Fortier - The Tortoise - Keeping the public in Public Domain

Trying to be true to both Public Domain limits and Black History month unfortunately means stories gathered by white folklorists. Joel Chandler Harris is the best known of these for his seven volumes of Uncle Remus stories. Frankly the folkloristic attempt at using a Black dialect is probably one of the biggest problems at using such stories. 

Alcee Fortier  gets around that by publishing both a dialect version and then re-tells it in his Louisiana Folk-tales as explained by the book's subtitle, "In French dialect and English translation."  Because of this I find his collection may at times be similar to the trickster stories of Harris, but they are far more readable. He calls them Creole stories, but his Preface points to their African and "Negro" origin. The story of the Tortoise certainly has such origins.

Here's a photo of such a tortoise that just looks as if it's laughing at outwitting everybody. 

Photo by David Cadenas on Unsplash 

************* 

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, “Keeping the Public in Public Domain.” The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated. I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20^th century. My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them. I hope you enjoy discovering them.

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

See the sidebar for other Public Domain story resources I recommend on the page “Public Domain Story Resources."

Skinner - (Wyandotte) Legend of the Sun, Moon, and Stars - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Summer is definitely starting up. The other day I was driving along and saw a turtle trying to cross the road. That tells me they are up and about for the season, but the trick is to keep them from getting hit as they plod to another water spot! I put on my emergency blinkers and headed back to pick him up. A large RV on the other side of the road swerved away from him. I went to carefully pick it up and discovered the round ones are the Snapping Turtles! YIKES! Another driver came up and she said I should keep using my foot to nudge it along. Nobody had a shovel (must remember to put one in my car for turtles and possums). Progress was minimal when another woman came up with a cloth tote bag! I was able to scoop the turtle in and deliver it to the side where it wanted to go. <SIGH!> Before I got back in my car I looked and saw a long line of vehicles in each direction. Didn't see the turtle, but hope it stays on its new side for a long time.

Common snapping turtle facts

Wikipedia.org about Cultural depictions of turtles has a worldwide look at the turtle throughout the world and mentions "In the stories of many Indigenous groups of North America, the World Turtle carries the Earth upon its back." It goes on to talk about the turtle going down in the water to bring up sand or mud to create the earth. The Wyandot people send turtle in a different direction in a lovely astronomical tale I think you will often remember as you see the night sky and all its changes. This version is found in The Turquoise Story Book, the summer anthology by the Skinner sisters, Ada and Eleanor (they did one for each season and a bit more!) 

LEGEND OF THE SUN, MOON, AND
STARS
 
(WYANDOTTE)

There was a time when the Indians called the Little Turtle, the Keeper of the Heavens. That was when the Indians thought the earth was a Great Island, which rested upon the Big Turtle's back. It came about in this way. When the Great Island was first made there were no Sun and no Moon and no Stars. In order to know what to do the old Turtle called a meeting of all the animals. When they had all gathered together the old Turtle told them that there was no light. After a long discussion as to what could be done to mend matters the animals grew weary and were about to go home and let the Great Island continue in darkness, when the Little Turtle spoke up and said: "If I were able to climb into the sky I could gather some of the lightning and make light."

"Go," said Big Turtle. "It will do no harm to try."

Now the Little Turtle had very great powers for, as soon as he had made up his mind to go, a vast cloud full of thunder and lightning slowly rolled down toward the animals, and came so near that Little Turtle climbed into it and was soon carried into the Sky.

As soon as Little Turtle arrived there he went around and gathered as much as he could of the lightning and kindled a great round flame, which stood still in the Sky. But it did not light all of the Great Island. The Sun, as Little Turtle had made it, was not satisfactory, so another meeting of all the animals was called. To this Council Little Turtle came in the cloud.

It was decided to give the Sun life and spirit, so that he could run about the Sky by day. Some animals were told to bore a hole through the earth so that the Sun could go through it and be back in the East by night.

This the animals did. But the Sun sometimes loitered in this earth passage and too often the world was left in total darkness. Again the animals were dissatisfied, and a third meeting was called to decide the best plan and to scold the Sun for his neglect.

To this third meeting the Sun and the Little Turtle and all the other animals came. They decided then and there that the Little Turtle should make the Sun a wife, and that she should shine while he was going back to the East through the earth passage.

Then the Little Turtle made the Moon, and gave her as a wife to the Sun. She was smaller and not so powerful as he. You can see her in the Sky. The Stars that run about the Sky are their many children.

One day the Moon ran into the earth passage earlier than she should have done, and before the Sun himself had passed through. So offended was he that he robbed her of all her heat and much of her light, and she was never able to keep pace with him in the Sky.

Not knowing why her light had grown dim, or what had become of her, the Little Turtle went out to see what was the matter. He found the Moon lingering along the underground trail. There was just a little light and heat left to her, and barely a strip of her once glorious body—just as much as one sees of the new Moon nowadays.

Little Turtle brought her out and tried to mend her. But it was of no use. She would become better for a time and then relapse. Soon she would improve again until she was almost as strong as ever she had been; then again she would begin to fade away until at last only a tiny strip was left of her, and she had almost no heat. And this trick of changing has been repeated many, many times. Indeed, to this day the Moon continually changes her shape.

*************

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, “Keeping the Public in Public Domain.” The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated. I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20^th century. My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them. I hope you enjoy discovering them.

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

See the sidebar for other Public Domain story resources I recommend on the page “Public Domain Story Resources."

 

Mclaughlin - The Wonderful Turtle - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

If you live in a suburban or rural area, are you prepared to meet turtles?  These ancient creatures aren't surviving our population the way coyotes, foxes, raccoon, skunks, and opposums are.  Those creatures have adapted in many ways, but turtles move slower and also require a water habitat.  At this time of the year you might expect to see a slow moving turtle on the road.  I've had this experience twice so far this year.  

Photo by Luca Ambrosi on Unsplash

If the turtle is small enough you can use your car's floor mat to slide under the turtle and move him to the side of the road he wanted to reach.  For bigger turtles, be careful!  Assume it's a Snapping Turtle capable of biting off your finger!  This is where it's a good idea to have a shovel in your car beyond winter.  It keeps you away from those jaws and still lets you move the turtle where he wanted to go.  (It's also useful for moving opossums still alive, but foolish enough to "play possum" in the middle of the road.)

As might be expected, Wikipedia has an article on the turtle with way more information than you probably want to read, but it's worth prowling, especially this section on Conservation:

 Among vertebrate orders, turtles are second only to primates in the percentage of threatened species. 360 modern species have existed since 1500 AD. Of these, 51–56% are considered threatened and 60% considered threatened or extinct.^[144] Turtles face many threats, including habitat destruction, harvesting for consumption, the pet trade,^[145][146] light pollution,^[147] and climate change.^[148] 

Skipping the section on Asian turtles, it continues with

As of 2021, turtle extinction is progressing much faster than during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction. At this rate, all turtles could be extinct in a few centuries.^[150]

Since one of the two turtles I saw was a red-eared slider turtle, I found this part of the Conservation article interesting

 Native turtle populations can also be threatened by invasive ones. The central North American red-eared slider turtle has been listed among the "world's worst invasive species", pet turtle having been released globally. They appear to compete with native turtle species in eastern and western North America, Europe, and Japan.^[161][162]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-eared_slider

That type of turtle is also mentioned in the section on Turtles as Pets

Some turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater species, are kept as pets.^[187][188] The demand for pet turtles increased in the 1950s, with the US being the main supplier, particularly of farm-bred red-eared sliders.

Keep your pet turtle home!

Unfortunately the section about turtles "In Culture" and also "As Food and Other Uses" omits the turtle's importance to Native Americans.

I went looking and found Mrs Marie L. Mclaughlin heard stories while growing up among the eastern Sioux of Minnesota. She recorded them for posterity in 1916 in Myths and Legends of the Sioux. In her Foreword she states she is one-quarter Sioux, dating back to her maternal Scottish grandfather and her grandmother, Ha-za-ho-ta-win, who was a full-blooded member of the Medawakanton Band of the Sioux Tribe of Indians.  She "was born December 8, 1842, at Wabasha, Minnesota, then Indian country, and resided thereat until fourteen years of age, when I was sent to school at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin." 

She further explains

Having been born and reared in an Indian community, I at an early age acquired a thorough knowledge of the Sioux language, and having lived on Indian reservations for the past forty years in a position which brought me very near to the Indians, whose confidence I possessed, I have, therefore, had exceptional opportunities of learning the legends and folk-lore of the Sioux.

The stories contained in this little volume were told me by the older men and women of the Sioux, of which I made careful notes as related, knowing that, if not recorded, these fairy tales would be lost to posterity by the passing of the primitive Indian.

The book is dedicated

In loving memory of my mother,
MARY GRAHAM BUISSON,
at whose knee most of the stories
contained in this little volume
were told to me, this book is
affectionately dedicated

Personally I find this story is also particularly interesting in its view of the Sioux (or Dakota/Lakota) and the Chippewa (Ojibwe/Anishinaabe), one of Michigan and Canada's Native People.

The name Sioux came from the Anishinaabe word for their old enemies the "Nadouessioux", meaning "little snakes."  Is it any wonder they prefer being called Dakota or Lakota which means "friend" or "ally"?  Some of those 18th century battles are a major part of this story.

THE WONDERFUL TURTLE

Near to a Chippewa village lay a large lake, and in this lake there lived an enormous turtle. This was no ordinary turtle, as he would often come out of his home in the lake and visit with his Indian neighbors. He paid the most of his visits to the head chief, and on these occasions would stay for hours, smoking and talking with him.

The chief, seeing that the turtle was very smart and showed great wisdom in his talk, took a great fancy to him, and whenever any puzzling subject came up before the chief, he generally sent for Mr. Turtle to help him decide.

One day there came a great misunderstanding between different parties of the tribe, and so excited became both sides that it threatened to cause bloodshed. The chief was unable to decide for either faction, so he said, “I will call Mr. Turtle. He will judge for you.”

Sending for the turtle, the chief vacated his seat for the time being, until the turtle should hear both sides, and decide which was in the right. The turtle came, and taking the chief’s seat, listened very attentively to both sides, and thought long before he gave his decision. After thinking long and studying each side carefully, he came to the conclusion to decide in favor of both. This would not cause any hard feelings. So he gave them a lengthy speech and showed them where they were both in the right, and wound up by saying:

“You are both in the right in some ways and wrong in others. Therefore, I will say that you both are equally in the right.”

When they heard this decision, they saw that the turtle was right, and gave him a long cheer for the wisdom displayed by him. The whole tribe saw that had it not been for this wise decision there would have been a great shedding of blood in the tribe. So they voted him as their judge, and the chief, being so well pleased with him, gave to him his only daughter in marriage.

The daughter of the chief was the most beautiful maiden of the Chippewa nation, and young men from other tribes traveled hundreds of miles for an opportunity to make love to her, and try to win her for a wife. It was all to no purpose. She would accept no one, only him whom her father would select for her. The turtle was very homely, but as he was prudent and wise, the father chose him, and she accepted him.

The young men of the tribe were very jealous, but their jealousy was all to no purpose. She married the turtle. The young men would make sport of the chief’s son-in-law. They would say to him: “How did you come to have so flat a stomach?” The turtle answered them, saying:

“My friends, had you been in my place, you too would have flat stomachs. I came by my flat stomach in this way: The Chippewas and Sioux had a great battle, and the Sioux, too numerous for the Chippewas, were killing them off so fast that they had to run for their lives. I was on the Chippewa side and some of the Sioux were pressing five of us, and were gaining on us very fast. Coming to some high grass, I threw myself down flat on my face, and pressed my stomach close to the ground, so the pursuers could not see me. They passed me and killed the four I was with. After they had gone back, I arose and lo! my stomach was as you see it now. So hard had I pressed to the ground that it would not assume its original shape again.”

After he had explained the cause of his deformity to them, they said: “The Turtle is brave. We will bother him no more.” Shortly after this the Sioux made an attack upon the Chippewas, and every one deserted the village. The Turtle could not travel as fast as the rest and was left behind. It being an unusually hot day in the fall, the Turtle grew very thirsty and sleepy. Finally scenting water, he crawled towards the point from whence the scent came, and coming to a large lake jumped in and had a bath, after which he swam towards the center and dived down, and finding some fine large rocks at the bottom, he crawled in among them and fell asleep. He had his sleep out and arose to the top.

Swimming to shore he found it was summer. He had slept all winter. The birds were singing, and the green grass and leaves gave forth a sweet odor.

He crawled out and started out looking for the Chippewa camp. He came upon the camp several days after he had left his winter quarters, and going around in search of his wife, found her at the extreme edge of the village. She was nursing her baby, and as he asked to see it, she showed it to him. When he saw that it was a lovely baby and did not resemble him in any respect, he got angry and went off to a large lake, where he contented himself with catching flies and insects and living on seaweed the remainder of his life.

****

May you play your part in keeping Turtle off the road and contentedly catching flies and insects and living on seaweed the remainder of his hopefully long life.

*************************** 

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:        

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but the late Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for December 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 

 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. 

Have fun discovering even more stories

Babbitt - 2 Turtle tales (Keeping the Public in Public Domain) & More

Why did the turtle cross the road?

I know that sounds like the start of an old joke, but it's not.  Spring has awakened turtles and they are slowly on the move.  They were made to be fairly unbreakable, but there are limits and that includes being unable to handle a car running them over.  If you see one on the road, please slow down, putting on your emergency flashers and pull over to the side where you can help.  They're fairly determined, so this may help you.

(Nadilyn Beato is an artist at http://reptilearts.com and, while that is copyrighted, it's her public service announcement -- I found it on Facebook.  She has an Etsy store selling her art and is based in New York.)

Please note that those determined turtles are best moved to the other side of the road where they were headed.  Also they aren't going to believe you are helping them, so do it carefully.  Snapping Turtles are particularly difficult and are fast enough with their mouths, so try to approach from the back.

Here in Oakland County, Michigan I often say we should be called Lakeland County as there are lakes, ponds, and wetlands everywhere!  This means rural and suburban roads often have traveling turtles we should protect.  Turtles date back hundreds of millions of years, older even than crocodiles or snakes, so we need to do what we can to keep them safe from our vehicles.

Of course I want to share a pair of brief turtle stories.  The Jatakas; Tales of India as retold by Ellen C. Babbitt keep some of our oldest stories in a short easily enjoyed form.  Both these stories may be familiar in other cultures.  The first will sound rather like Br'er Rabbit and I'm not saying the story traveled from India, but it's probably just human "reverse psychology."  The other first came to my attention in 1968 when Janina Domanska published a Polish version called Look, There Is a Turtle Flying.  I do believe that came from those old Indian tales moving out into other lands.  Either way here they are for us to enjoy.

"Please don't throw me in the briar patch!"  Br'er Rabbit's version is better known, but maybe Turtles did it first.

The next story is so appropriate for me...and maybe you, too.

I confess I sometimes think I was destined to be a storyteller since I got in trouble for talking from my earliest days, especially in school.  Fortunately it never was as catastrophic as it was for poor Turtle.  I often say "I tell for fun and profit", so keep me and the world of storytelling in mind when you look for a program.
*******************

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for October 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!