How Turtle Island was Created

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Transcript

[00:00] Dr. Tami: Boozhoo. This is Dr. Tami, and today we're going to be talking about Mikinock, our turtle, who is so important to the Anishinaabe and Ojibwe culture. I want to talk about how we refer to North America as Turtle Island and how that came to be as Native Americans and American Indians, Anishinaabe indigenous people, all of the wonderful words we use to describe ourselves. Basically, we have several different variations and types of storytelling that help us pass down and teach and learn the values and beauty of our culture and the significance. And of course, we have our own origin stories too, that vary a bit. And today I want to talk about this story and the teaching that I was taught, and I want to acknowledge that I'm doing this out of season. You typically are not supposed to be telling stories or storytelling in this time of the year. It's more reserved for the winter months. But this was a request and something that I felt was definitely important to start doing for our listeners. So a long time ago, ancestors talked about Gichimanitoo, who is a great spirit, who is non-human. This is basically what other people would call God. This is our Creator.

[01:19] Dr. Tami: This is our spiritual entity in life that is so vast that we cannot understand, and we can't comprehend the ability, how everything came to be. Yet, according to my ancestors, Gitchi Manidoo had this vision, this knowing, and this awareness that this was a possibility before there was only darkness. And with this insight, with this ability to see that we could exist, that creation. Gichi Manidoo would manifest this all. And he started with the waters and the Earth and the animals. And really what I want to focus on today is specific animal, the Mikinock, or the turtle, and the significance that part of that creation story has in my life and what it can do for you listeners to help understand our culture and the way we view things from our ancestors and a long line of our storytellers. This helps us identify and keep us well, and it helps us to know the power that we hold within ourselves as Anishinabe people, indigenous people. And so a long time ago, when humans were the last to be created on Earth, and so we knew our place in the world, we knew how important the animals were, and we were instructed to live in peace and to live with the animals and with nature. And part of this, after many, many years, I don't know how many years after Gitchi Manidoo created humans, he sent down Nanaboozhoo can walk between both worlds of spirit and Earth. And the way that the humans were living was not the way that was originally intended by Gitchi Manidoo. We were not living in peace. We began to fight with each other, starting to have feelings of jealousy or wanting or just struggling to live in unity and peace. And so Gitchi Manidoo sent a flood to purify his creation. And as a result of this flood, the humans, many animals were killed. The earth was flooded by water.

[03:20] Dr. Tami: Through this flood, there were certain land animals and water animals that were able to survive. They worked together to help Nanaboozhoo recreate earth as we know it today. And the loon was an animal that came through. Nanaboozhoo's thoughts was if we could just get down low enough to the bottom of this water to grab a handful of the soil that Gitchi Manidoo originally created our land with, that he could then recreate the earth and the soil and bring back to us what we originally had. And so the loon was one of the first animals to offer up its ability to swim and be able to hold breath and try to make it to the bottom of the water to restore peace of this earth. Other animal that came too, was the beaver, and the last animal was the martin. So these three animals who were good swimmers, who felt that they were able to manage and navigate this task, and they were bold and they were strong, they one by one tried to swim down to the water. Each one came up unsuccessful, unable to have a piece of that earth in its hand. Each animal in Nanaboozhoo, as they came up one after the other, they began to feel very discouraged because the last animal was the beaver, who does very good on water and land and has the survival skills that the other animals didn't have. So they put a lot of faith in the beaver, and he too came up without any soil.

[04:55] Dr. Tami: So after the three, they started to think that this was a very distressing place to be. And out of nowhere came the muskrat. And he's the least of the water animals. And so they didn't have much confidence in this muskrat's ability to be victorious. Yet they allowed him to go anyways because he really wanted to see if he could do this and give Nanaboozhoo this gift. The muskrat dove into the water, swam, held its breath, stayed focused, went deeper and deeper and deeper. While he was swimming, the loon, the beaver and the martin sat with Nanaboozhoo and prayed and watched and were just so hopeful that he would come up. But after so much time, they start to feel that things were not going to work out for them. Off in the distance, Nanaboozhoo jumped up and he could see off in the distance, the muskrat was floating on top of the water.

[05:58] Dr. Tami: They swam and were able to grab muskrat, and a turtle came to help them and they got up on top of the turtle's back.

[06:07] Dr. Tami: Muskrat sat there and he was lifeless. When his little paws opened, Nanaboozhoo and the three other animals could see that he had a small piece of the earth's surface in his little paws, Nanaboozhoo took that earth and with the magist shell, while standing on that turtle's back, started to blow in each four direction, and the earth began to grow. And the turtle said she would be the base, and she would sacrifice herself, and she would hold and be the new layer, the new foundation for earth. So Nanaboozhoo continued to pray and blow into the Ms gish shell. The more the animals and Nanaboozhoo moved around, the more the earth surface grew and the earth began to be restored.

[06:54] Speaker B: So as a gift back to the.

[06:57] Dr. Tami: Muskrat for doing this task, Nanaboozhoo was able to breathe life back into the muskrat to honor the muskrat for the gifts of sacrifice and bravery that he gave to the animals and the land. So now today in North America, and I live in the Turtle Mountains, right in Belcourt, North Dakota. I am living on the heart of Turtle Island. So North America in itself is Turtle Island. And I feel so very blessed that I live right near the center of Turtle Island. And so a lot of my healing power and the healing power of my people originates with this story. And that's why we hold the turtle so reverent among many other animals. Miigwetch, have a beautiful day.