The Earth On Turtle's Back Analysis

Nature has been an important role in numerous stories in and past and present. The early myths and creation stories had the natural world as characters or playing an important part of the plot of the story. Strong examples of how nature has been an important part of stories are stories written for children and origin myth passed down through the generations. Just like many early creation stories of western civilizations nature plays a huge part in the origin myths of the Native Americans. Native Americans showed a strong connection to nature when they used parts of nature in their origin myths, examples can be found in "The Earth on Turtle's Back," when the animals helped save the sky chief’s wife, "When Grizzlies Walked Upright," how the first

Some Native Americans believed that they have close relations with grizzly bears. This can be seen by looking at the way they described the grizzly bears with human characteristics, which include walking on two feet and talking like people (24). During the story "When Grizzlies Walked Upright, everything is created by the Chief of the Sky Spirits (24). He created everything but humans. Humans were created by the Chief of the Sky Spirits daughter and a grizzly bear (25). Which resulted in the Chief of the Sky Spirits getting angry with the grizzlies. He then punished the grizzlies by taking the ability to talk from them and he forced them to walk on all fours (26). Since the native Americans believed they are descendants of the grizzly bear. The Native Americans show great respect for the grizzlies by never killing a grizzly (26). Also when a Native American was killed by one they were buried on spot and for many years the Native Americans who passed by threw stones into a pile to mark the spot (26). All of this shows the great connection the Native Americans had with the nature around