Right Handed Twin Bad

The world on the turtle’s back

In the world on the turtle´s back the existence of good and evil is explained through a pair of twins. The right-handed twin is portrayed as good and the left-handed twin as evil. According to the myth humans were created by the right handed twin, but it is unknown if the left-handed twin helped create men. The most reasonable explanation for the creation of man is that right- handed twin created man on his own “And finally, the right-handed twin made man.” (42) The reason why humans are not always good is that the right handed twin isn’t entirely good. In the myth the right-handed twin is described as “He always told the truth, and he always tried to accomplish what seemed to be right and reasonable.” (42) What seems right and reasonable is relative. Different people might view different things as reasonable or right. This might explain why the Iroquois thought of the right-handed twin as good even though he did some bad things.

This can be seen when his brother kills their mother and he never forgives him for it. Instead his anger grew with time. This anger might have been one of the causes for him killing his own brother. He is also jealous of his brother because he is their grandmother´s favorite. Anger and jealousy are human feelings that are not seen as good by any society or religion. The fact that the right-handed twin possesses these characteristics demonstrates that there is some evil in him. When the twins are competing the right-handed twin kills his brother. Killing anybody is never seen as a good thing. Even though the Iroquois might think that the murder of the left-handed twin seemed reasonable. The death of the twin could have been necessary for the maintenance of balance in nature, creating separate realms for each twin, “daylight realm” and “realm of night” (44). Without this balance world wouldn’t