Decolonizing the World in Turtle Time
Three stories of North America
BY TRACY BASILEFEBRUARY 17, 2025Turtles* date back an incredible 230 million years to a time before the dinosaurs, before most mammals, and before birds. Before there were even continents. Their evolutionary history goes so far back, in fact, that we could almost begin their story with these three words:
In the beginning.
These are the same words that begin Genesis, and what follows in that first book of the Old Testament is a sacred story of how the Earth and all life began.
In the sacred stories of the Haudenosaunee, Ojibwe, Lenni Lenape and other Woodland Nations, the creation of their homeland, indeed the entire North American continent, began on the back of a turtle swimming in the middle of the sea during a time when water was everywhere.
One Haudenosaunee version goes like this:
A pregnant woman living in Skyworld was digging for medicinal herbs when she grew a little too curious peeking down a hole from an uprooted tree and fell. She tumbled towards the waters far below. The geese were the first to notice her descent and in quick response flew up to help, flapping their wings beneath her to slow down her fall, and giving the water animals below—the beaver, otter, loon, turtle, and others—time to call a council. Moments later, Turtle offered his back for Skywoman to land upon.
Sky Woman, Ernest Smith, 1936One by one the animals took their best shot at diving down to the bottom of the sea to bring up a beakful, a mouthful, or a pawful of mud so that it might be spread on Turtle’s back and land might grow. But try as they might, they all failed.
Except for the littlest among them, Muskrat, who returned to the water’s surface nearly dead, but clenched in his tiny paw was a fistful of mud. Once the mud was spread on Turtle’s back, Skywoman danced and the magic began. She opened her hand to let the seeds she grabbed before leaving Skyworld spill upon the newly formed land and everything began to grow. Soon her newborn twins, endowed with opposite powers—one brought darkness, the other light—worked together to form the rivers, mountains, and rocks.
And thus Turtle Island was born.
Many settler-descendants like myself, for whom North America is the only home we have ever known, grew up hearing nothing about the story of Turtle and Skywoman. It’s time we learned what we should have been taught years ago: to see each other and other animals as equal beings and be grateful for all their gifts. To remember that Turtle welcomed a stranger and let her make a home here.
It’s fitting because turtles have always been a part of life here in North America. Western science confirms that this continent is a major hotspot for turtle biodiversity, home to more than 20% of all turtle species.
The largest turtles ever known to exist once lived here!
American history books incorrectly begin around the time of colonization and omit the stories of Indigenous peoples dating back thousands of years, but the science of paleontology tells a story that begins much further in the past — to a time 80 million years ago when giant turtles swam in an ancient sea that stretched from the Rockies east to the Appalachian mountains. The two land masses later joined to form North America. Eons later in 1895, an enormous turtle fossil was unearthed where that sea once was—found in what became the Black Hills of South Dakota, the sacred land of the Lakota Nation. Scientists named it Archelon Ischyros and in 1975 an even larger turtle specimen, measuring 16 feet from flipper to flipper, was found near the same location.
Fossil skeleton of Archelon Ischyros, Frederic A. Lucas 1902So, wait. Why do we call this land America?
Because in 1507 a mapmaker, depicting the “New World,” wrongly credited the “discovery” of Turtle Island to an Italian explorer named Amerigo Vespucci. What sense does that make when the history of humans living on this continent goes back at least 23,000 years and probably much longer?
“[T]here is something to be learned from the Native American people about where we are. It can't be learned from anybody else,” wrote the American beat poet and environmentalist Gary Snyder in the preface of his book called “Turtle Island” for which he received the Pulitzer Prize of Poetry in 1975. He wanted the phrase to catch on and to encourage a shift in perception. Nearly 50 years later, is it too late to ask, what kind of shift did he envision? And are we any closer?
Turtles are in trouble.
Stories with turtles never seem to end, but today the turtles themselves just might. The everyday stuff of modern living—cars, trucks, roads, plastic, warming temperatures—these things and more account for nearly two-thirds of all turtle species having gone extinct or becoming seriously threatened.
Natasha Nowick, president of Turtle Rescue League, makes it her life’s ambition to save them. Her work rescuing, rehabilitating and eventually releasing recovered turtles, has led to a rare kind of understanding of what they feel and how they express themselves. Turtles are born with an innate intelligence that she describes this way: “It is like having the minds of the last million generations whispering over your shoulder into your ear for your benefit.” A turtle, she maintains, “without ever being taught, knows more about the world, is more in equilibrium, in harmony with its surroundings, than any mammal will inherently know.”
Sea turtle, Jeremy Bishop 2019How can we grasp the world in turtle time when so much is happening so fast? I remind myself to repeat these three words: Be the turtle. I take a deep breath. My mind settles, I slow down, I remember that we are all related. And I know where I am.
* In colloquial American English, the catch-all term “turtle” refers to turtles (aquatic), terrapins (semi-aquatic) and tortoises (terrestrial). They are all members of the Testudines order.Notes:
Kimmer, Robin W. Braiding Sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions, 2020.
http://parcplace.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/YOTStateoftheTurtle.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_Island_(Indigenous_North_American_folklore)
https://www.bhigr.com/product-category/reptiles-amphibians/turtles/archelon-ischyros/
Interview with Natasha Nowick of Turtle Rescue League, February 4, 2023