* Humans
from the earth
Tales from all over the
world feature the shaping of human beings from the dust of the
earth. Among the books on this site, this is seen in The
Origins of Life on Earth: An African Tale as well as in
Five Heavenly Emperors. A
slight regional diversion of this theme is seen in The
People of Corn, where humans are formed from ground-up corn.
* The seperation of Earth
and Sky
Getting the sky to move
away from the earth is a problem found in the Botswanan tale
"Why the Sky is seperate from
the Earth" as well as in "Wulbari the Creator",
a tale in Hamilton's In the Beginning (not featured
here).
* Involvement of others
In many of the creation
tales, the gods request supplies or assistance from mortal creatures
to complete the acts of creation. In The
People with Five Fingers, the animals contribute food; in
Remaking the Earth, the
marine animals work together to get mud from the ocean floor
and carry it for the Earth Maker.
* Coyotes, Turtles and Spiders
These creatures come up
in many different cultures, both as creators and assistants.
See The People with Five
Fingers, Pia Toya, Remaking
the Earth, Sister Yessa's
Story, Naro the Ancient
Spider and The Spider who
Created the World.
* Diversity
This theme is boasted
in several accounts, including The
Fire Children, where the many different children are raised
together and loved equally, and Mama
God, Papa God, where the two jointly agree that what the
world needs are people that are different from one another.