日本の神話（と著者は言う）の創世物語を紹介している19世紀の英文で、以下のテキストがよくわかりません。適切な訳を教えてください。
1.（世界は卵の殻のようなものに覆われていた、と日本人は考えていた、いう説明のあと、）
In this egg, the world floated on the surface of the waters, till the moon, by her piercing light, drew up matter from the bottom of them, which became earth and stone, upon which the brazen egg reposed. と続きます。
この中の"till the moon, by her piercing light, drew up matter from the bottom of them, "の部分がよくわかりません。matterというのは何でしょうか？ till the moon以下の訳を教えてください。
2.（金色の牛が卵を角で壊し、卵の中の赤・黄・青・緑のエレメントが混ぜ合わされて世界ができた、牛の鼻息がcalabash(ひょうたん？)に入ってそこから人間（男）が生まれた、というような創世についてが述べられたあと、）Man, however, was wanting; but woman, naturally enough, undertook to remedy the defect. It seems that one of her lovely sex was discovered one day,～の部分がわかりません。意味を教えてください。
全文は以下のとおりです。
THE BRAZEN EGG OF THE JAPANESE.-The Japanese, like the Hindoos, in one of their hypotheses of the creation, believe that the world was once enclosed in an immense egg, the shell of which was brass. In this egg, the world floated on the surface of the waters, till the moon, by her piercing light, drew up matter from the bottom of them, which became earth and stone, upon which the brazen egg reposed.
The bull finding it, butted against and broke it, and the world came forth. The animal, being heated with such hard labour, blowed very much, and his breath entered into a calabash called pou, which became a man, and is termed pourang. I find in another place a slight variation in this story of the golden bull and brazen egg, in which a japanese Eve is made the origin of all the mischief that has since occurred in the world. It would, in this case, appear, that in the egg were enclosed the four elements, and the four principal colours-red, yellow, blue, and green. These being well shaken together, produced the world.
Man, however, was wanting; but woman, naturally enough, undertook to remedy the defect. It seems that one of her lovely sex was discovered one day, growing in the shell of a calabash, but she had unhappily no soul; on which account God pitied her, and sent a bull to the calabash, which breathed into it the breath of his nostrils, and, by that means, gave her a soul--and a most wicked one it unfortunately turned out to be; for, no sooner had she issued from her shell, than she became more intimate, with the inferior deities than our modern ideas of propriety can at all approve of. A wicked and irreligious race of men was in consequence produced: so that God determined to destroy the world, mix up the elements and colours again into a chaotic mass, and of it form a round globe. -Coleman's Mythology of the Hindoos
http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=NnEEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA258-IA7
また、勉強不足でこのような神話を今まで聞いたことがなかったのですが、これに当たる日本神話をご存知でしたら合わせてご教授ください。
よろしくお願いします！
お礼
ありがとうございます！ matterやwant(ing)にそんな意味があるとは全然知りませんでした。 いつもながら大変参考になりました！ （神話の出典に関しては、歴史カテでも質問していたのですが、以下のような回答を得ました。もしご関心ありましたら。） http://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/8367865.html