Turtle Island: The Story of North America's First People
A Glimpse into the Past This is an unusual kind of history book Many people lived on this land from the beginning of human history to 1491 We could not possibly do justice to the stories of all those people but we will give you a glimpse into their fascinating past rich with accomplishment and tradition This isn’t the kind of history where one event leads to another along a straight line We do follow a time line of sorts from the Ice Age to 1491 with concluding chapters that bring us up to the present In between the dates are only a rough guide and before 1491 are all approximate unless otherwise noted In places we tell the story through myths and we don’t ascribe even rough dates for those Instead of telling Turtle Island’s story through dates we look at what life was like in different places across North America to celebrate the wisdom and ingenuity of the people Another thing you’ll find unusual about this book is the lack of names That goes for individuals groups and places We simply don’t have names to attach to the engineers who built Cahokia or the artists who painted the images in the Lower Pecos or the inventors of the ovens that turned a poisonous plant into something good to eat We aren’t always sure what people called themselves the groups they lived in their neighbors or their land Names are very powerful so instead of misusing them we have steered away when we could However you will see the names of several archaeologists because we do know who they are There was no such thing as Canada the United States or Mexico The borders we know today didn’t exist but to help you find your way we’ve used current names of places The most important name is what to call the people who are the subject of this book You’ve probably heard different ways to describe the original people 4 A Glimpse into the pAst
of North America Indian Aboriginal First Nations Native Americans We’re using the word Indigenous with some exceptions When we refer to the Indian Act the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other government-related terms we use Indian to avoid confusion Finally an important note about the human remains that have helped unlock the story of Turtle Island Much of what we know is thanks to the study of human bones and teeth Over the years the skeletons of Indigenous people have been dug up not only for study by archaeologists but also accidentally by con struction workers or for profit by grave robbers Human remains deserve to be treated with the highest respect and that has often not happened When the colony of British Columbia passed the Indian Graves Ordinance in 1865 it was the first public law to ban grave robbing and it made all Indigenous cemeteries government property In the United States the Antiquities Act of 1906 declared that all Indian bones and artifacts on federal land belonged to the United States Eighty-four years later in 1990 the govern ment of the United States finally passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act which requires that all human remains burial objects and other sacred objects be returned to descendants communities for reburial We acknowledge the great debt we owe to the ancestors and to their descendants 5
The Beginning Turtle Island ØØÙ From the Haudenosaunee Tradition The Story of Sky Woman Long before the world was created there was an island in the sky where the Sky People lived One day a tree toppled over and tore a hole in the sky A pregnant Sky Woman grew curious about the hole She came near so near that she tumbled through the opening She grabbed at tobacco and strawberry plants but they didn’t stop her fall She was still clutching the tobacco and strawberries when a flock of birds swooped to catch her The birds set her down on the Great Turtle’s back Other animals dove to the ocean floor and brought mud up to the surface They packed the mud on the Great Turtle’s back Over and over they dove down until they had brought up enough mud to make room for trees and plants to grow Then they dove some more When they were finished they had made a whole world on the Great Turtle’s back Sky Woman gave birth and when she did she became the mother of the people The land has been called Turtle Island ever since 6 the BeGinninG
The Haudenosaunee who live around the Great Lakes have told Sky Woman’s story for countless generations Turtle Island is what they call the land that was created thanks to Sky Woman and the Great Turtle Of course many other groups of people have lived in North America each of them with their own name for their home 7
