A Hopi Prophecy
Compiled and passed on to the People By Lee Brown
Excerpts from a talk at the 1986 Continental Indigenous Council, Fairbanks,
Alaska
By Lee Brown, Cherokee
There was the cycle of the mineral, the rock. There
was the cycle of the plant. And now we are in the cycle of the animal
coming to the end of that and beginning the cycle of the human being.
When we get into the cycle of the human being, the highest and greatest
powers that we have will be released to us. At the beginning of this
cycle of time, long ago, the Great Spirit made an appearance and gathered
the peoples of this earth together, and said to the human beings, "I'm
going to send you to four directions, and over time I'm going to change
you to four colors, but I'm going to give you some teachings, and you
will call these the Original Teachings; when you come back together
with each other, you will share these so that you can live and have
peace on earth, and a great civilization will come about. During the
cycle of time, I'm going to give each of you two stone tablets. When
I give you those stone tablets, don't cast them upon the ground. If
any of the sisters and brothers cast their tablets on the ground, not
only will human beings have a hard time, but almost the earth itself
will die."
And so He gave each of us a responsibility, and we call
that the Guardianship. To the Indian people, the red people, He gave
the Guardianship of the Earth. We were to learn during this cycle of
time the teachings of the earth, the plants that grow from the earth,
the foods that you can eat, and the herbs that heal so that, when we
came back together with the other sisters and brothers, we could share
this knowledge with them. Something good was to happen on the earth.
To the South He gave the yellow race of people the Guardianship of the
Wind. They were to learn about the sky and breathing and how to take
that within ourselves for spiritual advancement. They were to share
that with us at this time. To the West He gave the black race of people
the Guardianship of the Water. They were to learn the teachings of the
water, which is the chief of the elements, being the most humble and
the most powerful. The elders have told me that the black people would
bring the teachings of the water. To the North He gave the white race
of people the Guardianship of the Fire. If you look at the center of
many of the things they do, you will find the fire. They say a light
bulb is the white man's fire. If you look at the center of a car, you
will find a spark. If you look at the center of the airplane and the
train, you will find the fire. The fire consumes, and also moves. This
is why it was the white sisters and brothers who began to move upon
the face of the earth and reunite us as a human family.
And so a long time passed, and the Great Spirit gave each of the four
races two stone tablets. Ours are kept at the Hopi Reservation in Arizona
at Four Corners Area on Third Mesa. I talked to people from the black
race, and their stone tablets are at the foot of Mount Kenya. The Kukuyu
Tribe keeps them. I was at an Indian spiritual gathering about 15 years
ago. A medicine man from South Dakota put a beaded medicine wheel in
the middle of the gathering. It had the four colors from the four directions;
he asked the people, "Where is this from?” They said, "Probably
Montana, or South Dakota, maybe Saskatchewan.” He said, "This
is from Kenya.” It was beaded just like ours, with the same colors.
The Tibetans keep the stone tablets of the yellow race of people. If
you went straight through the Hopi Reservation to the other side of
the world, you would come out in Tibet. The Tibetan word for sun is
the Hopi word for moon, and the Hopi word for sun is the Tibetan word
for moon. The guardians of the traditions of the people of Europe are
the Swiss. In Switzerland, they still have a day when each family brings
out its mask. They still know the colors of the families, and they still
know the symbols, some of them. Each of these four peoples happens to
live in the mountains. Each of the four races went to their directions
and learned their teachings.
It was in Newsweek not long ago that eight out of ten foods that people
eat on the earth are developed here in the western hemisphere because
that was our Guardianship -- to learn the teachings of the earth and
the things that grow from the earth. We were given a sacred handshake
to show, when we came back together as sisters and brothers, that we
still remembered the teachings. It was indicated on the stone tablets
that the Hopis had that the first sisters and brothers who would come
back to them would come as turtles across the land. They would be human
beings, but they would come as turtles. So, when the time came close,
the Hopis were at a special village to welcome the turtles that would
come across the land. They got up in the morning and looked out at the
sunrise. They looked out across the desert, and they saw the Spanish
conquistadors coming, covered in armor, like turtles across the land.
So, this was them. So, they went out to the Spanish man, and they extended
their hand, hoping for the handshake. But into the hand, the Spanish
man dropped a trinket. And so, word spread throughout North America
that there was going to be a hard time that maybe some of the brothers
and sisters had forgotten the sacredness of all things and all the human
beings were going to suffer for this on the earth.
So, tribes began to send people to the mountains to have visions to
try to figure out how they could survive. At that time there were 100,000
cities in the Mississippi Valley alone, called the mound civilization:
cities built on great mounds. Those mounds are still there. They began
to try to learn to live off the land because they knew a hard time was
going to come. They began to send people to have visions to see how
we could survive this time. They were told in the prophecies that we
should try to remind all the people that would come here of the sacredness
of all things. If we could do that, then there would be peace on earth.
But if we did not do that, if we had not come together as a human family,
the Great Spirit would grab the earth with His hand and shake it.
The elders on the west coast prophesied that they would then begin to
build a black ribbon. And on this black ribbon, there would move a bug.
And when you begin to see this bug moving on the land, that was the
sign for the First Shaking of the Earth. The First Shaking of the Earth
would be so violent that this bug would be shaken off the earth into
the air and it would begin to move and fly in the air. And by the end
of this shaking this bug will be in the air around the world. Behind
it would be a trail of dirt and eventually the whole sky of the entire
earth would become dirty from these trails of dirt, and this would cause
many diseases that would get more and more complicated. So, the bug
moving on the land, of course it's easy to see now. In 1908 the Model-T
Ford was mass-produced for the first time. So the elders knew the First
Shaking of the Earth was about to come about -- that was the First World
War. In the First World War the airplane came into wide usage for the
first time. That was that bug moving into the sky. And so they knew
something very important would happen.
There would be an attempt to make peace on earth on the west coast of
this land, and so the elders began to watch for this. They began to
hear that there was going to be a League of Nations in San Francisco,
so the elders gathered in Arizona around 1920 or so, and they wrote
a letter to Woodrow Wilson. They asked if the Indian people could be
included in the League of Nations. The United States Supreme Court had
held that a reservation is a separate and semi-sovereign nation, not
a part of the United States but protected by it. This became a concern
because people didn't want the reservations to become more and more
separate. They didn't want them to be considered nations. So they did
not write back, and the Native people were left out of the League of
Nations so that circle was incomplete. In the League of Nations circle
there was a southern door, the yellow people; there was a western door,
the black people; there was a northern door, the white people; but the
eastern door was not attended. The elders knew that peace would not
come on the earth until the circle of humanity is complete, until all
the four colors sat in the circle and shared their teachings, and then
peace would come on earth.
So they knew things would happen. Things would speed up a little it.
There would be a cobweb built around the earth, and people would talk
across this cobweb. When this talking cobweb, the telephone, was built
around the earth, a sign of life would appear in the east, but it would
tilt and bring death (the swastika of the Nazis). It would come with
the sun. But the sun itself would rise one day, not in the east but
in the west (the rising sun of the Japanese Empire). So the elders said
when you see the sun rising in the east, and you see the sign of life
reversed and tilted in the east, you know that the Great Death is to
come upon the earth, and now the Great Spirit will grab the earth again
in His hand and shake it, and this shaking will be worse than the first.
So the sign of life reversed and tilted, we call that the Swastika,
and the rising sun in the east was the Rising Sun of Japan. These two
symbols are carved in stone in Arizona. When the elders saw these two
flags, they knew that these were the signs that the earth was to be
shaken again.
The worse misuse of the Guardianship of the fire is called the gourd
of ashes. They said the gourd of ashes would fall from the air. It will
make the people like blades of grass in the prairie fire, and things
will not grow for many seasons. The atomic bomb, the gourd of ashes,
it was the best-kept secret in the history of the US. The elders wanted
to speak about it in 1920. They would have spoken of it and foretold
its coming if they could have entered into the League of Nations. The
elders tried to contact President Roosevelt to ask him not to use the
gourd of ashes because it would have a great effect on the earth and
eventually cause even greater destruction and a the Third Shaking of
the Earth, the Third World War. So they knew after the Second Shaking
of the Earth when they saw the gourd of ashes fall from the sky, there
would be an attempt to make peace on the other side of this land. And
because the peace attempt on the west coast had failed, they would build
a special house on the east coast of this Turtle Island, and all the
nations and peoples of the earth would come to this house, and it would
be called the House of Mica, and it would shine like the mica on the
desert shines. So the elders began to see they were building the United
Nations made out of glass that reflects like the mica on the desert
so they knew this was the House of Mica, and all the peoples of the
earth should go to it. So, they met and talked about this. They said
that in the 1920's they had written and they had not been responded
to, so they said this time we'd better go to the front door of the House
of Mica because things might get a lot worse.
So, elders representing a number of tribes drove to
New York City. When the United Nations opened, they went to the front
door of the house of Mica and they said these words, 'We represent the
indigenous people of North America, and we wish to address the nations
of the Earth. We're going to give you four days to consider whether
or not we will be allowed to speak.” They retreated to one of
the Six Nations Reserves in New York State. Four days later they came
back, and I believe the nations of the earth heard that the Indians
had come to the door. And they voted to let the Indians in. They wanted
to hear what they had to say. But the United States is one of five nations
of the United Nations with a veto power, and still they were concerned
because this time the Native sovereignty was even stronger. And I believe
they vetoed the entrance of the Native people. So then they knew other
things would happen on the Earth. So they retreated to the Six Nations
Reserve, and they talked about this, and they said the time is really
getting close now -- 1949. They said, "We're going to divide the
United States into four sections, and each year we're going to have
a gathering. We're going to call these the White Roots of Peace Gatherings."
They began to have these around 1950. And they authorized certain people
to speak in English for the first time about these prophecies.
One that I used to listen to many times, over and over, was Thomas Banyaca.
He was authorized to speak in English about what was on the stone tablets,
and he has dedicated his life to doing this. In addition, they began
to tell us at these gatherings, “You’re going to see a time
in your lifetime when the human beings are going to find the blueprint
that makes us.” They call that now DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid.
They said, "They're going to cut this blueprint.” They call
that now genetic splicing. And they said, "They're going to make
new animals upon the earth, and they're going to think these are going
to help us. And it's going to seem like they do help us. But maybe the
grandchildren and great-grandchildren are going to suffer." The
elders said long ago, "They will release these things, and they
will use them.” This is going to be released not too long from
now. They are making new animals. The elders talked about this. They
said, "You will see new animals, and even the old animals will
come back, animals that people thought had disappeared. They will find
them here and there. They'll begin to reappear.” They said, "You're
going to see a time when the eagle will fly it’s highest in the
night, and it will land upon the moon. And at that time, many of the
Native people will be sleeping," which symbolically means they
have lost their teachings. We're at that time now. The Eagle has landed
on the moon, 1969. When that spaceship landed, they sent back the message,
"The Eagle has landed."
Traditionally, Native people from clear up in the Inuit region have
shared with us this prophesy, clear down to the Quechuas in South America.
At this time you're going to see that things will speed up, that people
on the earth will move faster and faster. Grandchildren will not have
time for grandparents. Parents will not have time for children. It will
seem like time is going faster and faster. The elders advised us that,
as things speed up, you yourself should slow down. The faster things
go, the slower you go. Because there's going to come a time when the
earth is going to be shaken a third time. The Great Spirit has shaken
the earth two times: the First and Second World Wars to remind us that
we are a human family, to remind us that we should have greeted each
other as brothers and sisters. We had a chance after each shaking to
come together in a circle that would have brought peace on earth, but
we missed that. Tonight they were talking on the news about the sign
for the Third Shaking of the Earth. They said they're going to build
what the elders called the house in the sky.
In the 1950's they talked about this: they will build a house and throw
it in the sky. When you see people living in the sky on a permanent
basis, you will know the Great Spirit is about to grab the earth, this
time not with one hand, but with both hands. When this house is in the
sky, the Great Spirit is going to shake the Earth a third time, and
whoever dropped that gourd of ashes, upon them it is going to drop.
They say at that time there will be villages in this land so great that
when you stand in the villages you will not be able to see out, and
in the prophecies these are called villages of stone, or prairies of
stone. And they said the stone will grow up from the ground, and you
will not be able to see beyond the village. At the center of each and
every one of these villages will be Native people, and they will walk
as hollow shells upon a prairie of stone. They said hollow shells, which
means they will have lost any of their traditional understandings; they
will be empty within. They said that, after the Eagle lands on the moon,
some of these people will begin to leave these prairies of stone and
come home and take up some of the old ways and begin to make themselves
reborn, because it's a new day. But many will not. And they said there's
going to come a time when in the morning the sun is going to rise, and
this village of stone will be there, and in the evening there would
just be steam coming from the ground. They will be as steam. And in
the center of many of those villages of stone, when they turn to steam,
the Native people will turn to steam also because they never woke up
and left the village.
They say there's going to be the Third Shaking of the Earth. It's not
going to be a good thing to see, but we will survive it. We will survive
it. And when we survive it, there's going to be another attempt to make
a circle of the human beings on the earth. And this time the Native
people will not have to petition to join but will be invited to enter
the circle because they say the attitude toward us will have changed
by then, and people will let us into the circle, and all the four colors
of the four directions will share their wisdom, and there will be a
peace on earth. This is coming close. The prophecies are always either/or.
We could have come together way back there in 1565, and we could have
had a great civilization, but we didn't. Always along the path of these
prophecies, we could have come together. We still could. If we could
stop the racial and religious disharmony, we would not have to go through
this third shaking. The elders say the chance of that is pretty slim.
It seems to me like it's pretty slim, too. But they say what we can
do is we can cushion it so it won't be quite as bad. How do we do this?
We do this by sharing the teaching that will reunite us.
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