patth (Patt Haring) (08/16/89)
Ported from PeaceNET's General.NativeAmericans conference:
/* Written 10:14 pm Aug 14, 1989 by jdmann in cdp:gen.nativeam */
/* ---------- "Hopi Roots of Peace" ---------- */
Posted in the following responses are essays by Thomas J. Tarbet.
1 - Restoring the Roots of Peace
2 - Tuuwaqatsi
3 - Keys to the Hopi Lifeplan
4 - Gourd of Ashes and House of Mica
5 - Essence of Hopi Prophecy
These are all written and accepted by Hopi elders loyal to the Oraibi
covenant with Maasaw. All rights concerning these poblications are
reserved by the author, with the exception that it may be copied and
transmitted by any means, and translated into any language, provided
nothing is added or deleted, and it is not sold. For a free copy send a
self-addressed stamped envelope to:
The Planting Stick Project, Route 9 Box 78, Santa Fe, NM 87505
This literature is paid for through voluntary contributions. I urge
each of you to make a generous donation for the furtherance of this work.
- David Yarrow, the turtle
=============================================================
***** David Yarrow is Associate Editor of SOLSTICE magazine.
***** SOLSTICE, devoted to Perspectives on Health and Environment, is
published bimonthly at 200 E. Main St Suite H, Charlottesville, VA 22901
804-979-0189/4427. Subscriptions: $18/yr.
***** A concern of SOLSTICE publisher John David Mann (igc.jdmann) is
the incipient climate crisis. Solstice publishes a booklet of reprints
entitled: "Perspectives on the Climate Crisis."
==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ====
Response 1 of 3
/* Written 10:18 pm Aug 14, 1989 by jdmann in cdp:gen.nativeam */
/* Written 1am 8/14/89 by jdmann(David Yarrow) in gen.nativeam */
RESTORING THE ROOTS OF PEACE
by Thomas F. Tarbet (all rights reserved)
The Path of Everlasting Life still exists in what is temporarily
called "Arizona." According to a lineage of Hopi tradition that may well
reach back to The Beginning, {Oraibi}, which means something made solid,
is the place where {Maasaw} solidified the earth during the Creation.
Thus the name Oraibi was given to what may be the oldest continuously
inhabited settlement on this continent, the goal of a migration game
played over many centuries, in which gradually arriving clans formed an
elegant social order capable of escaping the dilemma of war.
The founders of Oraibi knew that if, when forced to deal with the
threat of theft, domination and death, people base their security on the
strength of weapons, there is no guarantee that the controller of the
largest arsenal will be wise or just. Lacking a better means of
protection, those who abstain from war cannot prevent the reign of
ignorant force from dominating their affairs and drawing them into its
inescapable downfall.
Today, as we face the global climax of this process, we encounter two
possibilities outlined in certain teachings of the Hopi. As we pass
through the last of three "world shaking events," the Day of
Purification, all who cling to the reign of ignorant force, rulers and
victims alike, thereby consign themselves to a premature and painful
extinction. But as this ill-fated domain meets its demise, those who
know how to escape the dilemma have the opportunity to give birth to a
new era of universal peace.
Centuries ago, the founders of Oraibi learned the answer to this
dilemma and embodied it in their social order. This is why the name
"Hopi," which literally means "well-mannered," is said to mean "The
People of Peace." In an area where modern archaeology finds plentiful
evidence of warfare, the clans migrating toward Oraibi mastered the art
of keeping wisdom and power united, entrusting their protection to
natural influences more effective than laws and weapons contrived by
humans. They had all the "human failings" that make peace seem
impossible, but the web of their community was so carefully woven that
individual imperfections would be stabilized by it. Instead of creating
criminals, the system literally produced saints serving the web of forces
that governs all life.
The earth beneath Oraibi is the spiritual and physical bedrock for a
pattern of relationships traditional Hopi call the Path of Everlasting
Life, to which any mortal may aspire, but no mortal mind could have
invented. Maasaw, who is simply a strange and miraculous figure in the
legends of other Hopi villages, is the immortal teacher of the Oraibi
tradition, often indentified with the Creator. He gave them a pattern of
life that is simple and humble, in some ways hard, but long, happy and
fruitful, often ecstatic, miraculous and loaded with humor.
Even the prophecies attributed to Maasaw may be a trick to prevent
blind belief. For example, they might all be fulfilled except the last
one, throwing his proud followers back upon their own resources. This is
religion that removes its own mask, leaving the individual more fee and
wise for the experience. The entire village is a perpetual theater
performing in annual cycles, the characters taken up in turn by
succeeding generations, enacting the continual drama of Creation. Some
of their costumes would rival the most powerful works of art, but will
never be sold, for they are not a decoration, but part of the spiritual
governing force of the community.
This form of civilization requires no jails, no making of laws with
punishments attached, no courts, no police, and no army. Arrows, yes.
Priests who might kill in order to protect the web of life, should enough
mistakes be made to require such a move, fully aware of the future grief
that could result from a miscalculation. Their language contains no cuss
words. And prior to recent forced acculturation by the United States,
crime within their community was unknown.
One of the oldest transmissions of wisdom in human history, parts of
the navoti, the Hopi oral tradition, including a ritual number system on
which they base certain aspects of their prophetic understanding, bear
striking resemblance to the work of Fu Hsi, the father of I Ching.
Christ would have recognized the Hopi Way as the Kingdom of Heaven. Lao
Tse would have called it the Ancient Way. And the legendary warrior Sun
Tse would have had to admit that the gentle Hopi, so averse to battle,
possess a Supreme Strategy against which all the weapons of the world
cannot prevail. Their prophetic tradition holds the apocalytic dilemma
of modern civilization neatly in its palm.
Whereas most social patterns eventually self-destruct regardless of
the best efforts of their participants, the important feature of the Path
of Everlasting Life is its ability to continue in peace as long as people
remain committed to it, for the entire natural lifespan of the human
species. It affords an escape from war not just for the Hopi, but for
all humanity. The few true Hopi who remain are sworn to keep this Path
open as a refuge in the last days of this era. But after a century of
forced acculturation, including prison as the alternative to compulsory
schooling, the continuity of the generations has been broken, and they
are the last of their kind.
In 1906, their lineage was evicted from Oraibi by villagers who
preferred to yield to the threats and enticements of the United States.
Amidst great hardship they moved to the place called Hotevilla (cedar
slope), where they remain in exile. Their uncompromised title to the
original Oraibi land claim has been usurped by the military-industrial-
legal complex through which most of us obtain the basics of life. This
impact on their approximation of the divine order was anticipated, and
its severity has been attributed to known mistakes in their past.
In effect, the final defense of the traditional Hopi from the ravages
of modern civilization is to offer its inhabitants the means of escape,
for it is their world that crumbles next. Mass media cover stories now
proclaim the crisis the Hopi have warned about since the first atomic
bomb, and have forseen from time immemorial. The attempt to build a fake
prosperity through lying on a global scale has reached its limit.
The lie is the industrial world's concept of land ownership versus
aboriginal title rooted in the natural order. The contrivance of
international banking gives us license to destroy the biosphere, yet
fails to measure the debt we incur through robbery of nature and
indigenous people. But this debt is as real as the forces that sustain
our existence and determine the final score. Through the Hopi, and other
beseiged ancient cultures around the world, we have one last chance to
reconcile our debt as we enter the final test of this era, the Day of
Purification.
Kotshongva, the late Sun Clan leader of Hotevilla, described the
branches of the human family as the bloodlines of the continents, formed
through centuries of migration. They are vital to the life of the earth
from which they live, and to which they give. He compared the Day of
Purification to the hatching of an egg, or a birth process, in which the
"bloodlines of the earth" will "shake and turn red" in the effort to
produce a new world. During this process, those aspects of society that
have outlived their usefulness, along with whatever aberrations have
developed, will be purged. The danger now is that the entire industrial
world will be purged as afterbirth through unstoppable wars of
annihilatin and cataclysms of nature, since it exists as a parasite upon
the bloodlines of the earth. The aberration is so great that this could
result in the equivalent of a stillbirth, eliminating human life, and
possibly all life on earth.
Since the usurpation of aboriginal land title is the very cornerstone
of the industrial economy worldwide, political and legal attempts to
rectify this violation throughout the world are seen as threats, and
crushed by the reign of ignorance. This is possible because of the vast
numbers of people who depend on industrialized economies for their
sustenance and support the effort to forestall their collapse.
Nothing short of direct biological and economic revitalization of the
indigenous bloodlines can reverse the trend and enable at least a portion
of humanity to emerge from the events that lie ahead. This requires the
restoration of the quality of their actual blood, through a return to
native foods, supported by a local agricultural economy. The question is
how this can be initiated amidst the powerful influences that drew them
away in the first place.
In this respect, the exiled Oraibi lineage may play a unique and
influential role. The Hopi nations is among the last to fall under the
sway of foreign influence, and Oraibi is that last of the Hopi villages
to yield. The few individuals who remain loyal to the original purpose
of Hotevilla have never yielded their sacred aboriginal title, which is
the covenant their ancestors made with Maasaw at Oraibi.
From the time of this covenant, the effect of the ceremonial cycle
performed at Oraibi has been to extend spiritual roots to every corner of
the continent, influencing the entire fabric of life. A healing of the
"bloodlines of the earth" within the last of the living Oraibi tradition,
among those who have never yielded to the "great lie" of the modern
world, would have an unseen influence throughout the continent. This
would especially affecting the other aboriginal bloodlines, which have
been far more severely damaged than the Hopi, and could lead to a healing
of the bloodlines of the entire earth.
NOTE: {.............} denotes underlining
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Response 2 of 3
/* Written 10:21 pm Aug 14, 1989 by jdmann in cdp:gen.nativeam */
/* Written 1am 8/14/89 by jdmann(David Yarrow) in gen.nativeam */
TUUWAQATSI
by Thomas F. Tarbet (all rights reserved)
When I first encountered the traditional Hopi and listened to their
history and prophecies, I felt as if I were witnessing the Crucifixion.
I beheld the destruction of something divine and essential to our lives,
with the knowledge that I was helping to finance this unspeakable crime
with my taxes. From then on I could not bear to hold a "regular" job,
and gradually drifted into the service of the "black sheep" of Hotevilla,
outcasts even among other traditional Hopi. Many of them had been
imprisoned without trial by the United States Government, essentially for
practicing their religion. I learned of a Hopi priest who was burned
alive by a Catholic prienst for the same reason three centuries earlier.
I met a man who ran from Oraibi to Winslow and back in a single day, a
total of 130 miles, to telegraph the Government about its agents who were
stripping everyone naked and throwing them into insecticide to rid them
of lice. He sobbed like a baby when he told his story. Yet these are
the ones who say we must "keep a song in our hearts" through such trials
on behalf of the Creator's Path, or we will be defeated and the world
will be destroyed. Through my entire life, I never had such fun as when
working with these "enemies of progress," traveling with them on speaking
engagements, and helping them communicate with the world primarily
through the prophesied means of "magic marks on cornhusk" in the form of
free literature.
The effect has been amazing, Without my asking, the written
prophecies have been translated into German, Spanish and Japanese, still
distributed free of charge. With great pleasure, I have watched the
steadily increasing interest in their message. But from the time of my
first encounter (the year was 1965) I have not seen a single sign of a
genuine healing of the damage done to the Hopi, until recently.
In June of 1988, I was visited by Roy Steevensz and Pat Davis. Roy
asked me to facilitate a meeting he wished to have with traditional
elders of Hotevilla concerning a spiritual mission toward which he felt
compelled. He also had in mind the possibility of finding Hopis who
might take an interest in the way of healing based on the ancient
Oriental knowledge of the Unifying Principle, since their teachings are
so similar. Roy and I made a trip to Hopiland late that summer. During
our visit, Roy found the keenest interest to be on the part of Titus
Oomayumptewa, whose recent tragic experience had made him especially
receptive.
In his mid-eighties Titus had produced almost singlehandedly one of
the largest and healthiest fields of corn, until he was run over by a
truck in 1987. For months he was artificially kept alive in a hospital.
Carolyn Tawangyama, a traditional grandmother who acts as a spiritual co-
worker with Titus, encouraged him to eat blue cornmeal, telling him
"Don't leave us yet! We still need you!" She meant he was needed to help
keep the escape route open for all humanity through the Day of
Purification.
Carolyn describes herself as "only a messenger" in a fight to the
finish between the Path of Everlasting Life and the world's largest
superpower, and by extension, the military-industrial world that rampages
against ancient indigenous cultures globally, oblivious of their vital
function as bloodlines of the earth. Her confidence is unshakable. She
simply says, "The truth cannot be conquered."
As "father" of the {katsinas}, the influential spirit beings
personified each year in the ceremonial cycle of the village, Titus plays
a major role. This year he leads the Niman ceremony, in which those
katsinas return to their fall and winter home in the highest mountains in
"Arizona" seventy miles to the southwest, temporarily called the "San
Francisco Peaks."
Titus recovered, but he could hardly walk, hear or speak. Most of
his days were spent sitting alone in an empty house, dreaming of his
great fields of happier years, while his family were away at paid jobs or
school. Seeing his condition, and wishing to communicate with him, Roy
had little choice but to demonstrate the kind of healing he had come to
talk about. Soon Titus began to welcome)/s visits, taking a great
interest in what he had to say about healing, and the role of food in the
cycle of life. After some changes in his "white man's food" diet, and a
week of daily massages, Titus began a remarkable recovery.
Roy replaced the heavy cane Titus depended on, making him a lighter
one, sort of a spirit staff, meant to be abandoned soon, and soon it was.
Within a few months Titus was able to walk freely. Now he is actually
able to work in his fields again. He kicks and punches the air and says
"Look! I can fight!" His white hair is starting to grow in black. He
even thinks of composing a song about his experience. And now when he
sits alone he ponders the fact that his people never got sick before
eating "white man's food." Why it has taken a century for any Hopi to
notice the connection is one of life's mysteries.
Prior to recent forced acculturation, the Hopi had a completely
macrobiotic culture. Corn is still their sacrament, given to them by the
Creator to sustain them on their migrations when they first entered this
world. Until very recently it has been their primary food, along with
squash, beans, and a variety of wild and cultivated vegetables,
occasional meat hunted with a bow or stick, and salt dug from the earth
or brought from the Pacific coast in a ceremonial run no longer made
today.
Titus himself has long declared that "corn has everlasting life." He
also says the Hopi were taught if they lived from what grows nearby they
would stay healthy. In the past their only illnesses came from losing
the connection with the spirit. "Miraculous" healings occurred as the
lost connection was restored in thought and attitude. But today
persistent illness is common. Despite their own teachings, only around
10 percent of the Hopi still farm. Even Titus would simply eat what came
his way from his wage-earning offspring. Past attempts to rescue the
Hopi from the effects of "white man's food" have ironically been rejected
as a form of outside interference. But Titus now tells others about his
experience, and his enthusiasm has spread to a small number of villagers
who might not otherwise have listened to a stranger. This response is
completely unprecedented.
For the Hopi, the Path of Everlasting Life springs from their fields
and gardens. Its restoration takes a simple human act. If, as they say,
"the teachings are in the corn," the true Hopi Way can be recovered by
restoring the corn. Carolyn says there is enough left of the vanishing
ceremonial order for it to be revived, but this will not happen if their
indigenous foods are neglected. It took tremendous misguided effort from
outside the Hopi culture to induce this neglect. One percent of that
effort, guided wisely, could swing the balance once again toward the Path
of Everlasting Life. But it will take persistence, as with the effort
required to produce a tiny ember with a fire drill. Like that ember, if
carefully nurtured, its effect could be very great. Otherwise it will die
out.
In order to nurture this new fire, Roy and Pat have established a
prorr<[^Mall {Tuuwaqatsi}. Roy and I learned this Hopi word during
our visit. In the course of his conversation with the Hotevilla elders,
I listened carefully as something about "peace" was being translated into
Hopi, for they actually have no word for peace. We think the word was
{tuuwaqatsi} ("q" is a deep "k"). The first thing Titus thinks of when
he hears that word is "praying all the time." Just as we were leaving
Hopiland, we encountered a noted expert on the Hopi language, who
explained the roots of the word are "sand" and "life." Since Hopi soil
is mainly sand, {tuuwa} refers to all of the land, bringing forth
{qatsi}, the life upon it, which the lives and prayers of all true Hopi,
and all true humans, endlessly promote.
To request a free copy of {The Essence of Hopi Prophecy}, and to be
placed on the mailing list of the forthcoming reprint of {The Hopi Story}
(from the Beginning of Life to the Day of Purification), write to:
The Planting Stick Project, Route 9, Box 78, Santa Fe, NM 87505.
NOTE: {....} denotes distinct type or underline
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Response 3 of 3
/* Written 10:34 pm Aug 14, 1989 by jdmann in cdp:gen.nativeam */
/* Written 1am 8/14/89 by jdmann(David Yarrow) in gen.nativeam */
The Gourd of Ashes and the House of Glass
by Thomas F. Tarbet (all rights reserved)
Shortly before dawn, a light brighter than the noonday sun turned the
desert landscape white in all directions, even to the horizon. Indians
living nearby saw this light, and through them certain Hopi leaders
received their first news of the atomic bomb test at White Sands. The
use of this weapon against Japan brought further reports, including
descriptions of its power, which convinced these leaders that a very old
prophecy had just been fulfilled.
Every Hopi knows of the spirit-being called MAASAW. To the people of
Oraibi he is the owner of the world, who gave the human species
permission to live here as caretakers. Those who remain loyal to the
original Hopi Way base their entire way of life, including the succession
of leadership, on a covenant they made with Maasaw before their village
was founded hundreds of years ago, and on the prophe
cies and instructions
he gave them at that time.
Over the centuries, stories have grown up around Maasaw, some of
which describe a weapon of mysterious force, a gourd filled with ashes
which he wears on his belt. For as long as the oldest Hopi can recall,
this weapon has been part of the costume worn by the Maasaw KATSINA
dancer in public ceremonies. Legend has it that its force is released
with it is thrown to the ground, typically making people go crazy and
dance around.
The prophecy in question concerns a man-made version of this weapon,
capable of boiling the oceans and burning the land, even ending life in
this world. The development of such a weapon would indicate that human
culture is approaching the end of its natural cycle of existence and is
about to enter a stage of purification and rebirth, in which all aspects
unsuited to survival will be eliminated through war or natural
catastrophe. Depending on how we have been living, this could mean the
end of the human species. The new weapon would be a signal for the Hopi
to commuicate certain information that could enable humanity to emerge
from the "world-shaking event" about to unfold.
The word HOPI refers to an endless and joyful path of life that
passes through the stages of purifications and rebirth that separated one
"world" from the next. The name of the Hopi people is meant to remind
them of their commiment to the kind of life that can travel this path.
According to their tradition, the common ancestors of the entire human
species once partook of this commitment, and only those who maintain it
will be able to emerge from the present purification cycle. The
treatment such people receive from those who have abandoned that
commitment will serve to indicate the magnitude of the disaster that lies
ahead.
By the time the atomic bomb was invented, the Hopi had experienced
half a century of severe hardship inflicted by the United States in an
effort to force them to abandon their way of life. This had already
caused a serious division among the people of the village of Oraibi. In
1906, those who preferred to yield to the pressure and accept the
apparent benefits forcibly evicted those whose commitment to the endless
path was stronger.
Under the leadership of Yukiuma, the Fire Clan chief, this latter
group founded the village of Hotevilla in an effort to escape the
influence of the United States. For refusing to allow the Americans to
educate the children of Hotevilla, Yukiuma was imprisoned without trial
for more than 17 years in the Keams Canyon jail, and for more than a year
in Alcatraz. The children were taken by force, and their fathers placed
on a chain gang in Keams Canyon.
As a result of several generations of forced schooling, the way of
life based on the endless path has been almost entirely eliminated. The
succession of leadership based on the covenant with Maasaw is being
gradually but forcibly replaced. A puppet government was installed in
1936 on the basis of an election in which the vast majority of Hopi
refused to participate. The constitution of this "Hopi Tribal Council"
gives the ultimate authority over the Hopi NOT TO MAASAW, BUT TO THE U.S.
SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. This arrangement has become the legal device
by which United States industrial interests have gained access to Hopi
mineral resources. In every way, Hopi society is being reshaped into a
form incapable of surviving from one world to the next.
In the light of their traditional knowledge of the pattern of world
events, the Hopi leaders have protested this process of forced
acculturation from its inception near the turn of the century. In 1911,
in an interview with President Taft in the White House, Yukiuma tried to
explain his prophetic understanding of the devastation that would result
if the Hopi Way of Life were eliminated. At the time, such communication
was destined to fall on deaf ears.
But with the invention of the atomic bomb and the developments that
followed, "doomsday" warnings could no longer be dismissed outright. The
question whether the human species remains on earth could be decided
within the present generation. If the communication of the Hopi holds
the key to humanity's emergence from the present crisis, it could not
have come at a more opportune moment, which appears to confirm the
underlying wisdom of their prophetic instructions.
Further confirmation may come from their recent contacts with the
United Nations. Following the news of the atomic bomb, leaders from
several Hopi villages gathered at Shongopavi to compare their prophecies.
One prophecy described "a house made of mica on the east coast" where
world leaders would gather to seek a solution to the problems facing
humanity. Mica was the only glass-like substance used for windows in
early Hopi houses. When the Hopi leaders learned of the United Nations
building, which is covered with windows, and of the purpose of the
meetings held there, they concluded that it must be the "house" described
in the prophecy.
Their prophetic instructions indicated they should make "three or
four or more" attempts to communicate with the people gathered there.
Most of the public statements by the Hopi regarding this have emphasized
FOUR as required number of attempts, possibly because of ritual
significance. The objective would be to offer information essential to
the world-saving efforts of the people in the "house of mica," and enlist
their aid in ending the destruction of the Hopi culture.
The first three attempts failed to penetrate the lower bureaucratic
levels, which operate on the false assumption that all "Native American"
problems are internal matters of the United States, and therefore beyond
the jurisdiction of the United Nations. But the traditional Hopi have
never relinquished their aboriginal rights to their land or ther self-
determination, which precede all rights and powers of the United States.
The abuse they receive from the US is therefore an international issue.
The fourth attempt, which is currently in progress, has produced some
glimmers of reponse. During a large peace gathering in New York in June,
1982, David Monogye, one of the oldest living Hopi at the time, addressed
a large audience in front of the UN building. When he mentioned the
three failed attempts, this was brought to the attention of Dr. Robert
Muller, the Assistant Secretary-General in charge of social and economic
affairs. Impressed by the fact that the Hopi nation is dedicated to
peace, Dr. Muller later visited the Hopi villages, and met with several
elders in the very room where the prophecy meeting was held following the
news of the atomic bomb.
In 1983, an associate of Dr. Muller, Dr. Mark A. Roy, visited the
Hopi, explaining to several groups of traditionally-inclined villagers
the fact that conquest is now illegal in the eyes of the international
community, and suggesting the possibility of decolonization. But as Dr.
Roy sees it, to stand as a separate nation from the United States, the
Hopi villages would need to unite their respective traditional leaders
through some form of political contract, in order to gain recognition
apart from the illegal "Hopi Tribal Council." This kind of unification
would in itself violate the traditional Hopi system, in which each
village is virtually a sovereign state unto itself, united only at the
spiritual level. The suggestion left even traditionally-inclined Hopi
divided.
The response of the most "conservative" (advanced?) traditionals, the
successors to Yukiuma's struggle in Hotevilla, is revealing. They
refused any involvement whatsoever, primarily because THE PLAN WAS
CONCEIVED BEFORE THEY HEARD OF IT. This recalls the reason for Maasaw's
own refusal to become the leader of the social order of the first humans.
According to the legend, they had come to him WITH PLANS OF THEIR OWN.
The present crisis of the modern world is viewed as the outworking of
these plans, which must be either completed or abandoned before humanity
can embrace the greater plan of the endless path. Yukiuma's people
counted Dr. Roy's proposal among the cleverest of attempts to get them to
abandon the eternal pattern of life Maasaw gave them, and join the
maelstrom of a hellbound world.
This difference in outlook brings into sharp focus the chasm that not
only separates ancient and modern thought, but has fractured the
spiritually based unity of the Hopi people since 1906, now almost to the
last individual. This condition has thwarted every effort to establish a
valid relationship between the United States and the true Hopi leaders,
and stop the destruction of the Hopi Way. But the followers of the
endless path have long been prepared for the possible erosion of their
orthodox leadership, at which point they must take the initiative without
the benefit of fully initiated leaders. They warn those who would help
that they will have to choose which Hopis are correct, and which are not.
The cause of this separation is not arbitrary or abstract. It is a
question of which set of alliances can survive the present worldwide
cycle of purification.
A promising correspondence with the prophetic plan lies in the
similarity of purpose between the Hopi Way and the United Nations, and in
the agreement between Hopi principles and the growing international
consensus reflected in certain aspects of international law, such as the
illegality of conquest. But the United Nations itself is the invention
of mortal minds, whereas the actual pattern of life reflected in the
prophetic oral tradition of the Hopi is greater than any human invention.
The magnitude of what the true Hopi offer the United Nations is not
readily apparent to the mentality that shapes industrial society. Since
that mentality strongly influences the United Nations, the ultimate in
intelligence, intuition and "luck" are required to escape it, and effect
a genuine understanding between those who champion the original purpose
of the Hopi Way and their counterparts within the UN.
A small foothold may have been gained, and a surprising lesson
learned, with the presentation of a broadcast quality videotape statement
by the elders of Hotevilla to the President of the UN General Assembly,
Humayan Choudery of Bangaladesh, on his first day in office, on the
occasion of the First Earth Run benefit for UNESCO, in October, 1986.
The video was produced in response to a message from the coordinators of
the First Earth Run to David Monogye, offering him the opportunity to
address the General Assembly. Before it could be learned that the
message had been sent in error, Monogye, who could not attend due to a
serious injury, had authorized the video message, and production had
already begun. The result was that room was made in the schedule of
special ceremonies marking the International Year of Peace for the Hopi
statement to be shown to the General Assembly.
This unprecedented opportunity to expose the entire Hopi situation
before the world was ironically cut short by traditionals from
Shongopavi, who have opposed the Hotevilla group since 1906. The
Shongopavi group subsequently abandoned their efforts toward the UN,
leaving a small number of unordained Hotevilla elders to pursure their
own relationship unopposed. It may be unrealistic to expect a serious
response through official channels, since recogition of the natural
sovereignity of the Hopi, and the consequent disempowerment of the
"puppet" Hopi Tribal Council, would tend to undermine the very concept of
the United States. The episode with the video message occurred as the
result of a curious "mistake" that enabled official procedures to be
bypassed. But the prophecy of the "house made of mica" simply indicates
the possibility of potential allies through which humanity might actually
gain a creative relationship with the world-shaking forces of the
purification cycle. Official channels might even prove irrelevant to
this process.
As the Hopi see it, the violent control of violence, including police
and armies, however expedient, can only cause crime and warfare to
escalate to the point of self-annihilation. The Hopi practice an
alternative of which the industrial world needs to learn, rather than
expecting them to join modern civilization. The nations of the world
gather in the "house of mica" for the same reason the Hopi knock on its
door. By opening the door, the people inside could open the way to the
endless path for the modern world. This would mean joining with the Hopi
for mutual learning, without bringing plans on one's own.
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Patt Haring | UNITEX : United Nations
patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information
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