"the World on Turtle's Back"

As i said this week we've discussed some native American stories, one in particular stood out: "the World on Turtle's Back". It starts with a woman who is curious. She sticks her head through a hole in the sky cities floor and falls right on through. She plants some roots from the magical sky tree into a turtles back and walks around it until it grows. She then births a baby girl who becomes impregnated by a mysterious man. She has twins, one of the twins symbolizes good and the other evil. The evil one tries to escape the mother through her mouth and ends up coming out her armpit and killing her, the other comes out the way a baby should knowing it wants no harm to befall it's mother. I believe this story is truly inspirational. While it shows the internal conflict between what is good and the evil we wish to do, it also keys in nature and how it effects us all.  The Iroquois focused on nature and how we all are connected through it. They hold animals sacred and say that from the earth we come to the earth we return. They show this because without the animals and roots the woman would not have survived and they would not have come to be.