The World on Turtle's Back

“The World on Turtle’s Back” is a cosmogony, or a story of creation, and multiple types of creation can be found throughout the text. The first begins with a pregnant woman—a common trope in creation stories, where an earth mother figure often gives birth to the world or beings within it. In this version of the story, the woman does not need a man to bring forth life, suggesting that creation is a fundamental aspect of women’s nature. Yet the kind of creation she takes part in is entirely passive. Actions appear to happen to the woman rather than being initiated by her. She becomes pregnant without sex. She falls into the underworld without meaning to go. It is not even clear that she wants to give birth, as all of the language surrounding her condition relates to her physical and mental distress. Labor itself is of course an active process, but it is also something that happens to the mother, and this is the angle the story stresses. The woman experiences a very violent loss of control, for her twins begin to fight while still inside her body: “[O]ne of the infants in her womb was moved by an evil opinion and he was determined to pass out under the side of the parent’s arm” (19). This decision is made by an unborn child rather than by the mother or even the mother’s body. Creation is thus an entirely passive affair for her—an event that seemingly arises out of her female physicality regardless of how she thinks or feels about it.

The other type of creation the story depicts is more active and intentional. The first example comes when the monsters and a large turtle work to create a soft place for the woman to land. They arrive at this decision after a “consultation,” with the turtle choosing to take responsibility for bearing the “lasting weight” of the woman and, ultimately, the world itself. However, it is with Enigorio that this second type of creation culminates. In order to bring light to the lower world, Enigorio “took the parent’s head, (the deceased) of which he created an orb […] (now the sun)” (19). He uses another “remnant of the body” to form the moon, “and he also created numerous spots of light, (now stars)” (19). The good mind goes on to make waterways, large and small animals, fish, and humans, which all serve a purpose that Enigorio clearly envisions. Humans will “possess the Great Island” (20), while his other creations will support human life but also the balance of nature itself:

[H]e gave the Great Island all the animals of game for their maintenance and he appointed thunder to water the earth by frequent rains, agreeable of the nature of the system; after this the Island became fruitful and vegetation afforded the animals subsistence (20).

Not to be outdone, Enigonhahetgea performs his own acts of creation. He makes tall mountains and great waterfalls. He forms craggy hills and poisonous reptiles. He attempts to make humans out of clay, “but while he was giving them existence they became apes” (20). Although Enigonhahetgea’s creations are (in the story’s view) inferior and often go awry, they are nevertheless the products of his own agency. The story thus depicts a two-step cosmogony: one in which a passive, female act of creation provides the raw materials that two active, male creators will later order (or disorder) as they see fit.