Clay

The Aleutian Islands

Aleutian Mythology

Raven: Creator god, brought light to the world, created humans from clay.

The Raven created the world, brought light, and formed the first humans from clay.

The reference to forming the first humans from clay is part of a distinct creation story featuring Tulugaak (the Raven) as the creator.

He found rich, soft clay along the riverbanks—earth that was both malleable and fertile.

Tulugaak gathered the clay and began shaping it with his beak and claws, forming the first humans.

In Aleutian mythology, the story of forming the first humans from clay highlights Tulugaak's creative power and symbolizes the deep connection between the Aleutian people and the earth.

The use of clay signifies their origin from the land itself, emphasizing their dependence on nature and the sacred relationship they have with their environment.

Mark Isaak

Flood Stories from Around the World

The goat reappeared and said they could marry themselves, but they would have to put a hoe-handle and a clay pot with a broken bottom on their roof to signify that they are relatives.

He planted palms, asked Olorun to create the sun, and, in time, created people from sculpted clay.

Mangaia (Cook Islands):The rain god Aokeu ("Red Circle" for the red clay he washes around the island), who was lowly born of the drippings from stalactites, disputed with the ocean god Ake to see which was more powerful.

Meanwhile, Aokeu caused five days and nights of rain, washing the red clay and small stones into the ocean and carving deep valleys.

Aokeu was judged the victor, because the sea had been stopped by the rocky heights, but but the rains flowed far into the ocean, carrying red clay to mark their progress.

They created a man out of earth, putting in grass for the stomach and heart, clay for liver and kidneys, pulverized red stone mixed with water for blood.

It lay down in the south; Naigaicho covered it with clay and plants to create the mountains.

The manido from the bottom formed a clay figure, shook his rattle and talked, and the figure came to life.

The Great Spirit put the last rib from the woman into a clay figure and likewise created a man.

Then he made all kinds of birds and creeping things, and he made clay images and commanded them to become living humans.

The Creator molded new people from clay at Tiahuanacu.

Navajo Traditional Teachings

Continual Growth Through the Different Planes of Existence

Upon completion, the Hogan is dedicated in a sacred ceremony, marking the four directions—east, south, west, and north—with white clay or cornmeal.

Navajo Traditional Teachings

Everyone Needs A Sacred Space – Native American (Navajo) Teaching

This ceremony includes marking four directions with white clay or cornmeal inside the Hogan, starting with the east and moving in a sacred pattern.

Paco Agua

Where Do We Come From? The Creation Story According to Ifá

Earthly materials like clay, water, and plant essences were also used in creation, symbolizing humanity’s connection to Earth’s ecology and the diversity within it.

The Great Flood Story

Yoruba mythology

Obatala felt that the world needed life, so he began to mold figures from clay.

Ignatius Donnelly

Genesis contains a history of Atlantis

"The first man was made of clay; but he had no intelligence, and was consumed in the water."

Having collected materials for the purpose, they found a very adhesive clay and bitumen, with which they speedily commenced to build the tower; and having reared it to the greatest possible altitude, so that they say it reached to the sky, the Lord of the Heavens, enraged, said to the inhabitants of the sky, 'Have you observed how they of the earth have built a high and haughty tower to mount hither, being enamored of the light of the sun and

Ignatius Donnelly

Civilization an Inheritance

The savage, having nothing but wooden vessels in which to cook, covered the wood with clay; the day hardened in the fire.

Ignatius Donnelly

Some Consideration of the Deluge Legends

When the storm ceased--it lasted till twelve, mid-day--the roofs and walls of the buildings in town, the street pavement, the door-steps and back-yards were found covered with a deposit of volcanic débris, holding together like clay, dark-gray in color, and in some places more than an inch thick, with small, shining metallic particles on the surface, which could be easily identified as iron pyrites.

Ignatius Donnelly

The Deluge Legends of America

The body of this strange personage, which was chiefly naked, was painted with white clay, so as to resemble at a distance a white man.

Clara Iza von Ravn

Selestor’s Men of Atlantis

Nay, but one wife each knew, though when she passed to higher ether—soul instead of clay—another came to bless with tenderest love.

For, life imbued, the smallest creeping thing is fraught with beauty in comparison with modeled clay or stroke of brush by man.

Yet not the beaten melody ye hear, but soft, or silent to the clay ear deaf to higher notes.

Streams of ether carried shape to other realm—the shape akin to substance, yet the clay shape lay in state when soul did journey.

Such is Man—the man of clay, all imbued with life which is the motive force.

The iodide, the melting; bitumen in the clay in finest form, the pliable, and thus doth lead stand forth enformed by heat which melted earth's greatest bulk long ages since.

W. Scott-Elliot

The Story of Atlantis

These forms constituted the inchoate material placed at man's disposal, and the clay was ready to assume whatever shape the potter's hands might mould it into.

Wiliam R. Sandbach

The Oera Linda Book

To the extreme west of the Punjab there is found rich clay land [227]as well as barren heaths, which seem endless, occasionally varied lovely spots on which the eye rests enchanted.

Sadhguru

The Significance of a Lingam

In such a state, individuals can reshape their spiritual energies much like wet clay.

Frederick S. Oliver

The Mistake of a Life

Kiss me once as thou wouldst if I were thine own wife in the sight of the world, as I am in that of Incal, and having died, thou wert about to confide my clay to the Unfed Light."

Frederick S. Oliver

Le Grand Voyage

As for this, thy poor clay, over it we will say final words, for it hath done its work and is committed to Navazzamin.

"Unto Incal this soul, unto earth this clay."

Frederick S. Oliver

No Good Thing Can Ever Perish (6-1)

As it might be done to-day didst thou but know how, and that day is not far off when thou wilt again uncover the knowledge, so, in that time, we transmuted clay, first raising its atomic speed so that it became white light of a pale illuminating power and then reducing it to the, so to speak, chemical "mile-post" of aluminum, and this at a cost not nearly so great as in this modern day it takes to get iron from its ores.

But a metal which might be obtained from any ledge of slate rock, or a bed of clay, was so inexpensive as to be the chief base metal in use.

Daniel 2

The divine stone

Feet partly of Iron and partly of Clay: Represents a divided kingdom, often interpreted as the later Roman Empire or subsequent divided nations.

It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them.

Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer.

Alternative: “Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were turned into one, and became as dust from the harvest floor, and the wind swept them away so that no trace of them was found.

Frederick S. Oliver

Caiphul (2-1)

In the work of altering the configuration of the surface of the great promontory from that of a plain to the more beautiful variations of hills and their intervening depressions, the scheme pursued had been to make keyed-shells of rock, of enormous strength, in the form of terraces, and leaving arched passages wherever the avenues intersected such elevations, to fill in the interiors then remaining with a concrete of clay, rubble and cement carefully tamped.

Paul Wallis

Yahweh was replaced by a human king

Clay figurines were smashed, standing stones were knocked down, and altars were destroyed to centralize religious power in Jerusalem.

The Old Testament

Atlantis in the Old Testament

Feet partly of Iron and partly of Clay: Represents a divided kingdom, often interpreted as the later Roman Empire or subsequent divided nations.

It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them.

Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer.

Alternative: "Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were turned into one, and became as dust from the harvest floor, and the wind swept them away so that no trace of them was found.

Sumerian

Inanna and Enmerkar

Sumerian legend attributes the invention of writing to him, with an ancient text stating that Enmerkar, finding his messenger unable to repeat a message, "patted some clay and put words on it, like a tablet." This is the earliest recorded story of writing's invention.

The messenger is instructed to deliver a lengthy message, inscribed on a clay tablet, to the ruler of Aratta, highlighting Enmerkar's divine right to rule and his connection with Inanna.

Philo, of Byblos

The Phoenician history

“These youths invented the method of making bricks by mixing straw with clay, then baking them in the sun.

Oannes from Mesopotamian

Cylinder Seals: Mesopotamian cylinder seals, which were used to imprint images and texts onto clay, sometimes depict Apkallu figures and can offer insights into how these beings were envisioned.

Myths

Timeline of the Four Worlds

Chinese: Pangu created the world by separating heaven and earth; Nuwa created the first humans from yellow clay.

African (Yoruba): Obatala, the creator god, fashioned the first humans from clay.

Persian

Kyomarz or Gil-shah – First man

‘Gil’ means ‘clay,’ ‘Shah’ means ‘king,’ ‘Kyomurz’ means ‘First Man.’ Thus we have the first king; earth-king; king of the earth, and Adam.

Etymology: The names "Gil-Shah" and "Kyomurz" are explained, with "Gil" meaning "clay" and "Shah" meaning "king," which Randolph interprets as denoting Kyomarz as the "First Man" or "earth-king."

The Muslim Adam Story

The Creation of Adam and Hawa

God created Adam from clay or dust, fashioned him into shape, and breathed life into him.

Credo Mutwa

Women were mining

For example, miners did not cook food in clay pots but used heated stones in water to cook their food.

They did not use a clay pot to cook food.17:43They filled a hole like this with water, then heated up round stones.

Ignatius Donnelly

Genesis Contains a History of Atlantis

2:7) we are told, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground." The Quiche legend says, "The first man was made of clay; but he had no intelligence, and was consumed in the water."

Zoroastrian

Yima and the Vara

Crush the earth with a stamp of thy heel, and then knead it with thy hands, as the potter does when kneading the potter's clay.'

[And Yima did as Ahura Mazda wished; he crushed the earth with a stamp of his heel, he kneaded it with his hands, as the potter does when kneading the potter's clay.