The Earth On The Turtle's Back Analysis

“Myths can be described as sacred tales that help man understand the world and his place in it. Myths often try to respond to various eternal questions, such as the origin of the existence of evil, and also, through the archetypes that they provide, seem to give guidance to every generation,” as an Access teacher states, on enotes.com. During one’s education, grammar school through college, we fortunately get the opportunity to be exposed to countless myths and also numerous mythological creatures that we have never heard of before. Personally it was quite the challenge to relate some of these mythological tales into my own life. We don’t usually realize or understand, at that exact time of hearing or reading the creation myth, their drive

or purpose, but after focusing and grasping the comprehension these ancient tales teach us very remarkable morals that our ancestors at one time lived by. Most, if not all, of these morals were not very ideal or the best of to live by, which is one of the various reasons why they are told again and again, over and over, to help prevent the past from recreating itself. Also, these legends are necessary to set a preferred guideline for mankind to live by today. These mythological tales and creatures illustrate to us their supremacies, powers, and strengths, through their strive to know the truth about life. A myth is more than just a made-up tale about made-up creatures, it is an understanding about how and where we came from, it is to explain the unexplainable. These myths are passed along, from generation to generation, so every human being can have a full, well developed, understanding of what was going on in ancient society and how these events occurred, to land us where we are today in modern-day humanity.
Cross Cultural / Universal Commonalities
After doing some extensive research, and reading several mythological tales, I have come to find many similarities between said myths. Reoccurring patterns in creation myths are those of the “African Bushmen” and the “Earth on the Turtles Back” tales of how mankind was molded into its true form today. The African Bushmen along with the Earth on the Turtles back both believed there was a deep hole dug at the base of the tree of life. The African Bushmen myth says Kaang created a tree with an enormous hole at the base that tunneled all the way to the center of the Earth where the men, women, children, and animals of all types lived, and coexisted with peace and harmony. Kaang instructed his newly created world to never ignite a fire or great evil would become over them; as night grew upon them without any form of light, they were left with no other option than to create a fire for not only light, but also for warmth. The illuminating flames terrified the animals so badly that they were forced to retreat to the mountaintops and caves to escape the unfamiliar, leaving the communication between humans and animals to be broken. Perception of the world around us is created from within, “what we see is only the outside form or body. Inside is a living spirit that we cannot see. These spirits can fly out of one body into another” (African Bushmen Myth). On the other hand, the Earth on the Turtles back myth tells of a great, big tree with four roots stretching to the four sacred directions. The massive hole at the base of this great tree was created by the ancient chief lugging and lugging until at last, the tree was completely out of the ground leaving the space unfilled. After a woman with her hands full of seeds lost her balance, she slipped into the hole, where she heard “’put it on my back,’ said the Great Turtle who had come up from the depths. The tiny bit of Earth fell on the back of Turtle. Almost immediately it began to grow and grow until it became the whole world” (The Earth on the Turtles Back Myth).
Universality of Symbols
Symbols, in most instances, make it a little more difficult to comprehend certain mythological stories for most people, but they really do play a major vital role in explaining the author’s point of view without doing so in such a blunt matter.

An example of symbolic writing in a myth is within the tale of The Earth on the Turtles Back, the woman who descends through the immense hole is carrying a hand full of seeds, which is used to plant the Earth’s very first form of vegetation. In the creation myth it has been said that a Muskrats paw scratches the turtles shell, leaving its paw print among the shell, symbolizing a field of crops as farmers would do in today’s world. “They brought Muskrat over and placed her paw against his back. To this day there are marks at the back of Turtle's shell that were made by Muskrat's paw” (The Earth on the Turtles Back Myth). One other key symbol we have discovered throughout our exploration of creation myths is the symbolic meaning of the “tree”. In the account of the African Bushmen life comes from within the tree, out of the roots of the tree, throughout the branches of the tree, and dug out from the base, underneath, the tree. “At the base of the tree he dug a hole that reached all the way down into the world where the people and animals lived... he led the first man up the hole and soon the first woman came up out of it. Soon all the people were gathered at the foot of the tree, awed by the world they had just entered… the animals then climbed out of the hole some of the found a way to climb up through the tree's roots and also come out of the branches” (African Bushmen Myth). This tree, I believe, is a symbolic meaning of “the tree of life”; life and mankind would not have been able to exist today, or even of been able to surface without this

tree.