Turtle Island

The Americas, Turtle Island

Oral tradition is Turtle Island is the name of the ancient territory first discovered by the ancestors of all peoples indigenous to the Americas, the last place to be discovered by humans on Earth. It is a very old piece of history passed on by oral tradition throughout the Tribes, retold in different versions as the population started to increase, the Tribes took their shape and settled the North, South, East and West of Turtle Island. 

In 2007, science confirmed the ancient oral tradition of why people indigenous to Turtle Island call the Americas, Turtle Island.  Scientists found evidence that a human population lived in genetic isolation on the exposed Beringian landmass during the Last Glacial Maximum for an estimated 5,000 years.

What oral tradition calls Turtle Island, scientists call Beringia, landmass that encompasses the land and sea between the Lena River, Russia and the Mackenzie River, Canada. the Chuckchi Sea and the south tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. 

Genetic and linguistic data demonstrate that at the end of the last glacial period, as sea levels rose, some of the Beringian population migrated back into eastern Asia while others migrated into the Western Hemisphere, where they became the ancestors of the peoples of an area that today includes the countries of Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

For thousands of years the peoples followed the natural cycles of nature, the circle of life and renewal in a sustainable environment that was free of pollution as they increased in numbers and settled the North, South, East and West of Turtle Island with a system of land and water management that provided family, community, food and shelter without polluting the water, air or destroying the land and marine animal populations.  It is estimated that the population of the Americas prior to the emigration of outsiders to the continents range from 2.1 million to over a 100 million. The truth is no one really knows for sure.

What we do know is that the people of the Americas created permanent settlements, complex societal hierarchies, they manufactured pottery, knives and chisels. extracted copper to manufacture tools and implements, maintained complex trade networks through tribes with individual civic, ceremony, religion and architecture over tribal territories maintained by a system of government indigenous to the Americas.  Over thousands of years, the peoples domesticated, bred and cultivated a large array of plant species that constitutes sixty percent of all crops cultivated worldwide today.  

The L’nu Mi’kmaq Tribe are indigenous to Turtle Island living in the territory of Mi’kmaki, a territory that includes Kespukwitk, Sipekne’katik, Eskikewa’kik, Unama’kik, Epekwitk Aqq Piktuk, Siknikt, and Kespek.  Today, called Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Gaspe of Quebec, and part of the State of Maine.

Signature from the L’nu, Mi’kmaq, 1725 Peace and Friendship Treaty