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The Earth On Turtle's Back Analysis

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How the World Uniquely Begins Native American myths and the Christian Bible both offer stories about how the world began.. In “The Earth on Turtle’s Back” and Genesis 1, both tales have similar values and ideas. These two stories compare in that both tell the importance of water, the fact that Earth came out of the water, and the existence of supreme beings; in contrast, each story has a unique idea of how the world came into being. “The Earth on Turtle’s Back,” a story from the Onondaga tribe, an original Native American group, is a myth which relates a story about the beginning of the world. Water is below the Skyland and it becomes an issue when the Great Tree is uprooted. Earth is located beneath the water, and the wife of the Ancient Chief falls through the hole left by the uprooted tree. The animals who live in the water know she is from the Skyland and that she cannot survive in the water. The muskrat saves her by diving into action and bringing the Earth up to the surface. Once the muskrat comes up, she puts Earth on the turtle’s back. After the Earth was placed on the turtle’s back, the wife drops seeds she was holding from the Great Tree onto the land. “The two Swans brought the Sky Woman down. She stepped …show more content…

Even though the creation stories that exist in all human cultures end up sharing similar elements. Both Genesis 1 and “The Earth on Turtle’s Back” relate because somewhere along the lines, the Earth was once covered in all water. The differences are in the way the Earth is created. In Genesis 1, God creates the Earth, humankind and everything that lives. In “The Earth on Turtle’s Back,” the animals are responsible for creating the Earth. After comparing and contrasting, “The Earth on Turtle’s Back,” to Genesis 1, one can see that both of these creation stories have two distinctive tales about how the Earth was

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