Turtle Island

Before considering how the Confederacy came into being, let’s take a brief look into the world-view of the Haudenosaunee. It was, and is, a view shared by many of the First Nations peoples of North America. It focuses on a creation myth of a Sky World and the Sky Woman, her daughter, and good and evil twins that were her grandchildren. Underneath the Sky World was the Physical World which was born on the back of a powerful Turtle. This world became known as Turtle Island. These two worlds can be illustrated in the painting shown here by Ernest Smith of the Sky Woman¹

Nundawao, the young Seneca hunter - who had his day’s fishing catch taken by the Neutrals - was part of the millions of indigenous peoples who inhabited a vast land known by the Haudenosaunee and other First Nations as Turtle Island.

The continent inhabited by the First Nations was for all intents and purposes an island. It had oceans bordering all on sides - north, south, east and west. Their world was indeed a vast island. Only a faint collective memory flickered in their minds of any connections with other places beyond the oceans. As the back of the Turtle was solid and dome-shaped, the First Nations saw in the natural world solid hills and mountains and flat meadows. While gazing out onto the great waters they could see the curvature of the Turtle’s back.

The Creation Myth

The Iroquois, like most indigenous peoples of North America, had an oral tradition so what is known about their Creation Myths came from early French missionaries as well as from French, Dutch and British travellers who ventured into their lands. They learned their languages and wrote what was explained to them about their Creation Myths. Consequently, no first hand accounts exist until much later. In fact, variations of these stories exist mostly due to different accounts documented by these missionaries and explorers.

Professor Daniel K. Richter of the University of Pennsylvania has written an excellent account of the Iroquois called The Ordeal of the Longhouse² and is highly recommended. In the first part of this book he wrote a very succinct summary of the Creation Myth of the Iroquois peoples.

According to the Iroquois traditions, the world as we know it originated when a being fell from a realm that rests on top of the sky. On the back of a great Turtle floating in the primal waters, she and her descendants built the material world and everything in it.

Unpacking this story reveals a very complex series of events that begins in the Sky World and leads to an everlasting conflict between two twins on the back of the Turtle—the Good Twin and the Evil Twin.

Two worlds exist in this myth. The first, a spiritual world exists above and beyond the natural world. This spiritual world is called the Sky World. The second, a natural world exists below the Sky World but a barrier exists between the Sky World and the Material World and no one can pass between the two.

However, something would happen to break that barrier. In the Sky World a man and a woman lived on opposite sides of a fire that kept them both warm but unfortunately separate. The Sky World had other inhabitants but the myth focuses only on these two. In time and in mysterious circumstances this man and woman had a child, a daughter. Sadly thought the man died, which was unheard of in the Sky World. Though the man died, somehow he taught his only child, his daughter many things.

His daughter became known as Sky Woman.

Reaching the age of consent, the dead father instructed his daughter to locate a man who would become her husband. In time she did find a man but he became very sick. However, her cooking skills were such that she healed this man of his many sicknesses. Sky Woman the provided an unreasonably large gift to her parents and then returned to her husband. In time she became pregnant in mysterious circumstances.

But this pregnancy enraged her husband. He learned in a dream how to open a way between the Sky World and the material world to become completely healed of his sickness. All he had to do was pull up a special tree to make a hole in the Sky World. He then went about removing the tree and tore a hole in the Sky world. But this caused the sky people to gaze down in wonder at the material world below which seemed like an endless swirling mass of water. His wife also gazed down to see what was below. The man, though now healed of his sickness was not a a kind and thoughtful husband. As the Sky Woman gazed down, he pushed her down the hole towards the material world. And down she went heading to it seemed her demise as she tumbled towards the swirling waters below.

But as she fell hopelessly down, the spirit birds and animals saw this. They told the ducks to save her and so she was brought safely down as ducks spread their wings and caught her on their wings.

Enter the Turtle

A kindly creature, a Turtle appeared with its powerful back to offer sanctuary and a permanent home for Sky Woman. The birds gently brought the Sky Woman down to rest on the back of the Turtle. Though the Turtle’s back was strong, this meant Sky Woman would be stranded forever on its back. Sensing this situation, many animals tried to bring up earth from the bottom of the waters to build land for Sky Woman to walk upon. But they all failed. Finally a Muskrat succeeded in bringing up earth from the bottom of the waters which he placed on the back of the Turtle. As more and more earth was put on the Turtle’s back, the lands grew into the a vast dry land on which Sky Woman could walk and live out her life.

Yet sorrow would follow and spoil this paradise. Sky Woman was pregnant as she fell into the material world. She soon gave birth to a daughter from her now estranged husband in the Sky World. Her daughter now became the first being born in the new world.

As Sky Woman’s daughter grew up, she too became pregnant by a spiritual union with the Turtle and gave birth to male twins. The first child was the Good Twin called Tharonhiawagon, the Upholder of the Heavens or Sky Grasper. He was born through natural means. The second child born was the Evil Twin called Tawiskaron who by tearing his way outside his mother’s side had killed Sky Woman’s daughter.

Sky Woman wanted to know who of the twins had killed her daughter and of course both twins accused each other. However, Sky Woman was persuaded by the Evil Twin that Tharonhiawagon was responsible so the Good Twin was thrown out of the house.

And so began the tension between the Evil Twin and the Good Twin.

The Turtle was not to be outdone by the Evil Twin. The Turtle assisted the Good Twin to create animals and plants that thrived on the land and sea. Last of all he created human beings. The Evil Twin worked his evil to undermine the work of the Good Twin by making life difficult for humans. Whatever humans tried to do to live and thrive in their world, the Evil Twin made trouble for them.

In the end, tension between the Good and Evil Twins led to war between them. Fortunately, the Evil Twin Tawiskaron and the child’s supporter Sky Woman were vanquished but not gone. But not the effects of their evil work persisted. The Good Twin set about showing humans how to make the best of what they had through the instituting of customs, traditions and ceremonies.

The Good Twin Tharonhiawagon knew humans would not learn what was taught them and would eventually war with each other and destroy what was given to them. So he left them never to die but to mourn the troubles and sorrows humans would endure.

If our young Seneca could somehow see the entire land built on the back of the Turtle, he would see a seemingly endless land of pristine forests full of gigantic trees that had been growing for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years. The endless forests of the northeast were yet to be chopped down by European settlers. It is almost impossible to imagine an uninterrupted forest from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes and beyond. He could walk through endless and undisturbed forests of gigantic Oak, Maple, Beech, Chestnut, Elm and Ash trees. He would walk through meadows of tall grasses and shrubs.

It was a age - not that long ago - when the iroquois’s footprint on the environment was barely noticeable, except where he and his fellow Haudenosaunee had created trails, villages and plots of land to grow their “Three Sisters” - corn, beans and squash. He knew his land and his territory. He knew his place in it and his place in his family, his clan and his nation. He looked to the Turtle who created him and the land on which he walked. And he knew the blessings of his life were gifts from the Good Twin, such as his rescue from the hands of the Neutrals. He also knew the evils of his life were the work of the Evil Twin such as not finding fish to eat, encountering the dangerous powers of the rivers and lakes and the fear of warfare between his peoples and other First Nations. Each day is no guarantee of a tomorrow yet the fears and uncertainties of tomorrow must be faced.

For the Haudenosaunee, these ancient events provided the reason for their existence and an explanation for the troubles, challenges and worries they endured in their daily lives.

Epilogue

After writing this, it occurred to me that the Iroquois experience the same emotions and challenges anyone faces in whatever time and place they live, with some very unique exceptions - including the destruction of their society and culture by Europeans. The circumstances in which the Haudenosaunee peoples lived affected their responses and has done so to this very day. But they worried about their future; they worried about the health and wellbeing of their children; they sought for approval from their peers and elders just as any individual would in any society and culture. They also feared warfare and embraced it out of necessity. They feared death, pain and suffering. They rejoiced in the birth of a child and were proud of their children when they accomplished tasks. They loved and were loved. They sought for a warm roof over their heads and learned to make housing from the tools and materials available to them. They learned how to make meals from available sources and learned how to grow crops. They learned how to protect themselves against marauding animals or people and developed societies with rules and traditions that gave their lives structure.

In short, the Iroquois were humans with all the talents and foibles of any other human. Their uniqueness lay in their language, their traditions, their culture, their societal organization and their responses to outside forces, whether manmade or natural. It is only the small-minded individual who could not learn to sympathize with them. Their is nothing inherent in anyone’s culture that makes is superior or better than anyone elses culture. The uniqueness of the Iroquois and other First Nations peoples lies in how their have interpreted the world around them and the myths that sustain them and help them make sense of an instable and ever-changing world.

Next: Deganawidah the Great Peacemaker

Footnotes