Iroquois Creation Myth

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Creation myths illustrate the a story of the beginning of earth in different perspectives. The Iroquois myth “The World on the Turtle’s Back” and the Yoruba myth “The Golden Chain” share similar roots which branch off in different directions. Both the Iroquois creation myth and the Yoruba creation myth have sky people that revere nature, but the Iroquois gods avoid involvement with each other or man while the Yoruba gods help each other and mankind. The Iroquois myth and the Yoruba myth maintain similar ideals that establish the foundation of the creation of their people. Each story opens with the idea of a sky people, gods that exist in a heaven above them, and that the origins of their world came from the world above. The Iroquois believe …show more content…
One of the major differences in the two myths is the interaction between the gods and the gods and mankind. In the Iroquois myth, the gods are little to no help to each other. When the woman who created land on earth fell from the sky, the gods were aware of her fall from grace “but they chose to ignore it” (Iroquois 1). The Iroquois view the gods as overseers or bystanders as opposed to manipulators. On the other hand, the gods in the Yoruba myth revealed a deeper relationship between beings. The orishas combined their gold to help Obatala, earth’s creator, make a gold chain to reach earth (Yoruba 1). Also, the supreme god, Olorun, blew life into Obatala’s clay figures creating man (Yoruba 2). The Yoruba people show a closer, more benevolent, interaction between the gods and mankind than the Iroquois. Another point of divergence between the two myths is the presence of animals in the development of earth. In the Iroquois myth, the creator relied on the help of animals to begin the process of forming land above the water. The myth describes that land grew from the dirt retrieved by a muskrat form the bottom of the ocean and began on a sea turtle’s back (Iroquois 1). Nature and animals serve as the pillars of the survival for the Iroquois people, essential to the foundation of mankind’s creation. On the contrary, the creator in the Yoruba myth, Obatala, forms land without the assistance of animals. Instead, Obatala uses “all the sand in the sky” to develop land on earth (Yoruba 1). Once Obatala established land, he introduced nature to his new world by spreading seeds from the sky on the land as well as unleashing the Sankofa, the bird that embodies the spirits of the orishas, unto the earth. Unlike the Iroquois, the
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