Why do the Iroquois honor both twins?

So far the story is like other creation myths in that there is a world of gods (the Sky-people) similar to Greek/Roman and Egyptian beliefs. Also the world is very plain and empty similar to Christian/Jewish beliefs. The creatures in this story are very intellectual and have a system of understanding between them. This proves that the Iroquois people thought that animals weren’t mindless but intelligent creatures. The twins mother represents “Mother Nature”. She is the birther of what caused humans to form and is therefore very important. The right-handed twin was seen as more admirable, which shows that the Iroquois values telling the truth and being a “good person”. The rituals and games the Iroquois play are important to their culture and lives, they gamble, play lacrosse, battle with clubs, and dueled with other chosen weapons. The myth explains that the Grandmother became the moon and presides mostly in the Night because her favourite twin, the left-handed twin, represents the night. 5) The right- handed twin is truthful but the left- handed twin is not, the left is rebellious and wants to do things himself, while the right follows the rules and regular ways of doing things. Although the left-handed twin has traits that the Iroquois do not want their…show more content…
They find nature very important and believe that they are equal to it (they were built alongside it). Their idea of their gods takes that concept and flips it because they believe that they are very similar to the gods in needs and stature so they see themselves as very important. On the topic of good and evil, they make it very obvious that they believe it creates a balance in the world. When the twins are competing, the storyteller/ author explains many rituals and sports the Iroquois play including lacrosse and gambling: this also explains that games were played to test each other's skills as well as for

4) The World on The Turtle’s Back compares to another creation myth, Adam and Eve. There was a tree of the knowledge of good and evil that grew in the Garden of Eden in which Adam and Eve lived. They were not allowed eat the fruit that it bore, or they would die. Eve is persuaded into trying the fruit by a serpent, and convinces Adam to do the same. In both myths, the women eat something sacred, therefore leading to creation and exploration.

5) The right-handed twin was honest, always tried to do what was right. The left-handed twin was very dishonest, and always did the opposite of what was right. The Iroquois honored these brothers balanced the world out, making the ratio of everything good enough so that life can be successful. The twins show the balance of good and evil in the world. The right-handed twin represented the daylight and everything that was good in the world and the left-handed was the night and everything dark in the world.

6) The Iroquois’ attitude towards nature is that it is a central part of their history in cultures because they depended on it for sustenance. Their have multiple gods, and have two main gods- the left-handed twin and the right-handed twin. The Iroquois believed in an equal balance between the two gods. In the Iroquois society, tobacco was used in a lot of various ceremonies. They also believed in dancing a certain way to help the crops grow. The Iroquois knew the importance of both good and evil, and worshipped both. They understood the need to have a balance between the two.

7) Yes, it gives an explanation of why the human race exists as we are, and it offers an explanation for where we came from. The sky world is like a heaven, its inhabitants functioning as gods. It showcases the battle between good and evil, and how the world needs balance to function. It also shows how plants and animals came to exist (clay). It also explains night, day, and the moon. Like all creation myths, it gives people a reason for their being and something to believe in.

In the World on the Turtle´s Back the Iroquois wanted to emphasize how there was a Sky World, with people that had extravagant beliefs that explained how good and evil balanced everything in their life. This peculiar place had different gods, like Iroquois. They believed in weird thing for example they believed that a Great tree was the center of their universe. The Great Tree wasn’t a habitual tree, it was huge and had been in that place forever. In this Sky World, there was this woman that seemed to break the rules and desire things that are off limit. She practically forced her husband to get her what she wanted from the Great Tree, ending in an unfortunate event in which the pregnant woman felt from the Sky World. This stubborn woman got pregnant by a bizarre man that placed two arrows across her body. What she didn’t know is that she was expecting opposite twins, the white side and the dark side. Since the moment the twins where in their mother´s belly they caused her trouble.

The left-handed twin, also referred as the Devious one, was the extravagant one he wanted to be born through the left armpit. The way this twin believed he should not be born the normal way influenced his behavior and how he followed the dark path. No baby is born through the armpit so it caused some

The right-handed brother is represented as admirable and teaches us how the Iroquois valuetruthfulness, fairness and righteousness. This was important to them because it described how a manshould be able to tell from right and wrong.

E.Folk LiteratureF.: Reread lines 146-156. Note in your chart the information about Iroquois costumes and rituals, youlearned from these lines.

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Their grandmother was angry at the right-handed twin so he cut her head off and threw it in thesky, making it the moon.G.Creation Myth: The transformation of a character is a common element of mythology, often used toexplain natural phenomena. Consider the natural feature explained in lines 172-183. How does thismyth explain the fact that the moon is viable mainly at night?

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Iroquois Creation

In the beginning there was no world, no land, no creatures of the kind that are around us now, and there were no men.  But there was a great ocean which occupied space as far as anyone could see.  Above the ocean was a great void of air. And in the air there lived the birds of the sea; in the ocean lived the fish and the creatures of the deep.  Far above this unpeopled world, there was a Sky-World.  Here lived gods who were like people – like Iroquois.

In the Sky-World there was a man who had a wife, and the wife was expecting a child.  The woman became hungry for all kinds of strange delicacies, as women do when they are with child.  She kept her husband busy almost to distraction finding delicious things for her to eat.

In the middle of the Sky-World there grew a Great Tree which was not like any of the trees that we know.  It was tremendous; it had grown there forever.  It had enormous roots that spread out from the floor of the Sky-World.  And on it s branches there were many different kinds of leaves and different kinds of fruits and flowers.  The tree was not supposed to e marked or mutilated by any of the beings who dwelt in the Sky-World.  It was a sacred tree that stood at the center of the universe.

The woman decided that she wanted some bark from one of the roots of the Great Tree  -- perhaps as a food or as a medicine, we don’t know.  She told her husband this.  He didn’t like the idea.  He knew it was wrong.  But she insisted, and he gave in.  so he dug a hole among the roots of this great sky tree, and he bared some of its roots.  But the floor of the Sky-World wasn’t very thick, and he broke a hole through it.  He was terrified, for he had never expected to find empty space underneath the world.

But his wife was filled with curiosity.  He wouldn’t get any of he roots for her, so she set out to do it herself.  She bent over and she looked down, and she saw the ocean far below.  She leaned down and struck her head through the hole and looked all around.  No one knows just what happened next. Some say she slipped.  Some say that her husband, bed up with all the demands she had made on him, pushed her.

So she fell through the hole.  As she fell, she frantically grabbed at its edges, but her hands slipped.  However, between her fingers there clung bits of things that were growing on the floor of the sky-World and bits of the root tips of the Great Tree.  And so she began to fall toward the great ocean far below.

The birds of the sea saw the woman falling, and they immediately consulted with each other as to what they could do to help her.  Flying wingtip to wingtip they made a great feathery raft in the sky to support her, sand thus they broke her fall.  But of course it was not possible for them to carry the woman very long.  Some of the other birds of the sky flew down to the surface of the ocean and called up the ocean creatures to see what they could do to help.  The great sea turtle came and agreed to receive her on his back…

And the woman said to herself that she would die.  But the creatures of the sea came to her and said that they would try to help her and asked her what they could do. She told them if they could get some soil, she could plant the roots stuck between her fingers, and from them plants would grow…

After a while, the woman’s time came, and she was delivered of a daughter.  The woman and her daughter kept walking in a circle around the earth, so that the earth and plants would continue to grow.  They lived on the plants and roots they gathered…

One day, when the girl had grown to womanhood, a man appeared.  No one knows for sure who this man was.  He had something to do with the gods above.  Perhaps he was the West Wind.  As the girl looked at him, she was filled with terror, and amazement, and warmth, and she fainted dead away.  As she lay on the ground, the man reached in this quiver, and he took out two arrows, one sharp and one blunt, and he laid them across the body of the girl, and quietly went away.

When the girl awoke from her faint, she and her mother continued to walk around the earth.  After a while, they knew that the girl was to bear a child.  They did not know it, but the girl was to bear twins…

These two brothers, as they grew up, represented two ways of the world which are in all people.  The Indians did not call these the right and the wrong.  They called them the straight mind and the crooked mind, the upright man and the devious man, the right and the left.

The twins had creative powers. They took clay and modeled it into animals, and they gave these animals life.  And in this they contended with one another.  The right-handed twin made the deer, and the left-handed twin made the mountain lion which kills the deer…And the right-handed twin made berries and fruits of other kinds for his creatures to live on.  The left-handed twin made briars and poison ivy, and the poisonous plants like the baneberry and the dogberry, and the suicide root with which people kill themselves when they go out of their minds.  And the left-handed twin made medicines, for good and evil, for doctoring and for witchcraft.

And finally the right-handed twin made man.  The people do not know just how much the left-handed twin had to do with making man.  Man was made of clay, like pottery, and baked in the fire.

The world the twins made was a balanced and orderly world, and this was good.  The plant-eating animals created by the right-handed twin would eat up all the vegetations if the number was not kept down by the  meat-eating animals which the left-handed twin created.  But if these carnivorous animals ate too many other animals, then they would starve, for they would run out of meat.  So the right- and left-handed twins built balance into the world.

As the twins became men full grown, they contested with one another…And so they came to the duel…On the last day of the duel, as they stood, they at last knew how the right-handed twin was to kill his brother.  Each selected his weapon.  The left-handed twin chose a mere stick that would do him no good.  Bt the right-handed twin picked out the deer antler, and with one touch he destroyed his brother.  And the left-handed twin died, but he died and he didn’t die.  The right-handed twin picked up the body and cast it off the edge of the earth.  And some place below the world, the left-handed twin still lives and reigns…

These two beings rule the world and keep an eye on the affairs of men.  The right-handed twin, the Master of Life, lives in the Sky-World.  He is content with the world he helped to create and with his favorite creatures, the humans.  The scent of sacred tobacco rising from the earth comes gloriously to his nostrils.

In the world below lives the left-handed twin.  He knows the world of men,  and he finds contentment in it.  He hears the sound of warfare and torture, and he finds them good.

In the daytime, the people have rituals which honor the right-handed twin.  Through the daytime rituals they thanks the Master of life.  In the nighttime, the people dance and sing for the left-handed twin.