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Earth On Turtle's Back Essay

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The Native American mythmakers weaved the traits and values they revered into the myths they wrote. Within every myth evaluated in this essay (Earth on Turtle's Back, When the Grizzlies Walked Upright, and The Navajo Origin Legend) the ideals the tribes held dear shine through. Each myth shows the human traits valued clearly and thoroughly. The qualities in nature selected to represent the traits of humanity the individual tribes valued paint an excellent picture of the ideals and great respect for nature held by them.

The Earth on Turtle’s Back is perhaps the clearest in reflecting desirable human characteristics in nature. In the myth, a woman from the Skylands falls down to the expanse of water below. When she falls the animals in living in the water immediately go to her aid, flying her down gently and going deep underwater at the risk of their lives to bring some Earth up for her to live comfortably. None of the animals, regardless of how great, were able to bring the Earth up …show more content…
According to the myth, the Modco are descendants of a grizzly and Sky Spirit. At the time, all Grizzlies walked upright. The young Sky Spirit had been blown away from home by the Wind Spirit when she disobeyed her father on an errand. She landed where a father grizzly found her and took her to his lodge, raising her as his own. She grew up and married the grizzly’s son giving birth to children neither grizzly or spirit. When her father was called to find her again, he was shocked to see her a grown woman with children of a new race: humans. He cursed the Grizzlies to walk on four legs and become mute, and carried his daughter away, never to be seen again. The Modoc took the stateliness of the grizzly, the characteristics they saw in them, and applied them to humans一 resulting in the idea that grizzlies are ancestors of grizzlies and the explanation of how things became the way they

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