Turtle Island

proper noun

North America.

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Meanings

proper noun
  1. North America.

    If dispossession has defined recent centuries of Turtle Island history, then this fact has been well accommodated in official U.S. discourse.

    1992, Gordon Brotherston, Book of the Fourth World: Reading the Native Americas Through Their Literature, CUP Archive, →ISBN, page 174
    3 more examples

    Native peoples see the continent as Turtle Island (a concept brought to a wider audience by ecospirit poetry of Gary Snyder). The continental Turtle can be seen in two ways, with its head either to the north or south.

    1999, Peter William Champoux, William Stuart Buehler, Gaia Matrix: Arkhom and the Geometries of Destiny in the North American Landscape, Gaia Matrix, →ISBN, page 62

    Tears had flowed with the tide of settlers all the way to the western shores of Turtle Island. When Chief Seattle signed the 1855 Port Elliott Treaty, surrendering his lands to the Washington governor,[…]

    2003, Sheila Seclearr, A Tree on Turtle Island, PageFree Publishing, Inc., →ISBN, page 250

    For me, Cherokee Stories of the Turtle Island Liars' Club represents a coming together of the concerns of my published work as a scholar and my personal journey home to learn from my elders.

    2012, Christopher B. Teuton, Cherokee Stories of the Turtle Island Liars’ Club, UNC Press Books, →ISBN, page 3
  2. The Earth.

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see
north america

Origin

From turtle + island, based on the role of a turtle's back acting as the base for the world while being surrounded by water in the creation stories of multiple tribes of the Northeastern Woodlands region of North America as well as Algonquian- and Iroquoian-speaking peoples. Specific groups with such myths include the Lenape people, the Haudenosaunee, the Ojibwe people, and the Cree.

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

French île de la Tortue
  • île de la TortueNative American name for North America
Cite this entry
APA

Turtle Island. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Turtle%20Island

MLA

“Turtle Island.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Turtle%20Island. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Turtle Island,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Turtle%20Island.

Source: Turtle Island on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.