"The Discharging of a Debt We Owe" Wyandottes love their turtles. Just about everywhere you look in Wyandotte, Oklahoma, you will see turtles; big turtles, little turtles, ceramic turtles, metal turtles, beaded turtles, turtles on signs, turtles on coffee mugs, turtles on pens, turtles on T-shirts, turtles on all kinds of jewelry, turtle tattoos, and of course the Turtle Stop. The mascot for the Wyandotte Nation Casino is a turtle. The mascot looks a lot like the 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon classic Touché Turtle , minus the cute little musketeer hat. While holding a handful of cash and wearing a strand of beads, the little guy comes close to convincing you are going to win some cash. Drive a mile west to the Twin Bridges that span the Spring and Neosho rivers and you will find even more turtles, the real kind: box turtles, red-ear turtles, soft-back turtles, and snapping turtles. If you're lucky, you may even get a glimpse of a special treat, an alligator snapping turtle. The alligator snapping turtle looks like a common snapping turtle, or the moss-back turtle in the Huron -Wyandots' oral narratives, that the Bad Twin blew way out of proportion. These turtles are embedded with spikes reminiscent of the dinosaurs and nothing less than slow, lumbering monsters. Watch out! These boys and girls are big and really bad turtles that in spite of their size can bite in the blink of an eye! If you get bitten by one, just sit down and get comfortable. Think again! As if that's going to happen! This turtle will not let go until lightning strikes--that would be a thunderbolt from Henǫ, the Spirit of Thunder. Growing up in Wyandotte, Oklahoma, my siblings and I had turtles as pets, the little red-eared turtles you could buy at Walmart. Then someone realized they carried salmonella, and their days as pets were numbered. Still, at some point during the summer months my girls would invariably find a turtle in the back yard, and the next thing we knew it was in the living room--a box turtle in a box. The turtle quickly became the newest family pet for two or three days, and then I had the girls turn it loose. Turtles, turtles, turtles. They were everywhere. When I chose On the Back of a Turtle in 1989 as the title of this book, the name derived from the fact that Earth resides on the back of the Big Turtle--the moss-back turtle. In time, as I researched and studied, I came to understand that the turtle, and the title of this book, have a much deeper meaning. From the perspective of Creation Earth resides on the back of a turtle, as do the Huron -Wyandot people, reflecting an ancient position of status for the Big Turtle clan. There is little dispute of this fact even if you are a Little Turtle, Deer, Wolf, Snake, Porcupine, or Bear. All Huron -Wyandot clans reside on the back of the Big Turtle. William E. Connelley made a statement that still holds true to this very day: "The turtle idea was interwoven with the whole social and political fabric of Wyandot institutions." Turtles rule! However, without the Little Turtle, Deer, Wolf, Snake, Porcupine, or Bear clans, the Big Turtle would not and could not be complete. Excerpted from On the Back of a Turtle: A Narrative of the Huron-Wyandot People by Lloyd E. Divine Jr. All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
