In Chinese mythos, P’an-ku was the primeval man, who hatched from a cosmic egg. At the beginning of creation, the universe itself was an egg, which hatched open, the top half becoming the sky and the bottom half the earth. P’an-ku, emerging from the egg, grew ten feet taller every day, just as the sky became ten feet higher and the earth ten feet thicker. After 18,000 years P’an-ku died; then, like the cosmic egg, he split into a number of parts. His head became the sun and the moon, his blood formed the rivers and seas, his hair the forests, his sweat the rain, his breath the wind, his voice thunder and his fleas the ancestors of mankind.