Gonggong

God of Water

Water deity who, enraged in defeat, struck Mount Buzhou and tilted the sky, leaving the world as it is.

Gonggong is the water deity of early Chinese myth, often depicted with a human face, serpent body and red hair. After losing his struggle for sovereignty, he struck Mount Buzhou in fury, breaking the pillar that held up the sky. The sky tilted toward the northwest and the earth sank in the southeast — a mythic explanation of the world’s geography that Nüwa’s repair of heaven then set right.