{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Native American","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim51_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim51_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim51_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/nam/iro/sim/sim51.htm","summary":"This is a Native American etiological folktale \u2014 likely from a Northeastern or Great Lakes tradition \u2014 belonging to the trickster-tale genre, and closing with a \"just-so\" explanation of why animals became what they are today. The narrative follows two brothers, Turtle and Partridge, who kill an Elk through Turtle's clever deception (tricking the animal into headbutting a tree) and then hoard the meat from their Wolf cousins, breaking a prior norm of shared resources. When the Wolves discover the betrayal and try to punish Turtle, he defeats each threat through reverse psychology: he begs to be spared from water (his natural home) while feigning terror of lesser punishments, turning his enemies' own reasoning against them. A second episode extends Turtle's trickster role further, as he wins a foot race against Wolf by stationing identical-looking decoys along the course \u2014 a ruse that results in Wolves ceding the hills to Turtle's people. The tale is distinctive for making Turtle, typically a slow or unimpressive figure, the consistent source of cunning, while Partridge \u2014 physically more capable \u2014 stutters and fumbles; the story rehabilitates apparent weakness as a strategic asset. It ends by asserting that this conflict is the origin moment when these beings ceased to be people and became animals.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Seneca Indian Myths: Partridge and Turtle and their Cousi...","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Native American","translated_text":null,"word_count":1533}