The Turtle

The Turtle’s Gift



    A long time ago, the earth was nothing more than a large ball of water. All of the people lived above the earth on the clouds, in a village that surrounded a Great Tree of Life.



    One night, the wife of the Great Chief had a dream, where she saw the great tree harming the people of the sky



    In the morning, the woman told her husband of the dream, The Great Chief saw the dream as a warning that the people had come to depend on the tree too much.



    The Great Chief called a council of the elders together to discuss the problem. They decided that the tree had to go.



    So the Great Chief called together all the men of the cloud world and had them gather around the tree so as to pull it out of the ground. The men twisted and tugged, but they could not pull the tree out of the cloud.



    The Chief saw that they were able to move the tree, but that they didn’t want to take it out. He pushed the men aside, and wrapped his own arms around the tree.



    The chief pushed and he pulled, and he twisted the tree until…



    He pulled the tree out of the ground.



    The people of the clouds had never seen the world below the clouds. As they gathered around the hole, The side of the cloud became very slippery.



    The last person to look down the hole was the wife of the chief. As she looked down the hole, she slipped, and found herself trapped inside the hole.



    All of the people of the cloud gathered together to try to get the Chief’s Wife out of the hole, but no matter how hard they tried they could not get her out.



    The Chief’s Wife fell through the cloud, her hands still closed tight around the roots of the great tree. As she was falling, a family of geese passed by under her.



    The geese caught this strange being on their wings, but they soon found that she was too heavy for them to carry for a long period of time.



    They set her down in the water of the earth. Not knowing who or what she was, they decided to call her First Woman, for she was the first human they had ever seen.



    The geese called together all the animals of the world, and they tried to decide what to do with this new creature. First woman could not swim or fly, so they knew something had to be done.



    Turtle said, “She can live on my back, and I will support her as long as the other animals help to feed us.” So it was decided, the turtle provided First Woman a place to live and the other animals brought food to them on a regular basis.



    Everything was fine, but soon the woman became bored with her life on the turtle’s shell. So the turtle called together all the animals, and they talked about how they could once again help First Woman.



    “I know!” said frog. “I’ve heard stories of the bottom of the ocean. Down deep, there is supposed to be a substance called dirt. If we bring this dirt to the top of turtle’s shell, than First Woman will be able to make Turtle’s shell more comfortable.”



    Mallard started to brag about how good a swimmer he was, so it was decided that he would be the first to try to get the dirt. Mallard dove deeper and deeper into the sea until he could no longer dive, but he found that he was only one quarter of the way to the bottom of the sea.



    When Mallard came back to the surface of the water, he told the other animals that he was almost there, but that he had to turn around because he could go no further.



    Gopher was the next to dive. He dove and dove until he got to where Mallard had left off. Gopher, however, was feeling fine and was able to continue. However, when he reached the halfway point he had to quit and return to the surface.



    When Gopher returned, it was decided that Loon would be the next to try the dive.



    Loon, being an excellent swimmer, had no problem reaching the point where Mallard gave up. She passed the point where Gopher turned back, but it was not long before Loon had to turn back as well. She had almost reached the dirt.



    When Loon returned, a fight broke out among all the animals. Loon was their best swimmer, yet she was unable to reach the dirt.



    While all the other animals were fighting, tiny Muskrat slipped away and began his dive. Muskrat easily swam past the point where Mallard had stopped. When Muskrat got to the point where Gopher turned back, he felt as if he had not gone far at all.



    Muskrat glided past the point where Loon had turned back. Soon, Muskrat found that he was on the bottom of the ocean, crawling on the dirt. Muskrat scooped up a handful of dirt, and swam as fast as he could to the side of Turtle’s shell.



    When Muskrat threw the dirt on to Turtle’s back, all of the animals moved back in surprise. Dirt, which had never been in the air before, grew and grew until it covered all of Turtle’s shell.



    When she saw the spreading dirt, First Woman was so happy she threw up her hands in joy. The seeds and roots that had been in her hands from the hole went flying through the air, and where they landed new life, new trees and plants, grew in their place.