fire were in battle. They fought all the way from heaven to earth, causing turmoil everywhere. The God of Fire won, and in anger the God of Water struck his head against Buzhou Mountain ( a mythical peak supposed to be northwest of the Kunlun range in southern Xinjiang ). The mountain collapsed and down came the big pillar that held heaven from earth. Half the sky fell in, leaving a big black hole. The earth cracked open, forests went up in flames, floodwaters sprouted from beneath the earth and dragons, snakes and fierce animals leaped out at the people. Many people were drowned and more were burned or devoured. It was an unprecedented disaster.

Nv Wa was grieved that mankind which she had created should undergo such suffering. She decided to mend the sky and end this catastrophe. She melted together the five colored stones and with the molten mixture patched up the sky. Then she killed a giant turtle and used its four legs as four pillars to support the fallen part of the sky. She caught and killed a dragon and this scared the other beasts away from the land of Qi. Then she gathered and burned a huge quantity of reeds and with the ashes stopped the flood from spreading, so that the people could live happily again.

The only trace left of the disaster, the legend says, was that the sky slanted to the northwest and the earth to the southeast, and so, since then, the sun, the moon and all the stars turn towards the west and all the rivers run southeast.

You can find additional information on Nu Wa from Chinese Culture at chineseculture.about.com/library/weekly/aa_nuwa02a.htm