Nourish the Word

I find the Anishinaabe story of a flood fascinating. I've seen it compared in William Whipple Warren's History of the Ojibways with the flood of Noah. But I see a different comparison when I read it. I see something else I recognize. Here is a version from Basil Johnston's The Manitous , chosen for its brevity. According to tradition, Kitchi-Manitou (the Great Mystery) created the world, plants, birds, animals, fish, and the other manitous in fulfillment of a vision. This world was flooded. But while the earth was under water and life was coming to an end, a new life was beginning in the skies. Geezhigo-Quae (Sky Woman) was espoused to a manitou in the skies, and she conceived.  The surviving animals and birds observed the changes taking place in Sky Woman's condition as they clung to life on the surface of the of the flood waters. They set aside whatever concerns they might have had about their own fates and asked one of their fellow survivors, the Giant Turtle