Themes That Are Used in “Earth on Turtle’s Back” and “When Grizzlies Walked Upright”
In “The Earth on Turtle’s Back”, written by Onondaga, and “When Grizzlies Walked Upright”, written by Modoc, both of the stories use imagery and personification to show the theme of creation.
In Modoc’s and Onondaga’s stories, they both involve people with great power from the sky. Also, they involve animals helping the woman, who get into trouble by being too curious. And that leads to something being created. In “The Earth on Turtle’s Back”, the Earth was created, because the woman couldn’t live in the water. And in “When Grizzlies Walked Upright”, a new species was created, the Indians.
There is also the theme of sacrifice in “The Earth on Turtle’s Back”,
There are various diverse creation myths from Native American cultures, though many hold similar characteristics. One of the more common forms of creation myth seems to be emergence myth. Generally, in the emergence myth, instead of seeing how the world is created, we see how the people arrive in an already created world. This particular story type is commonly found in Native American cultures from the southwest (Ryan). The Tewa Pueblo version of this myth, entitled How the People Came to the Middle Place, has been collected and written down by the anthropologists Alice Marriott and Carol K. Rachlin in their book, American Indian Mythology. The myth was told to them by two separate sources, Maria Martinez of San Ildefonso and Leonidas
All different cultures have their own creation stories, mostly all containing the elements of a Higher Power of some sort, how the power created the world, and the creation a human man. The Christian belief in the Genesis story has these key elements , as does the Iroquois creation myth, The World on the Turtle's Back. Although these two creation stories share similarities, they also have some stark contrasts. These contrasts include, how the two cultures of the Native American Iroquois tribe and then Christians view life and aspects of good and evil, the way each culture views nature and the impact that has on their culture, and finally the way the Christian God and the Iroquois gods are portrayed to
“The Earth on Turtle’s Back” is a creation myth retold by Micheal Caduto and Joseph Bruchac. The myth suggests that a muskrat ‘created’ the Earth by pulling it up out of the depths of the waters. Similarly, “When the Grizzlies Walked Upright” is also a creation myth retold by Richard Erodes and Alfonso Ortiz. This myth explains that the first Indians were created from a union between the grizzly bear and Sky Spirit. Although the myths reveal that the Onondaga and the Modoc both believe that there is a higher power, each tribe has different views on how their Sky Chief is.
The novel “The Back of the Turtle” by Thomas King is relevant to Canada in both present day and history. Through the setting, characters and theme the story is portrayed in a way that makes it sound like a calamitous prediction for the future of Canada’s treasured natural world. Riddled with corporate greed and environmental disaster, the story follows those involved and affected by the catastrophe that destroyed Samaritan Bay. His lifelike characters are tangled with labyrinthine emotions that add another layer of complexity to the story. In my opinion, the novel “The Back of the Turtle” by Thomas King is a great novel because of the depth of storytelling that the author can achieve, and deserves to be recognised as a “Great Canadian Novel”.
Creation stories are tools used to try to explain the unexplainable. For centuries humans have been searching for answers to the what, when, why, and how questions that encompass life. Genesis and the Iroquois Creation Myth are two different stories that seek to describe the creation of Earth and the universe that surrounds it. Genesis describes a Christian perspective, particularly one of the most popular Western explanations to life on Earth. The Iroquois Creation Myth, on the other hand, takes a less traditional approach, while only mildly alluding to religion. The similarities between the two lie in the timeless battle of good versus evil.
“The World on the Turtle’s Back” is a myth passed down from one generation of Iroquois to the next. Throughout the passage the author uses specific literary elements and style to explain the creation of the world through the eyes of the Iroquois tribe.
From ever since I can remember, animals have never been able to hold a discussion with humans, but in the native american myths, animals were worthy of admiration and were given the ability to talk. Before the Europeans ever came to America, Native Americans did not use a written language, but instead spread their ideas and stories through verbal language. The stories they created were passed on from generation to generation through this oral communication. Further, they helped in the development of many motifs which can be seen in our twenty-first century society. The themes portrayed in the stories they told relate to how we live today in more ways than you may think. The themes that derive from Native American myths (the importance of competition,
The World on a Turtle's Back is a Iroquois myth about the creation of earth. This belief is related to the biblical belief about creation. Both portray a story of a woman wanting to enjoy the forbidden fruit. After they eat of this forbidden fruit, good and evil is created. According to the myth good prevails over the day and bad rules over the night. The days of creation are represented by the woman planting roots and plants while riding the back of the turtle, the night is created by the right handed twin cutting off the grandmother’s head and tossing it into the sky, and the seas are filled by the body of the grandmother being tossed into the
Often a topic of debate, there are several different takes on the creation story existent in literature. Dependent on one’s religion, different beliefs about how the world we live in was created may arise. Looking deeper into the literature, one will realize there are also many similarities between creation stories. Based on the strong possibility that Genesis was influenced by the Enuma Elish, there are similarities that stem from the fact that they both describe the creation of a new world as well as differences in their interpretations and approaches to creationism.
The book of Genesis is about the beginnings of creation and life on earth. It begins with “nothingness” and in the first seven days following God creates the heavens and the earth, light and darkness, the seas, plant life, then came the sun and the moon, the fowls and the creatures who roam the lands, followed by humankind to finish it all off. Comparing the creation aspects of Genesis to Theogony, we see that the earth was again created out of “nothingness” known as Chaos. Chaos, instead of creating everything on earth, created several other godly beings to create the earth as it is today. Therefore, it can be deduced that the stories of Genesis we derived from the stories of the gods and goddesses of Theogony. Another similarity the stories possess is in the identity and condemnation of women as evil. In Theogony women were created to be an evil placed upon the earth to cause suffering for men because Iapetos, a mischievous god, stole fire from Zeus and presented it to man. In retaliation, Zeus had his lame smith mold the shape of a “modest
Throughout the plot of these four creation stories, it is visible that each culture has varying beliefs on how land was developed. For example, Cherokee Indians conclude that land was created by a water beetle who sculpted soft mud, where as Hawaiians believe that land emerged from the slime in the ocean. Both Europeans and West Africans teach that a supreme being used his or her powers to form land. In Genesis, God was responsible for the land, whereas in the Golden Chain story, a creature called Obatala was deemed accountable for creating the land. One similarity betweens these stories is that they all begin in an almost identical setting. In every myth except for
One parallel between Greek and Egyptian creation stories is that they both begin with a God or Gods being created from the universe. The creation of
We live in a day and age where many people are more focused on the screens in their pockets than on the world around them. It goes without saying that people’s lack of connection with the outside world and underappreciation of its beauty are two of the issues we face in this nowadays. When it comes to the poet, Theodore Roethke, however, he is not one of the individuals who is faced with this problem. Due to spending much of his childhood in a greenhouse owned by his father, Roethke has always been inspired by and had a keen eye for objects and occurrences in nature (www.biography.com). The poems, “The Sloth”, “Night Journey”, and “Selections from I am! Said the lamb”, by Theodore Roethke, encompasses clever rhyme, skilled syntax, and insightful imagery in order to portray different concepts about nature.
that they needed to find land for her to rest on, which could only be
This book is named “It’s an Aardvark-Eat-Turtle World” written by Paula Danziger. It was published in 2007. The book are about two friends who were going to be sisters. As you can tell, their parents were divorced. In addition bought of theirs parents had found someone new. The first person’s (named Rose) mother and the order’s (named Phoebe) father fell in love and they try to make a happy family together.