And in those days, Turtle did not swim. You see, a long time ago Turtle lived on an island somewhere not too far off of the coast of what is now Southern California. In those days, the island was covered with thick, leafy vegetation and a whole ensemble of different creatures.
Turtle wasn't one to partake in the highly social atmosphere that was the forest. Instead, he hung out by the water with his two friends, Dolphin and Toad. Dolphin could not come on the land, and toad could not go into the water. Turtle mainly stayed on the land, but he could go in the water if it was not too deep. He was fascinated by it though, and he decided to learn how to swim from his friend Dolphin.
Turtle was not a very good swimmer. He soon became very frustrated and wanted to quit the lessons.
"This is too hard. Plus, I'll never actually get good enough to swim as gracefully as you, Dolphin." he said.
"You're getting better, Turtle, trust me. And who knows? One day it might just save your life."
Turtle finally agreed, and the lessons continued.
A little while longer, there was buzzing among the animals in the jungle about a new creature called the "human" spotted on the other side of the island. Several of them went to go check it out. The return party was much smaller than before. Humans were terrible, ruthless creatures. They had slain nearly all of the animals that had gone to meet them and cooked them over the fire. When the jungle animals heard this, they started to panic.
Eventually, the news made its way to Toad, who them relayed it to Turtle. He wasn't convinced though because he knew that all of the animals in the jungle gossiped a lot, and it was often untrue. Toad was frustrated because Turtle refused to go with him to a safer part of the island.
When Toad left, Turtle spent a lot of time with Dolphin, working on his swimming and just generally hanging out and talking about their crazy dreams. Dolphin told him that he was going to explore another island with his cousin Porpoise, and so Turtle was left alone.
It was a few nights later that he heard the screaming.
"RUUUUUN!" shrieked the high, piercing voice of the Toucan.
Turtle turned his head, and saw some strange creatures running at him on two legs. "Are these the humans Toad was telling me about?"
Turtle could not run very fast. At this rate, he wouldn't be able to get to a safe place in him. He look left. He look right. He was out of options. He turned around and faced the ocean.
With Dolphin's voice in his head, Turtle dove into the water and began to swim. He struggled initially first, but with the humans on his tail, he looked forward and moved his legs. To his surprise, he was able to swim much farther than he thought that he could.
Turtle could not return to the island dominated by the humans. From that day forth, Turtle swam all the time until he was as good as Dolphin was. Today, Turtle is known as Sea Turtle since he now spends all of his time in the ocean.
Author's Note: I based this story off of really several stories that I read in the past few weeks. In a lot of the Native American stories, there are explanations of how certain plants or animals came to be the way they are today, and so I decided to take my favorite animal (the turtle) and make up a story on how the sea turtle came to be.
Bibliography: Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest by Katharine Berry Judson. Source.
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