Nü Wa Tattoo Meaning

Creation, repair, motherhood, and the goddess who mended a broken sky.

Nü Wa is the mother-creator who made humanity and mended the sky — the Chinese goddess who shaped the first people from yellow clay and, when the heavens cracked, repaired the broken sky with five-colored stones, joining creation and repair in one act of love. To carry Nü Wa is to carry creation, repair, motherhood, and the goddess who mended a broken sky — the creator of humanity from clay, the one who held the world together when it broke, the great mother whose love both makes and mends.

In Chinese myth, Nü Wa is the great creator-goddess who both made humanity and saved the world: Nü Wa is the creator of humanity — she shaped the first people from yellow clay, then used a rope to create multitudes — and the goddess who repaired the broken sky with five-colored stones. In the beginning, Nü Wa fashioned the first human beings by hand, carefully shaping them one by one from yellow clay; then, wishing to people the world more quickly, she dipped a rope or vine into the mud and flung it out, and the drops that scattered became the multitudes of humankind. She is thus the mother and maker of all people.

And when catastrophe struck — when the pillars of heaven broke and the sky cracked open, threatening to destroy the world with fire and flood — it was Nü Wa who repaired it. She smelted five-colored stones and used them to patch the broken sky, mending the tear in the heavens; she cut the legs from a great turtle to prop up the corners of the sky, and stemmed the floods, saving the world and all the people she had made. The Chinese Nü Wa is thus the creator of humanity and mender of the sky — the goddess who made the first people from clay and repaired the broken heavens with five-colored stones. Nü Wa is the creator of humanity from yellow clay and the goddess who repaired the broken sky with five-colored stones. The Chinese Nü Wa is the creator of humanity and mender of the sky — Nü Wa is the creator of humanity who shaped the first people from yellow clay, then used a rope to create multitudes, and the goddess who repaired the broken sky with five-colored stones; in the beginning fashioning the first humans by hand from yellow clay, then dipping a rope into the mud and flinging it out so the scattered drops became the multitudes of humankind, the mother and maker of all people — and when the pillars of heaven broke and the sky cracked open, threatening the world with fire and flood, it was Nü Wa who repaired it, smelting five-colored stones to patch the broken sky, cutting the legs from a great turtle to prop up its corners, and stemming the floods, saving the world and all the people she had made.

Nü Wa is one of the oldest deities in Chinese mythology — a goddess with a human head and serpent body who created humanity, instituted marriage, and repaired heaven when the pillar holding up the sky was shattered by the god Gong Gong in a fit of rage. She melted five-colored stones to patch the sky, cut the legs off a great cosmic turtle to replace the broken pillars, burned reeds to create ash that stopped the floods. She is the one who fixed the world when it broke. In tattoo symbolism, Nü Wa represents the creative and restorative force — the one who makes something from nothing and then, when what was made breaks, makes it whole again.

Nü Wa across cultures

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