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Comparing Iroquois Myth And The Golden Chain

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Myth and fantastic stories are often made to answer questions that are unknown, like where the world came from or how mankind became as they are today. The Iroquois people of North America answered these questions with “The World of the Turtle’s Back”; likewise, the Yoruba people of Sub-Saharan Africa had an origin in “The Golden Chain”. Cultures greatly impact the myth and story they give birth to, and the two stories highlight differing perspectives about the world: the Iroquois belief in nature being more important than humans against Yoruba belief in humans being more important than nature. First, the Iroquois people believe in nature as a concrete and unchangeable, while the Yoruba see nature as intelligently designed by the Orishas, humanlike gods. One example of this is found in the two myth’s explanations of why men are different, blind and seeing, left or right handed. In the Iroquois myth, there are two types of people, …show more content…

These were the ways of world, a natural part of man, not good or evil, but a natural part of the universe. In contrast, the Yoruba people tell of how cripples and the blind are not simply a part of nature, but the result of error on the part of a god, a flaw in the human design. The Orisha Obatala got drunk when forming human beings from clay, and this error resulted in the creation of abnormal human beings without eyes or with misshapen limbs, making these flaws an error in design, not a locked in part of the world. In addition to an explanation of a dichotomy in mankind, the difference between an unchangeable nature and shifting design is found in the characters that aid humanity: the animals in the Iroquois myth and the Orisha, gods in the Yoruba myth. Both myths begin with the world we currently live in as a great sea with no land to live on, a place inhospitable for human life. During the Iroquois myth it

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Calloway includes little information in regard to interconnection or dependency between Pueblo tribes before colonization. He does, however provide a detailed overview and explanation of the Iroquois Great League of Peace. Before the Great League of Peace there was constant conflict between the tribes (Calloway, 52). Calloway writes that Hiawatha, an Onondaga chieftain “…chose to break the cycle of vengeance and violence and create a new world order for the Iroquois” (Calloway, 53). The Onondagas, Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, and Senecas all agreed to be peaceful and come together to work to defend their land (Calloway, 53).

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Unveiling the Significance of the Great Law of the Iroquois League. This paper aims to explore the Indigenous histories of Abya Yala and Turtle Island by examining the primary source, the “Great Law of the Iroquois League”. The construction of this foundational document from c.1300 through oral tradition, was to address the ‘suffering of constant warfare’ among the members of the Iroquois Confederacy, and establish unity and harmony among the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee–the Cayugas, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, and Senecas. The analysis of this source also engages with the perceptions of the secondary source “The Ordeal of the Longhouse”, an analysis by Daniel Richter that reconstructs the histories of Indigenous people. In this essay, I argue that the “Great Law of the Iroquois League”

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In “The Iroquois

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It became known as the six nations after the Tuscarora joined in 1722. The Iroquois Confederacy was in New York closer to the Great Lakes. Deganawida and the Iroquois had an significant impact on tribal relations in

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The differences between light and dark, good and bad, are blurred in the Iroquois Creation Story. The narrator captured two different views in this story, blurring the line between what is considered right and wrong. The Iroquois Creation Story does not have just the black and white, but also the gray areas as well. It makes readers question what is really good and what is bad. The overall use of light elements gives the story a light feel, but also has a dark undertone when looked at closely.

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I have chosen to create an online article about the issue of women in advertising for the “Health and Beauty” section of The Guardian. Having watched Jean Kilbourne’s documentary “Killing Us Softly 4,” I realized there is intense gender bias in our society, specifically discrimination towards women in the advertisements I would see throughout the day. Also, reading Joyce Carol Oate’s short sotry, “Where are you going, Where have you been?” helped me formulate a better understanding of how popular culture creates a singular identity. In my article, I tried to use all three of Aristotle’s rhetorical appeal techniques.

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The most important way to think about myths is that they are symbolic stories that attempt to answer difficult human questions about the universe. For instance, where did we and the world come from? And what is the meaning of life?. “We all want to know where we came from, but because our earliest beginnings are lost in the mists of prehistory, we have created myths about our forefathers that are not historical but help to explain current attitudes about our environment, neighbors and customs” (6). Myth functions as a guidance that explains everything that we come into contact with in the universe.

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The two stories of creation we 're very similar in both Christianity, and the Iroquois. They both had the same outline, but each of them added their own personal twists that made it their own. Their first similarity was the amount of children they had. They both had 2 kids, that we 're opposites. One of the differences about this was that one of the stories was how in one, the kids we 're dire opposites.

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In the Iroquois story Earth was created by a woman .Both of the stories use good and evil. In the both stories there is something that is forbidden. both stories tie up by there being temptation by animals. something that is strange is that many Native American stories tie up with something to do with mother nature.in the indian story earth was created by a sea animal going deep

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In various cultures, traditional stories of a universal beginning relate to the beliefs and rituals that are prevalent within that society. Although these creation stories differ among cultures, all display similar characteristics which constitute archetypal settings of creation myths, such as a great tree, the landmass from a watery chaos, and the fall of man. In the Iroquois’ creation myth, “The World on the Turtle’s Back”, the display of archetypal settings parallels the creation depicted in the book of Genesis, but underlying each similarity are differing interpretations which allow for the stories to relate to its specific culture. In both “The World on the Turtle’s Back” and the Genesis creation story, a prominent characteristic is the great tree connecting heaven and earth.

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The Iroquois creation story is a renowned Native American myth written by a Tuscarora historian, David Cusick. He is also the author of David Cusick’s Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations, which is known to be the first Indian-written history printed in the English language (Radus). The Iroquois creation myth exists in twenty-five other versions. It describes how the world was created from the Native American perspective. It begins with a sky woman who falls down into the dark world.

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The Sky Gods vs the Iroquois The stories “The World on the Turtles Back” by the Iroquois, and The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday discuss two different creation myths. “The World on The Turtles Back” is an Iroquois legend that has been passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, making it an oral tradition. A creation myth is a traditional story that involves supernatural beings or events that explain how the some aspect of human nature or the natural world came to be. These myths have comparable aspects that are specifically the roles of men, women, animals, and nature.

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And in The Iroquois Creation Story it states “ Among the ancients there were two worlds in existence. The Lower world was in great darkness;- the possession of the great monster; but the upper world was inhabited by mankind”(David Cusick). Now these two sections of writing are abundantly similar. Especially when the bible states that God created the Heavens and the Earth, The Iroquois Creation

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Mythical Origins The Iroquois people are one of the earliest cultures in American history, Their culture remains filled with an abundance of myths and legends that explain the nature of life itself. Their creation story, The World On Turtle 's Back, outlines not only the creation of Earth, but also the complex nature of people. The legend states that the Earth resided on the back of a great sea turtle, constituted first by a pregnant woman. The daughter of whom would birth the twins who would become the duality of deceit and order in every living being. This legend has been passed down through the generations, first through oral tradition and later translated to writing.

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“These two brothers, as they grew up, represented two ways of the world which are in all people.” “They called them the straight mind and the crooked mind.” (Iroquois 18) These quotes simply explain that the brothers were both good and bad and this balanced the world. For example, one brother made the deer, and the other made the mountain lion which killed the deer.

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