| World Turtle | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Other Names |
World Turtle, Cosmic Turtle, or the World-Bearing Turtle |
|
First Appearance |
World Mythology |
|
Created by |
Unknown |
Origin[]
The World Turtle, also called the Cosmic Turtle or the World-Bearing Turtle, is a mytheme of a giant turtle (or tortoise) supporting or containing the world. It occurs in Hindu mythology, Chinese mythology, and the mythologies of some of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The comparative mythology of the World-Tortoise discussed by Edward Burnett Tylor (1878:341) includes the counterpart World Elephant.
In Hindu mythology, it is known as Akūpāra, or sometimes Chukwa. An example of a reference to the World Turtle in Hindu literature is found in Jñānarāja (the author of Siddhantasundara, writing c. 1500): "A vulture, whichever has only little strength, rests in the sky holding a snake in its beak for a prahara [three hours]. Why can [the deity] in the form of a tortoise, who possesses an inconceivable potency, not hold the Earth in the sky for a kalpa [billions of years]?" The British philosopher John Locke made reference to this in his 1689 tract, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which compares one who would say that properties inhere in "substance" to the Indian, who said the world was on an elephant, which was on a tortoise, "but being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed tortoise, replied—something, he knew not what".
In the Chinese mythology, the creator goddess Nüwa cut the legs off the giant sea turtle Ao and used them to prop up the sky after Gong Gong damaged Mount Buzhou, which had previously supported the heavens.
The Lenape creation story of the "Great Turtle" was first recorded between 1678 and 1680 by Jasper Danckaerts. The belief is shared by other indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, most notably those of the Haudenosanee confederacy, and the Anishinaabeg.
The Jesuit Relations contain a Huron story concerning the World Turtle: "When the Father was explaining to them [some Huron seminarists] some circumstance of the passion of our Lord, and speaking to them of the eclipse of the Sun, and of the trembling of the earth which was felt at that time, they replied that there was talk in their own country of a great earthquake which had happened in former times; but they did not know either the time or the cause of that disturbance. 'There is still talk,' (said they) 'of a very remarkable darkening of the Sun, which was supposed to have happened because the great turtle which upholds the earth, in changing its position or place, brought its shell before the Sun, and thus deprived the world of sight.'"
In South Africa, the usilosimapundu of Zulu folklore also bears some similarities to the world turtle. It is a creature so large that it contains many countries and that one side of it experiences a different season than the other side.
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
All published appearances of published before January 1, 1931 are public domain in the US.
Some notable appearances are listed below:
- Jñānarāja (1500)
- An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
- Jesuit Relations (1632-1673)
Notes[]
- In the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet videogame expansion, The Indigo Disk, the legendary Pokémon Terapagos can undergo terastallization bearing the Stellar Type. In this form, Terapagos resembles the world as the ancients saw it.