Native American Myth

The Turtle that created the world


In the beginning, the people of the early world did not behave themselves and were displeasing to the Creating Power. Angry and frustrated, the Creating Power decided it was time to end the world. So it sent a great flood upon the Earth. As a result, almost all of the animals and people perished from the Earth. All that remained was the Crow. He then begged the creating power to create a new world where he could land and rest. The Creating Power then decided that it was time to create a new Earth. Later, after much thought, the Creating Power created four (4) animals that are known for their ability to remain under water for a long amount of time. Those animals are: the loon, the otter, the beaver, and finally the turtle. The Creating Power then sent each animal to go under water and to return with as much mud as possible. First came the loon, and he could not reach the bottom, then next came the otter, and then the beaver, and each time they failed. Then came the turtle. The turtle dove under the water and did not surface for so long that they believed that he had perished! In conclusion, the turtle finally did resurface, and when he did, he had mud in his claws and in his shell! And so the world was created again. But if the people did not behave themselves, the Creating Power warned them that he would destroy the Earth once more.
Citations for "The Turtle That Created The World"

Crystal, Ellie. ("Lakota Myth 2") (www.crystalinks.com) N/A: Ellie Crystal 1995-2008. December 3, 2008

Application Project-Persephone Poem

   I.

   They call me Daughter of Darkness,
   Pomegranate Girl, call me
   wanton, say I yielded foolishly
   to some wild force surging through
   curled fronds and came to harm
   because I could resist no more
   than Sibyls roused to madness
   by Apollo's kiss. But there is
   more to bitter sacrifice than this.

   II.

   Everywhere that day were poppies:
   silver light and pollen like gold boats
   bobbing in lakes of air. The fragrance
   of my carefree life rose higher
   than incense on Greek altars.
   Yet for me the morning seemed sadder
   than all supplication, more desperate
   than twilight birds calling "Lost, lost,"
   more choked with yearning than Demeter's
   devoted throngs murmuring for grain
   or rain or respite from imagined wrongs.

   I was led from childhood friends--
   Sisters of Cyclamen, Morning's Maids,
   Flower Weavers whose laughter
   was gold coins around my feet. I
   only wandered off because I heard
   a larkspur speak my name. Tipping
   my ear to its emerald lip for the secret
   I slipped like dew down its stem.

   III.

   Crying. Entangled. Caught in a web
   of roots I knew the truth of all
   vanishing things. I cried out for
   Demeter until the mud dividing her
   domain from all that is now mine
   smeared my mouth and sealed my eyes.

   Thrown under a wheel of darkness,
   I was ground down like amber
   wheat under remorseless stone.
   Falling inside such darkness: I,
   Maid of All Meadows, Singer
   of Streams and Skies. In this
   infinity of falling I found this
   lost world, this twilight world:

   I, Cherished of Sunlight, Sister
   of Dawn, Child of May, Heir to
   All Harvests. I was broken
   stone thrown in the Well
   of Nothingness. But there is more
   to bitter sacrifice than this.

   IV.

   I could hear, far as skies above me,
   Demeter's terror. She clawed canyons,
   tore mountains like green silk, lifted
   forests full of sleeping creatures
   to find me. I stumbled on below
   through dank infinity. Nearly blind
   I groped through valleys of blue
   smoke, crossed bridges of bone
   and blasted root thrown over
   vaporous chasms, took into my
   clotted lungs the cloying
   incense of the moldering dead.

   Suddenly He spoke my name or
   another name that is now mine.
   His voice was shy as April
   hyacinths, his voice was sorrow
   beyond the solace of all seasons.
   His voice took shape swaying
   like a silver rope trailing
   a skiff through water. His eyes
   were hyacinths, purple with
   loss, vineyards of longing,
   the thirst of desert roots.

   His arms were silver sickles
   harvesting gold grain around
   my heart. I held my palms
   as shields and warning hard
   against my chest and still
   his eyes pressed unrelenting
   inside my emerald glade.
   Finally he quieted and lay
   like a faun on nests of pine.

   Thus, like a small terrified beast,
   Hades became mine. His skin
   was soft and crisp as morning
   crocus. His cold bolted through me
   like blue lightning could once do.
   My touch shifted like light across
   his mottled skin. Under my hands
   he was like sleepy silver snakes
   of Mother's palace that twined
   themselves to bracelets on my
   arm to waken from some dream
   or fright and bite the tender limbs
   they dreamt upon. Meaning no harm.

   V.

   Queen of Afterlife, caught between
   such sweetness and such strife, I
   startled into this, my second life.
   Above us all the while was Demeter
   freezing sap and womb and season.
   When her ceaseless ragings threatened
   even Phoebus, Zeus called both worlds
   to reason. Hades must atone;
   Demeter could not remain alone.

   Again, for sacrifice, the Gods chose
   me, Queen of Seeds, Loom of Shadows.
   So I came to wander in both worlds,
   one my mother's, one my lover's:
   neither purely mine. Before slipping
   again through that slender larkspur's
   stem I made the Promise
   of the Pomegranates. I chose
   to take that blood seed from His
   trembling lips. It folded like a secret
   child beneath the curled rose
   of my tongue. The King of Death
   and I were pledged forever One.

   To weeping choirs of birds I
   kissed those violet eyes and vowed
   return. Then, sure of my purposes
   as a seed (sure of the double life
   known by the secret root that feeds
   the sun-gorged fruit) I took up
   the task of separation, half
   from sunshine, half from night
   and climbed again the thin
   green path to Earth and light.

   VI.

   Much altered was the place
   of sunstorms as I hurried to my
   childhood home. The landscape
   was abloom with only stones;
   I seemed to walk frost-dazed
   roads alone. Then as through
   a distant crystal cloud I saw
   Her. Mother, wearing a diadem
   of snow, was crooning a dirge
   from the dawn of days. Glazed
   pines stretched blue fingers
   toward a frozen sun. At once
   pure love for the Mother of
   All Things blazed up in me.

   As suddenly I felt heat flare
   at my back; my every step
   sprung flowers: bloodroot, snow
   drop, gentian, sage. I heard
   a wood thrush sing. When I
   moved inside the circle of my
   Mother's arms the whole
   exultant Earth cried awakenings.
   Summer days are a hummingbird's
   kiss; summer days roll swift
   as rivers. But there is more to
   bitter sacrifice than this.

   VII.

   Thus was my Destiny decided:
   Dutiful to green mother and to
   tenebrous lover I must search
   out those I love and leave them.
   Arriving only and always to depart
   my full heart knows its shatterings
   and has reasons to split open
   tender as red maple leaves.

   I am uncomplaining seed
   and self-containing sorrow:
   Eternal Wife, Eternal Daughter
   I am both Life and Afterlife.
   Silent I am the music
   of two worlds. Persephone,
   Queen of Shadows. I,
   Kore, the Pomegranate Girl.

Non verbal representation

12 Acedemic Definitions

1. A myth is a tale that has a moral, explains the reason things happen in life, to entertain. my example of a myth is the myth of Demeter, Persephone and Hades, in which the myth explains the seasons.

2. A hero is the founder of something new, new age, new religion,and new city.Also can relate wit humans with the fact that he is not perfect. One of the most famous examples would be of the hero Hercules. The hero with superhuman strength.

3. The hero's journey is the call to adventure, the initiation, journey,companions that come along with the hero, the ultimate battle. Hercules would also be a good example for this description. He went through many battles and in my opinion, his ultimate battle was after he killed his children.

4. The word Universal means the things that everyone does, feels and understands, its basically like the whole picture. The only thing that I could think of would be emotions. One example of this would be the myth of Eros. My example is Eros. The god of love and desire has a universal quality in the fact that he fell in love.

5. Cyclical means repeating things over and over in the same cycle. One of the examples that we learned for this definitions was the god Ra. The Sun God who changed with the cycle of the sun.

6. Life from Death is sacrificial death. getting life from death. An example of life from death is Uranus.He was castrated and when he died Aphrodite was born.

7. Duality means opposite. The example of this would be yin and yang. Two opposites coming together as a whole.

8. Archetype is the build of something or the beginning of something new. My example is Demeter. She was called the motherly god. She provided Earth with growth and life.

9.Creation is the creation of something new, the beginning of new life. My example of creation is Pan Gu.The myth that says the world began as an egg. He seperated the Heavens and the Earth from Chaos.

10. Matriarchal means a society that is run by women. My example for Matriarchal is Mother Earth.

11. Patriarchal is a society run by men. My example is Father Sky.

12. Sacrifice is the giving of ones life for those of others. My example is the fight of the 300. In which 300 Spartans and Greek soldiers fought the Persians and then died to save the King.

Interpretation Essay

Hades, Demeter, and Persephone

The story of Demeter, Goddess of the harvest, the kidnapping and rape of her only daughter, Persephone, and the trickery of Hades, God of the Underworld is intense. Demeter has only one daughter; she is the symbol of spring and all that comes with that season. Persephone is the symbol of spring and purity and because of that purity, it caused her to become queen of the Underworld residing beside Hades. In this story of Demeter, and in any story, there are three levels that we must look at in order to understand the deeper meaning of the story and what the author wants the world to see. These three levels are: natural, which is seeing the basics of the story, like who, what, where, when, and why, or how the world sees it, social; which is seeing the relationships with other people or how the people in the world expects of you socially; and psychological, this is the level of feelings and emotions of a person or individual.

On a natural level, Persephone is the daughter of Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest. She is the symbol of spring and all of its newness, purity, and beauty. She was said to be extremely beautiful, just like the new flowers that come with spring. With spring, comes new things, new life, and in this story, grief. She was kidnapped by Hades, and taken into his ugly, dark realm of the Underworld. As a result, her mother grieved and took life from the Earth.

The next level is the social level. One famous way to show the social level is to have a villain. Well in this story, the villain was the king of the Underworld. He fell in love with Persephone, with her beauty and purity. So he came out of the Underworld and took her, not allowing her to leave. Giving her all the jewels of the world to his new bride, but poor Persephone, who missed her mother and the world above, would take nothing from him. Hades is the symbol of death, greed, and desire.

The last and final level is the psychological level. Demeter, Persephone’s mother, was the Goddess of the Harvest, so she gave the world food and growth. She is the symbol of life and all of the things the world gets from the Earth. That is, until Persephone disappeared without a trace. When she couldn’t find her only daughter, she was grief-stricken. She rebelled against the world, taking away all growth, bringing a famine to the world. If she had to suffer, the world did too.

Hades is the symbol of death, greed, and desire. Persephone is the symbol of spring, purity, and beauty. And Demeter is the symbol of growth and life to the world. This myth is also supposed to be the reason for the different seasons. I think that all of these correspond together; hopefully this story makes sense and won’t make you lose your mind.