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Iroquois creation myth story
Iroquois creation myth story
Iroquois creation myth story
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The world on a turtle's back is an Iroquois creation story and it starts out with a pregnant woman in the sky world telling her husband to go fetch her some roots from the great tree of life. The husband was wary about messing with the great tree because in the sky world it was forbidden to touch it. But the man did as his wife had asked but when he dug a hole he found that the world was empty beneath the sky tree. He immediately refused to dig around the sky tree anymore for fear of what would happen but his wife was curious and got to close to the hole and fell into the ocean. On her way down she grabbed some roots from the great tree and some friendly birds broke her fall to the ocean. When she landed in the ocean she thought that she was certainly going to perish because their was no land for her to live on but a turtle from the ocean went and fetched her a piece of earth from the bottom of the sea and she planted the roots of the sky tree in the ground on the turtle's back and walked around it everyday. …show more content…
The women that fell from the sky then had a daughter when it was her time and her daughter helped her tend to the earth and walk the earth.
Some time after she was born the daughter was sleeping when a man came and put two arrows on her chest a blunt one and a sharp one. After this happened the girl became pregnant with twins. These twins constantly fought with one another even in the womb about everything done when it came time for the twins to be born the left handed twin want to go the light side of the body while the right handed one was born the normal way. The left handed twin killed the boy's mother on the way out and so the twins were quarreling right out of the womb. The left handed and right handed twin fought over everything and created animals to fight against one another such as deer and mountain lions. Both of the twins then created man but nobody knows how much either of the twins put into
man. This conflict wasn't enough for the twins eventually and they started fighting against one another. Finally it came down to the left handed twin against the right handed twin and the right handed twin killed him. But he didn't die and fell to the bottom of the world. When the grandmother of the twins found out she blamed the right handed twin for everything, she had always favored the left handed one, so he ripped off her head and she became the moon. This is an Iroquois creation story that explains how the world came to be. It also shows a good contrast of good and evil in the world and explains some of the Native American culture and their beliefs.
“Birth in the Dawn” and the “World on the Turtle’s Back” are stories about the creation of Earth and how it became what it is with all the animals and plants. These stories have different ideas of how the world came to be, but both have creativity. They may seem a tad astonishing, but the people who created them clearly believed them.
Comparing The Earth on Turtle's Back, When Grizzlies Walked Upright, And the Navajo Origin Legend
Adjacent Iroquois tribes, such as the Mohawk natives, shared a very similar creation myth (Redish and Orrin, “Native American Legends”). The cultures of both tribes influenced each other, and as a result, the myths became closely related. The Huron creation myth is heavily based on the culture at the time. The myth mentions beans, corn, and pumpkins being planted on the turtle. The Huron culture often depended on beans, corn, and squash for survival (Redish and Orrin, “Wyandot Indian Fact Sheet”). These were the essential plants on which the culture depended. The Huron tribe was thankful for these life-giving plants and showed this in their myth by stating that they came from a divine
In Genesis, Adam and Eve have two children, Cain and Abel. Cain is jealous of Abel and this evokes Cain to kill his brother. In The World on Turtle’s Back, the mother has two children, one left-handed and one right-handed. The left-handed twin is evil while the right-handed twin is good and light. They both clash for days on end until the left-handed twin is defeated by fate. Both myths are perfect examples of good and evil, and the notion that good and evil are always going to be a part of the world. The myths simply establish good and evil.
What does one think of when the word “turtle” is mentioned? This adorable creature is usually thought of as slow, futile, and the unsung hero of “The Tortoise and Hare.” However, Kay Ryan argues in her poem “Turtle” that turtles are more than just these things: they are strong but unfortunate creatures that must put up with many obstacles in order to survive. Despite the struggles that she faces, the turtle exhibits a multitude of different strengths to overcome them, as seen as the poem progresses.
After her child is born, she cares for her baby so much and tries everything she can to feed the baby because the baby constantly needs foods. When her sister Elly kills her child, she has enough courage to kill her own twin sister; while knowing that she will too, die because they are conjoined twin.
In the novel, Turtles All The Way Down by John Green there are two types of conflict: person vs. self, and person vs. person. Aza Holmes is the main character in the novel and she experiences conflict with herself everyday. She has high levels of anxiety and outbursts of overthinking which she calls a ‘thought spiral’. In the beginning of the book, Aza introduces her thought process. She hears her stomach making noise in the cafeteria and immediately thinks it’s “Clostridium difficile, which can be fatal” this line demonstrates how the slightest changes to her body send her down a never ending spiral of nerves (Green, p. 4). The thoughts alone aren’t what consume her daily life, ever since she was little she “pressed [her] right thumbnail into the finger pad of [her] middle finger, now there is this weird callus over [her] fingerprint” (Green, p. 5).
Betrayal is being disloyal to others and even oneself, therefore betrayal can cause many emotional fallouts and baggage within relationships. In the story, The World on the Turtle's Back, betrayal is a huge factor in how the story plays out, as it is in the song The Letter by Kehlani, Genesis 4:1-16, and Matthew 26:14-16 . Three ways in which betrayal is portrayed in the story, the song, and the Bible is by the actions people take to one another, disconnections in relationships that lead to betrayal, and emotional baggage.
In the Grapes of Wrath, a novel by John Steinbeck, there are many examples of symbolism. One of the most prominent symbols found in this book is the turtle seen in chapter three. This turtle is symbolic of three things: the Joads and their journey west, Tom Joad himself, and the promise of new life. First, here’s a little background information on the turtle. This land turtle was somewhere to go. Where than is, no one knows, except perhaps John Steinbeck. To get there the turtle decides to take the perilous journey down a dusty dirt road that stretches along the quiet countryside. What could happen? A lot more than one might think. In fact, the turtle faces quite a few challenged ranging from pesky insects, to ledges, to even cars. But, the thing that makes this turtle special is that he never gives up (Pages
There’s some nonfiction writers who like to write about the environment and nature. The writers write about nature because of their devotion for the natural world or their concern about its well-being. Sometimes the writer will say whose fault it was and give us some assessments on what we should be doing to help out. “The Courage of Turtles” by Edward Hoagland his story is about clever combination of turtles outlines shriveling view of how the people treat the turtles. That reaction, of course, depends on upon intentionally made expressions and pictures went on at perfect minutes, rather than on dull abuses. The article is manipulation precisely in context of this system of information, which, at a certain point, Hoagland even arranges at
“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
What would you do with $200 million? These 16 people get a chance to get that money. But first, these 16 characters have to figure out who killed Sam Westing, who left a will for $200 million. In The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin, these 16 heirs get to live together in an apartment, and, along with many interesting instances, try to figure out who killed Westing.
Animals and objects often function as a stand in for human kind, especially in literature. Authors’ repeatedly use them to draw reference and explain different characteristics, emotion, and situations of inhumanity. In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck used the turtle to illiterate the journey of a lot of people during the 1930’s to 1940’s. During the period the dust bowl, a series of relentless wind storms and drought, was caused by improper methods of farming that would help prevent erosion. Families were compelled to leave their farms to find work because of the drought and dust storms had left many homeless. Many people experienced the pain of their mortgages foreclosed by banks. Families would pack up the automobiles and head across the country. As the automobile transformed into a more accessible form of transportation it became a saving grace for many of the agricultural farm workers in search a new beginning. The turtle and the automobile both literally and figuratively crossed paths and had a small but somewhat significant impact on each other.
“Imagine walking on the beach at night, the sky completely full of stars. Suddenly you see this big dinosaur lumbering out of the sea—a 1,000-pound, 2-meter-long (450-kilogram, 6.5-foot-long) turtle. With incredible concentration, she uses her flippers to dig a huge nest in the sand."
Before humans were advanced enough to use paper and pencil, we most usually depicted stories in spoken word. The American tribes Onondaga, Modoc, and Navajo foretold tales using this oral tradition. Three famous ones from each are entitled, “The Earth on Turtle’s Back” by the Onondaga, “When Grizzlies Walked Upright” by the Modoc, and “The Navajo Origin Legend” by the Navajo. They all are are called origin myths, and describe the creation of something typically using nature and deities. Betwixt the myths passed down from the Native American tribes, there are differentiated thoughts on how the gods and nature truly act in relation to each other. The Navajo and Onondaga tribes show that both nature and deities can work together, while the Modoc