2002-06-16|11:27 p.m.
Long, long ago, before there were people, there was hardly anything in the world but water. One day, Great Spirit looked down from heaven. He decided to make a beautiful land. But where could he begin? All he saw was water. Then he spotted a giant turtle. The turtle was as large as an island. Great Spirit decided to make the beautiful land on the turtle's back.
Because Great Spirit wanted to make the land very large, one turtle was not big enough.. So the Great Spirit called out, "Turtle, hurry and find your six brothers.� Turtle swam to find them. It took the turtle a whole day to find the first. It took another day to find the next. After six days, turtle had found his six brothers. "Come," he said. "Great Spirit wants us."
Great Spirit called down. "Turtles! Form a line, head to tail, north to south. Umm, you three to the south, please move a little to the east. Hmmm. There, that's just right. What a beautiful land you will make!� Then Great Spirit reminded them, "It is a great honor to carry this land on your backs. So, you must be careful not to move!"
The turtles stayed very still. Great Spirit took some straw from his supply in the sky. He put it on the turtle's backs. Then he took some soil and patted it down on top of the straw.
Great Spirit cleaned his hands on a fluffy white cloud. "I'll use these clouds to make mountains," he said.
Then Great Spirit made trees and lakes and rivers. When he was finished, he looked at the beautiful land he had made. Great Spirit was very pleased. But soon the climax to the story came came. The giant turtles grew restless. They wanted to leave.
"I want to swim east," said one. "This beast goes East."
"Westside, baby! West is best. I�ll swim toward the setting sun," said another.
The turtles began to argue. They could not agree. One day, four of the turtles began to swim east. Three turtles began to swim west. The earth shook! With a loud noise, it cracked.
After a minute, the shaking stopped. The weight of the land was so heavy that they depended on their combined efforts to support it. They could only swim a little way from each other. Seeing their dilemma, they stopped arguing and made up.
But every once in a while, the turtles that hold up California argue again. Each time they do, the earth shakes. Amar, knows.