Abstract
THE COSMOGONY MYTH OF ONONDAGA INDIAN AMERICAN: THE EARTH OF TURTLE’S BACK
Myths are symbolically form of expression that world recognize of archaic societies. At the earliest time of history, myths emerging response to questions of peoples. And it occupies an important place in human life and community memory. Cosmogony myths have an important prestige among other myths. Myths that in terms of including the oldest story tells the creation of the Cosmos, the world and other creatures. Cosmogony myths are the source of other myths.
Mythology is very important in oral culture of Indian Americans. Indian American societies live in original way until the first European discoveries. Therefore, Indian American oral culture protected for many years without deterioration by other cultures because of closed to the outside world. And those oral culture products have come up to nowadays. Indian Americans explain everything’s that from philosophy of life to the source of things with mythology. There are a lot of tribes and oral culture products. And mythology is very important in this life of tribes. For this reason, Indian American native’s myths must examine with comparatively methods. In this study, “The Earth on Turtle’s Back” which a North American tribe Onondaga’s cosmogony myth is translated to Turkish and compared with other native creation myths of North American. Similarities that finded are explained in the evaluation section. It is important for common motifs that many communities have their own cosmogony myths. Studies will reveal common motifs among other cultures.
Keywords
Indian American of Onondaga, cosmogony, mythology, turtle, creation.