I remember sitting in my world history class as a nine-year-old learning that the silly and primitive people of the past used to believe that the earth rested on a giant turtle. I vaguely recall being taught that these simple and primitive people used this turtle to explain earthquakes: anything that sits on the back of a turtle will be unstable, so when the turtle coughs, sneezes, or burps, the earth that sits on it will shake and quake, and there you have your earthquake.
Historians have traced these giant turtle stories to Hindu mythologies in the Indian subcontinent. In some versions, the turtle supports an elephant, and it’s the elephant that supports the earth. In other versions, a cobra is thrown into the mix as well.
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