The turtle appears often in the mythological traditions and in the ceremonial practices of the Native peoples of North America. In the False Face ritual, among the Iroquois, masked dancers shake a rattle made from the shell of a snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina), an animal living in the muddy waters of rivers, lakes and ponds. The turtle is associated with the Iroquois myth of the origin of the world, in which a heavenly female being, falling from the sky, was received on the back of a turtle which floated on the primordial waters covering the earth. Then, the handful of earth which was gathered by some animals on the bottom, after diving into the abyss, was put on the turtle’s carapace and became the first nucleus of the earth surface, which was enlarged and extended until it covered what was at first an expanse of water. The Iroquois called the earth “Turtle Island”.
Other mythical traditions in the Great Plains associated the turtle with the search for earth from the primordial waters, and assign to this animal the duty to gather the first lump of earth on the bottom, from which the surface of the earth shall be formed. The physical structure of the reptile was regarded as a microcosmic image, a miniaturized representation of the earth: circular in form, with crevices and grooves which recall hills and valleys, with the four paws which seem to indicate the cardinal points. A symbolic identification of the turtle with the Earth is thus made explicit.

Among the peoples of the Great  Plains, particularly the Lakota, the umbilical cord of the newborn was kept into an amulet-bag, decorated with beads, made in the shape of a turtle or of a lizard. It was believed that in this way the characteristic longevity of the turtle could be transferred on the child.

	Beaded bag for keeping the umbilical cord of a child, with the purpose of tranferring the turtle's longevity on the newborn (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia)

A curious tale, widely diffused, narrated of how the turtle was opposed to the rabbit, or to the coyote, animals representing the role of the trickster. The turtle defied the opponent, who boasted his superiority, in a racing game, which was immediately accepted with contempt. But the turtle scattered his relatives and friends, perfectly identical to himself, along the route, so that the trickster found himself always preceded by the turtle, insofar as he tries to run as fast as he could, and at last he is beaten in the challenge. This tale is strangely similar to the paradox on movement as it was expounded by the Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea (V cent. B.C.). According to Zeno, the speedy Achilles will never reach the turtle, admitted that the turtle has a vantage of only a single step. It is likely that the reflexions of the Hellenic thinker had developed starting from a folkloric tradition of the same vein as that described above.