The Turtle that held the World

So I was scrolling Instagram earlier, when I came to know that today is World Sea Turtle Day (Apparently that exists. I had to google it to confirm).
So well, what better than a story about turtles for tonight?
Alright, here we go.
Indian mythology, unlike most other world mythologies, isn’t what you’d call consistent. Indian mythology is a smorgasbord of varying and (in many cases) self-contradictory stories. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if I were living in India back then, I would definitely be confused which theory and school of thought to follow. The pro about having multiple mythologies is that thousands of years later, I get to write these stories without having to worry about running out of them.
One of them is the story of the world- no, not the creation, but rather how it exists.
So here’s the legend. It’s pretty short and simple.
There’s a turtle called Akupara. On it’s shell stand eight elephants, which stand for the eight directions. These elephants support the whole world, with mount Meru at it’s center. In some accounts the elephants are missing- just the turtle carrying the world.
I had heard and read this theory several times before when I was a child. Now, apart from the very Flat Earth-ish theory (Terry Pratchett uses this same mythology in his Discland series of fantasy novels, btw), what bothered me was the scale of the turtle. It seemed very awkward for me, much like a giant cosmic circus act where elephants were balanced on a turtle’s back while them balancing the earth.
But of course, mythologies rarely mention their country being the only place on Earth. I guess you know where we’re going.
India isn’t the only place where the mythology of a world turtle is prevalent. There’s a very similar story present in Chinese mythology, where the great turtle Ao’s legs support the sky and everything beneath it.
But of course, Chinese mythology moving parallelly with Indian mythology is to be expected- they’re literally neighbors, the countries.
Let’s move onto another country, a country far far away. It is known by the locals as Turtle Island in their native language.
The story goes as thus: Long long ago, on a great floating island, in a place of peace, lived the Great Ruler. Inside his mind was a thought- that thought was the Earth. Because the people he created needed a place to live, He ordered the Sky Mother to go down to the sea, far below the floating island.
The Sky Mother follows His orders. As the sky kept falling, the animals that lived near the water became frightened- if the sky were to fall into the water, they’d die. The Turtle goes deep into the sea, and throws some of the mud on it’s back and comes up to the surface. The sky comes and hits this mud. The turtle then keeps expanding, the mud on its back expanding too. It keeps expanding until the mud becomes the earth which contains all the animals and plants and rivers and the people and the sky.
So this is why they call the land Turtle Island in their language.
Take a wild guess where this story comes from. Korea? Malaysia? Russia? Africa?
Nope. This story comes from one of the aboriginal peoples of North America, who used to live in what is now the Northeast coast of the USA and southeastern Canada.
Perhaps the story of the turtle is more… international than we thought.
This story reminds me of a wallpaper that used to come with Windows 7.

So in about thirty years’ time, when we’re all going to Mars on commercial spaceflights, make sure you say goodbye to the turtle on your way.