Creation from Clay
The creation by clay theme would seem to be among the most ancient, reaching back to those pre-patriarchal times when female creative powers dominated the world. Earth, from which clay comes, is traditionally associated with the world mother. Creation from clay alone would seem to suggest the old Mother Power of the ancient goddess cultures. Later clay myths, in which the male plays a significant role as one who breathes life into the clay or fertilizes it in some way, suggest a movement toward the patriarchal vision (examples are Blackfoot Creation; Dyak Creation; Egyptian Creation; Hebrew Creation; Polynesian Creation; Sumerian Creation; Yoruba Creation).
Creation by Word
In this version of creation ex nihilo, the supreme being speaks the Word, making the age-old connection between Logos or cosmic order (the Word) and the ordering principle, which is language (words). So it is that the Hebrew creator, Yahweh, instructs Adam and Eve—made “in his image”—to be creative by “naming” the other creatures (examples are Christian Creation; Hebrew Creation; Mayan Creation; Navajo Creation).
Creation from Chaos
Chaos is the Greek word for the primal void. In creation myths it is the indeterminate, undifferentiated no-thing-ness before some power or force gives it form and reality and thus turns it into cosmos. Some have included in the concept of chaos the idea that the material of creation was always there along with the potential for creation itself (examples are Babylonian Creation; Chinese Creation; Egyptian Creation; Germanic Creation; Greek Creation; Japanese Creation; Mixtec Creation).
Creation by Secretion
A popular offshoot of the ex nihilo type of creation is one in which the god—nearly always male—creates from his own secretions: spit, vomit, semen (via masturbation), sweat, urine, or feces. This type of myth assumes the existence before anything else of a solitary god, a personified male version of the potential for creativity that in other systems is the maternal underworld, the maternal cosmic egg, or the maternal primal waters (examples are Bantu Creation; Boshongo Creation; Chuckchee Creation; Egyptian Creation).
Creation from a Cosmic Egg
In many creation myths the great pre-creation void was in the form of an egg. The mythmakers inevitably saw an analogy between creation and a birth process they could easily witness in everyday life. The cosmic egg, however, unlike those of reptiles and birds, was often depicted as silver or gold, like the sun and moon (examples are Chinese Creation; Egyptian Creation; Finnish Creation; Indian Creation; Japanese Creation; Mande Creation; Orphic Creation; Pelasgian Creation; Polynesian Creation; Tahitian Creation).
Creation by Emergence
Emergence is a basic concept in creation myths that takes various specific forms, especially among the Indians of the American Southwest and Mexico. This type of myth describes the emergence of a people into this world by way of one or more underworlds. The underworld in such creations can be seen as a world womb, a place in the Earth Mother where humans, plants, and animals are conceived and gradually mature from a seedlike state in darkness until they are ready to be born through a sacred opening. In the underworld, the people, especially, undergo a process of development to prepare them for a new life under the sun. Sometimes the underworld “people” are still animals, from which they later take clan names or around which they later develop totem traditions. They are taught by some agency of the supreme forces in nature. The world womb aspect of the myth suggests an earlier time when the earth itself was sacred, the source of all possibilities, when goddess as earth reigned supreme. In this connection, it is of interest to note the presence in many of the emergence myths of a creative female midwife such as Spider Woman or Thinking Woman. The male role in the emergence is slight or sometimes nonexistent.
Creation from Ancestors
In many cultures creation was by tribal ancestors. This is particularly true of the Australian aborigines, whose first ancestors “dreamed” their particular “worlds” into existence