25 pages • 50 minutes read
Iroquois Creation MythThe World on Turtle's Back
Fiction | Short Story | YA | Published in 1816A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Woman’s Body
The woman’s body is a symbol of creation—both a vessel for giving birth and the building blocks for life-giving elements like the sun, the moon, and the stars. Like the earth itself, she appears passive while bringing forth life. However, where other earth mother figures are powerful deities, the woman in “The World on Turtle’s Back” is a creator by default. Her body torments her when she is alive even as it enables the “birth” of the human world, highlighting the theme of Passive Versus Active Creation.
Turtle
The turtle, who remains unnamed, works within the theme of creation. Like the woman, he is silent and passive, though the turtle chooses this role, which is a very important one. No other creature in the lower world seems to have the proper physical shape to hold the woman with stability. As the story progresses, the size of the turtle expands until its back forms an island—in fact, the continent of North America. Things begin to grow on the turtle’s back like grasses, shrubs, and trees. Later, the twins add animals and humans.
Brothers
Rival brothers are a common motif in folklore worldwide. In this case, the brothers represent various dualities: light and darkness, good and evil, order and chaos, etc. The good mind literally creates light, while the bad mind would prefer to live in darkness. Enigorio spends his time productively, making pleasing and helpful things that work in harmony. Meanwhile, Enigonhahetgea crafts dangerous lands in which one could easily get hurt or die. As Enigorio creates landscapes suitable for human and animal use, Enigonhahetgea makes places difficult to navigate or cultivate.
Enigorio and Enigonhahetgea are significant in what they represent not only individually but collectively. Besides being brothers, they are twins. One would expect them to be similar, but they are virtual opposites. This paradox perhaps suggests that the qualities they embody are interdependent—i.e., that light cannot exist without darkness. In addition, it raises the stakes in the story’s consideration of The Nature of Good and Evil, as Enigonhahetgea’s disdain for other people extends even to his own family. The framing of this primordial conflict as one between brothers also suggests the “wrongness” of strife between any humans, who are all ultimately related to one another.
