Turtle Island

350 BC (Before Columbus) in the land between Niagara and the Great Salt Sea, in a world where no Europeans had set foot, there lived Five Great Nations caught up in a cycle of bloody revenge wars until a holy man showed them the path to peace.

Turtle Island is the gripping saga of the downfall of the powerful chief Hiawatha after his four daughters are murdered in a blood revenge, his quest for vengeance, his conversion to the cause of peace by the Great Peacemaker Dekanawida, and his rise to fame as the charismatic orator who helps Dekanawida heal the wounds of the Iroquois Nations and form the first democracy on the American continent. And it is the tale of Orios, a young poetic flute player in love with Hiawatha’s daughter who comes of age in his harrowing adventures with Hiawatha.

Set in a matriarchal culture in the lake region of New York, Turtle Island takes the reader back to a time when people respected the Earth as the mother of life and based their democracy on what it means to be a true human being who cares for Mother Earth and the welfare of her unborn children.

The novel deals with profound issues of family, spirituality, war, peace, democracy, and the nature of good and evil. It has a special appeal for any reader interested in history, feminism, Native Americans, spirituality, ecology, or a bloody saga of murder and revenge. The action and adventure in this quest for spiritual healing and peace gives the book a dramatic momentum with a powerful message for the modern world currently immersed in similar revenge wars and a divisive struggle to protect the resources of the earth for future generations.

Jack Ramey is a poet, author, performer, and English professor at Indiana University Southeast. His poetry books include "Eavesdropping in Plato's Café," "The Future Past," "Death Sings in the Choir of Light," and "Burnt Almonds." His documentary on William Blake won an Aegis award for best educational film. His article, "The Coffee Planter of St. Domingo: A Technical Manual for the Caribbean Slave Owner," examines the rhetoric of racism in the Spring 2014 issue of Technical Communication Quarterly. As a student of anthropology at Kent State, he wrote a paper on Lewis H. Morgan's "League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee or Iroquois." Since then he has continued his lifelong fascination with the People of the Longhouse, which led to the creation of "Turtle Island." His scholarly expertise in rhetoric and creative writing, his poetic insight, and his lifelong interest in history, anthropology, and native Americans give him a unique perspective for bringing to life the inspirational story of the founding of the Iroquois Nation. In his early years, he studied to be a priest at the Passionist Fathers Seminary, then became a member of the counterculture and read his poetry in Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Eugene OR, Victoria BC, and Kent OH. His one-person show "Dark Is a Long Way: An Evening with Dylan Thomas" ran for two years at the 13th Street Theater in NYC, at the Odyssey Theater in LA, and toured the country. He taught in Stockholm for several years. On his return to America, he performed in medieval plays with the Chicago Medieval Players and often read his poetry at the Green Mill, where he was a finalist in the Chicago Slam. He frequently posts poems, videos, and reviews at springwoodpress.org.