science

Turtle Island

Turtle Island is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Turtle Island rather than just read about it. In short: "Turtle Island" is a name used by some Indigenous peoples of the Americas to refer to Earth or North America. It is also commonly used among both Indigenous and non-Indigenous activists for Indigenous rights.

Key takeaways

Turtle Island belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Turtle Island to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Turtle Island from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

"Turtle Island" is a name used by some Indigenous peoples of the Americas to refer to Earth or North America. It is also commonly used among both Indigenous and non-Indigenous activists for Indigenous rights. The name is based on an oral history once common to the Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, which today roughly encompasses southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States. A number of contemporary works continue to use and/or tell the Turtle Island creation story.

Lenape

The Lenape story of the "Great Turtle" was first recorded by European colonists from an interview on October 16, 1679, in the 1679–80 journal of the Labadist missionary Jasper Danckaerts. It was explained to the missionary by the Hackensack elder Tantaqué, who was then visiting the Fort James area in Lower Manhattan. The story is shared by other Northeastern Woodlands tribes, notably the Haudenosaunee peoples. The Lenape believe that before creation there was nothing, an empty dark space. However, in this emptiness, there existed a spirit of their creator, Kishelamàkânk. Eventually in that emptiness, he fell asleep. While he slept, he dreamt of the world as we know it today, the Earth with mountains, forests, and animals. He also dreamt up man, and he saw the ceremonies man would perform. Then he woke up from his dream to the same nothingness he was living in before. Kishelamàkânk then started to create the Earth as he had dreamt it. First, he created helper spirits, the Grandfathers of the North, East, and West, and the Grandmother of the South. Together, they created the Earth just as Kishelamàkânk had dreamt it. One of their final acts was creating a special tree. From the roots of this tree came the first man, and when the tree bent down and kissed the ground, woman sprang from it. All the animals and humans did their jobs on the Earth, until a problem eventually arose. There was a tooth of a giant bear that could give the owner magical powers, and the humans started to fight over it. Eventually, the wars got so bad that people moved away, and made new tribes and new languages. Kishelamàkânk saw this fighting and decided to send down a spirit, Nanabush, to bring everyone back together. He went on top of a mountain and started the first Sacred Fire, which gave off a smoke that caused all the people of the world to come investigate what it was. When they all came, Nanabush created a pipe with a sumac branch and a soapstone bowl, and the creator gave him Tobacco to smoke with. Nanabush then told the people that whenever they fought with each other, to sit down and smoke tobacco in the pipe, and they would make decisions that were good for everyone. The same bear tooth later caused a fight between two evil spirits, a giant toad and an evil snake. The toad was in charge of all the waters, and amidst the fighting he ate the tooth and the snake. The snake then proceeded to bite his side, releasing a great flood upon the Earth. Nanabush saw this destruction and began climbing a mountain to avoid the flood, all the while grabbing animals that he saw and sticking them in his sash. At the top of the mountain there was a cedar tree that he started to climb, and as he climbed he broke off limbs of the tree. When he got to the top of the tree, he pulled out his bow, played it and sang a song that made the waters stop. Nanabush then asked which animal he could put the rest of the animals on top of in the water. The turtle volunteered saying he'd float and they could all stay on him, and that's why they call the land Turtle Island. Nanabush then decided the turtle needed to be bigger for everyone to live on, so he asked the animals if one of them would dive down into the water to get some of the old Earth. The beaver tried first, but came up dead and Nanabush had to revive him. The loon tried second, but its attempt ended with the same fate. Lastly, the muskrat tried. He stayed down the longest, and came up dead as well, but he had some Earth on his nose that Nanabush put on the Turtle's back. Because of his accomplishment, Nanabush told the muskrat he was blessed and his kind would always thrive in the land. Nanabush then took out his bow and again sang, and the turtle started to grow. It kept growing, and Nanabush sent out animals to try to get to the edge to see how long it had grown. First, he sent the bear, and the bear returned in two days saying he had reached the end. Next, he sent out the deer, who came back in two weeks saying he had reached the end. Finally, he sent the wolf, and the wolf never returned because the land had gotten so big. Lenape tradition said wolves howl to call their ancestor back home.

Haudenosaunee

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Turtle Island

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Turtle Island claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Turtle Island before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Turtle Island ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Turtle Island

In research: Turtle Island appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Turtle Island in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Turtle Island is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Creation myths, Geography of North America, Iroquois legendary creatures, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Turtle Island outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Turtle Island in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Turtle Island means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Turtle Island out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Turtle Island in simple terms?

Why does Turtle Island matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Turtle Island?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Turtle Island.