A view from Turtle Island: Chapters in Iroquois mythology, history and culture

Mythology has until recently been regarded as a subject which need not be taken seriously by the West. In recent decades, however, western intellectuals have come to propose that the discourse about reality is culturally based and postmodernists and others have reopened the discussion around non-Western mythologies in terms of legitimacy in the way peoples view society and the natural world. Natural world peoples' mythologies should now be viewed as pieces of literature which can help inform the discussion about the possibilities inherent in different ways of viewing humankind's relationship to nature.;The Iroquois culture's foundation myth has been variously named the Creation Story, the Myth of the Earth-Grasper, or the Myth of Turtle Island. It is a story which begins in the sky world when the chief of that world convenes a feast and a young woman proposes marriage to him. In fulfillment of a vision of renewal the chief casts her through the firmament and into a void where she lands on a turtle. Earth grows on the turtle's back and she gives birth to a daughter who in turn gives birth to twins. The twins create life on the earth. One creates human beings and a set of rules for the people in a story which gives form to the Iroquois ceremonials of thanksgiving.;The ancient communal bark longhouses evoked a way of life which modern society might learn from. Society was structured in a way which protected women and children from physical abuse and especially from sexual abuse.;J.N.B Hewitt was an ethnologist who worked for the Bureau of American Ethnology for more than fifty years. He collected numerous manuscripts on the Iroquois, many in the Iroquois languages.;The Iroquois Confederacy entered into the American Revolution partly as a consequence of the acculturation of members within the nations, especially the Mohawk and Oneida. This led ultimately to military and political disaster. In 1990 a long history of political manipulation and economic exploitation created conditions which led to violence at Akwesasne, the remaining Mohawk community in New York State.