Why Turtle Wears a Shell

In the beginning, turtles had heads of stone, and they lived this way for many moons.

One day, a dark bank of clouds descended upon Grandfather turtle, and he felt some strange things happening to his head. First, there was a tingling at the top. Then there was some popping in the place where his ear holes would appear. Slowly, a tongue emerged from a crack in the stone that would become his mouth.

When the last bit of stone flaked away, and Grandfather turtle could see the sand before him and the expanse of water and the wavy palm trees, he rolled over onto the sand and began to laugh. He laughed because he was so delighted by what he saw. And then he began to cry for the same reason.

And he laughed and cried like that until a great wind appeared, and the bank of clouds blew away to the other side of the sea.

Soon, Grandfather turtle became very hungry, and he dove into the sea to find some food. When he saw all the other turtles swimming around with stones for heads, he knew he had to do something.

Without hesitating, he swam as fast as he could to the other side of the ocean. There, he found the dark bank of clouds sitting on some rocks. He blew them with a great gust from his new little mouth. His gust was so strong, that the clouds vanished from his sight in one second.

When Grandfather turtle reached his home on the other side of the ocean, he saw that the clouds had reached the shore at just the right time. His fellow turtles had climbed onto the sand to sun themselves (for this is back when the turtles used to live on both land and sea), and the magical clouds had wrapped themselves around the turtles’ heads.

Just as Grandfather turtle emerged from the sea to witness the transformation of his friends, Puheo, the owl, started hooting from a palm tree overhead. He hooted persistently, until the turtles, one by one, popped their heads up over the bank of the clouds to see what was going on.
Grandfather turtle was amazed: there were all the turtles with eyes and pinched noses and funny, wizardly mouths.

From that day on, the turtles lived with vision and hunger and ears to hear Puheo the owl, who had been hooting at them with songs of wisdom and grace from the beginning of time, though they had never heard it.

All the turtles were so gladdened by the sound of Puheo's voice, that they fashioned some houses for themselves out of stone. They wore these on their backs as reminders of how they used to be. And they painted their houses with circular shapes, to celebrate the day the clouds came.