“the world on the turtle’s back “

1. why do the iroquois call the muskrat earth-diver?

2. why does the left-handed twin create animals that will eat the animals that the right-handed twin create?

3. explain how the gods in the sky-world act more like humans than gods. use two details from the myth in your answer

“THE WORLD ON THE TURTLE’S BACK” is an Iroquois myth related to the human and earth creation. It tells the story about a pregnant couple that lived in the Sky World and how the pregnant woman fell and got rescued by the birds and the sea animals, who helped her to be alive and to plant a little part of a great tree’s roof that she had in her hands. Then, it tells how all the things that we know were created by this woman, her daughter and her grandsons, a couple of twins that were always fighting; the right-handed is now known as all the good things in the world and the left-handed is the darkness and evil power; the grandmother is now symbolized by the moon.

1.      WHY DO THE IROQUOIS CALL THE MUSKRAT EARTH-DRIVER?

It is because, as a part of a story, when the women fell to the Sky World she had a little part of a root and she wanted to plant it in the earth, but in those times the earth was only composed by sea and air, so she didn’t have land to plant the root; the sea animals tried to help her going down into the sea to search some dirt, but they cannot until the muskrat tried it and after some large time they came back from the ocean depth and gave the woman the land that she needed to plant her root and to start giving life to the earth.

2.      WHY DOES THE LEFT-HANDED TWIN CREATE ANIMALS THAT WILL EAT THE ANIMALS THAT THE RIGHT-HANDED TWIN CREATE?

The left and the right-handed twins were always fighting; all that the right-handed did was compensated for an action did by the left-handed twin. This is what happened to the animal’s creation too: the right-handed twin, with his creator’s powers, started giving life to new creatures, but the left-handed brother tried to eliminate them by giving birth to other animals; thus, inadvertently, they give balance to the world.

3.      EXPLAIN HOW THE GODS IN THE SKY-WORLD ACT MORE LIKE HUMANS THAN GODS. USE TWO DETAILS FROM THE MYTH IN YOUR ANSWER

In all the myth we can find some actions and attitudes that we can relate to human behaviours and not with what we commonly think as gods’ ones. It possibly could be because all the myths are made by humans, so it is impossible to not think like what we are: humans with a specific culture and way of thinking.

EXAMPLE 1: WHY THE WOMEN FELL TO THE EARTH? She fell because she wanted to have a little piece of the sacral tree, although she knew that it was forbidden to all the Sky world’s citizens. She acted selfish doing that and especially sending her husband to break the rules.

EXAMPLE 2: THE GRANDMOTHER LOVING THE LEFT-HANDED TWIN: The women that later became a grandmother always loved more to the left-handed twin, making a difference with her other grandson and probably making him feeling sad

c. to depict the cunningness of the federal soldiers