[Ads-l] "Turtle Island" (January 1972)

[dave@wilton.net]

As a name for North America. The OED has July 1972, in a NYT article also by Gary Snyder.
 
Snyder, Gary. “Energy Is Eternal Delight.” New York Times, 12 January 1972, 43/5–6. ProQuest Newspapers.
 
"On Hopi and Navajo land, at Black Mesa, the whole issue is revolving at this moment. The cancer is eating away at the breast of Mother Earth in the form of stripmining. This to provide electricity for Los Angeles. The defense of Black Mesa is being sustained by traditional Indians, young Indian militants and longhairs. Black Mesa speaks to us through an ancient complex web of myth. She is sacred territory. To hear her voice is to give up the European word 'America' and accept the new-old name for the continent, 'Turtle Island.'"
 
There are older uses in reference to Indigenous myths that use the term to denote the world, the abode of people.

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