The Iroquois Explain How the World Begins on a Turtle’s Back

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 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 this world there was a man who had a wife who was expecting a child. She became hungry for all kinds of strange delicacies as women do when they are with a child. In the middle of the Sky-World there grew a tremendous Great Tree which, was not supposed to be marked or mutilated by any of the beings who dwelt in the Sky-World. It had enormous roots that spread out from the floor of the Sky-World. On its branches there were many different kinds of leaves and different kinds of fruits and flowers.
The woman told the man she want...