ABSTRACT
All myths of creation are strictly re-creation myths, and in two crucial respects. Firstly, contrary to initial appearances, every creation myth involves creation from something (whether a prior state of order, chaos, the void or notionally ‘nothing’); for even ‘nothing’ requires that we imagine ‘some-thing’ in order to negate it. In this sense, so-called ‘creation from nothing’ (ex nihilo) is a rhetorical trick and a sleight of mind. Secondly, every telling or presentation of a creation myth is in some measure a retelling or re-presentation of a version or vision that is held already to exist. In that sense, to claim any kind of authority, a creation myth must be a re-creation myth. However, it is never sufficient merely to ‘decode’ a myth, as though it has some ‘message’ embedded within that is simply waiting to be extracted. (This is the besetting problem in all sorts of naïvely allegorical approaches to mythology, ancient and modern.) Rather, it is the very words, stories, images and associated actions of a myth which themselves in the event – through the processes of narration and dramatisation – realise the moment of creation. They bring its truth into being. The telling or performance of the myth (in words and images, music and dance, for instance) can then be grasped as an embodiment and an enactment, not simply the record or rehearsal of a prior state.
