The Great Goddess archetype is firmly established in Native American mythology—especially in matrilineal cultures. In some cases, the Great Mother is the world. The Okanagan goddess is the Mother of Everyone and at one time had been a human being who now lives as the Earth. Her flesh is the soil, her bones are the rocks, her hair the plants, her breath the wind.

A Cherokee Great Goddess is Grandmother Sun, a central source of nourishment and survival. Other Great Goddesses are crucial in the creation process, as is the case of Mother Earth in the world-parent myths. Particularly strong Native American Great Goddesses are Spider Woman (or Spider Grandmother), Changing Woman, Thinking Woman, White Buffalo Woman, and Sedna.