Waiting for a sale

August 4, 1970

Dear Mr. President:

We, the True and Traditional religious leaders, recognized as such by the Hopi People, maintain full authority over all land and life contained within the Western Hemisphere. We are granted our stewardship by virtue of our instruction as to the meaning of Nature, Peace and Harmony, as spoken to our People by Him, known to us as Maasau’u, the Great Spirit, who long ago provided for us the sacred stone tablets which we preserve to this day. For many generations before the coming of the white man, for many generations before the coming of the Navajo, the Hopi People have lived in that sacred place known to you as the Southwest, and known to us to be the spiritual center of our continent. Those of us the Hopi Nation who have followed the path of the Great Spirit without compromise, have a message which we are committed, through our prophecy, to convey to you.

The white man, through his insensitivity to the way of Nature, has desecrated the face of Mother Earth. The white man’s advance technological capacity has occurred as a result of his lack of regard for the spiritual path and for the way of all living things. The white man’s desire for material possession and power has blinded him to the pain he has caused Mother Earth by his quest for what he calls natural resources. All over the country, the waters have been tainted, the soil broken and defiled, and the air polluted. Living creatures die from poisons left because of industry. And the path of the Great Spirit has become difficult to see by almost all men, even by many Indians, who have chosen instead to follow the path of the white men.

We have accepted the responsibility designated by our prophecy to tell you that almost all life will stop unless men come to know that everyone must live in Peace and in Harmony with Nature. Only those people who know the secrets of Nature, the Mother of us all, can overcome the possible destruction of all land and life.

Today, the sacred lands where the Hopi live are being desecrated by men who seek coal and water from our soil that they may create more power for the white man’s cities. This must not be allowed to continue, for if it does, Mother Nature will react in such a way that almost all men will suffer the end of life as they now know it. The Great Spirit said not to allow this to happen even as it was prophecied to our ancestors. The Great Spirit said not to take from the Earth – not to destroy living things. The Great Spirit, Maasu’u, said that man was to live in Harmony and maintain a good clean land for all children to come. All Hopi People and other Indian brothers are standing on this religious principle, and the Traditional Spiritual Unity Movement today is endeavoring to reawaken the spiritual nature in the Indian people throughout this land. Your government has almost destroyed our basic religion which actually is a way of life for all our people in this land of the Great Spirit. We feel that to survive the coming Purification Day, we must return to the basic religious principles and to meet together on this basis as leaders of our people.

Today, almost all the prophecies have come to pass. Great roads like rivers pass along the landscape; man talks to man through the cobwebs of his telephone lines; man travels along the roads in the sky in his airplane; two great wars have been waged by those bearing the swastika or the rising sun, man is tampering with the Moon and the Stars. Most men have strayed from the path shown us by the Great Spirit. For Maasau’u alone is great enough to portray the correct way back to Him.

It is said by the Great Spirit that if a gourd of ashes is dropped upon the Earth, that many men will die and that the end of this way of life is near at hand. We interpret this as the dropping of the atomic boom on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We do not want to see this happen to any place or any nation again, but instead we should turn all this energy for peaceful purpose and not for war.

We, the religious leaders and rightful spokesmen for the Hopi Independent Nation, have been instructed by the Great Spirit to express the invitation to the President of the United States and all spiritual leaders everywhere to meet with us and discuss the welfare of mankind so that Peace, Unity and Brotherhood will become part of men everywhere.

Sincerely,

Hopi Traditional Village Leaders

Mrs. Mina Lansa, Oraibi

Claude Kawangyawma, Sungopavy

Starlie Lomayaktewa, Mushongnovi

Dan Katchongva, Hotevilla

Latest

Novel Excerpt:

Oddly enough this part of the story begins in New York City, in the early 1960s, in a high-rise boardroom stark with morning sun. At the head of a table stood a philanthropist clothed in fashion brought back from her recent trip to Paris. Seated around the table were lawyers, and back in the corner on a couch, was a lanky, dark-haired, dark-eyed, chain-smoking ethnologist. Of course a philanthropist is someone who donates funds to causes, and an ethnologist is someone who studies cosmologies—or what people believe about themselves, their origins, where they came from.

    The ethnologist is listening to the philanthropist explain her fascination for Native American culture. It was sparked by an editorial she’d read in the Wall Street Journal making fun of Hopi elders who had travelled to the United Nations building, attempting to address the General Assembly with a prophetic message from their gods. Since that time she researched and she became increasingly concerned that the beliefs of the pueblo peoples would be lost unless her foundation paid someone to go out there, interview the elders, and record it all. The popular conception then, and still today, was of all Native Americans as nomadic people living in tee-pees, when some lived in rock-adobe apartments year-round. She knew that the pueblo culture was spread throughout the vast area known as the American Southwest—the four corners where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah meet—and she also knew it was always acknowledged by all tribes of the region, that the Hopi settled there first, and everyone had learned how to plant corn and live in apartments—the pueblo life—from them. She knew the Hopi regard themselves as the first inhabitants of the Americas, their village of Oraibi, atop six hundred foot high cliffs of tan sandstone, is the oldest, continuously occupied settlement in North America. The strangest, most secretive tribe in the US, and the philanthropist directed the board to send the ethnologist out to create a scholarly book of what is known and practiced amongst the elders.

    Stonefield arrives in the land of the Hopi. In later writings, he recounted how grand and majestic the home of the Hopi is, how the three mesas, were visible from far off, and as one drew near it was as if approaching kingdom. He drives the short winding road up the Second Mesa, and asks around for a room. He gets directed to White Bear, a Hopi who had married an Irish woman, Mrs. Bear, who owned more than one rock apartment, and who together were the folks to talk to if someone was passing through and needed a place to get refreshed. Stonefield makes a deal for three meals a day, and a half-rock, half-shed, room below the mesas.

    Stonefield was a trained academic and knew well the bias and misinformation that can result when subjects are paid to divulge their history and cosmology. He knew he would not pay a Hopi elder to divulge anything for any other reason than in interests of preserving their culture for the future.

    For the first couple of weeks, Stonefield works on previous notes and re-writing while getting to know White Bear and Mrs. Bear.

*

     According to the Hopi, their people had already gone through three previous worlds, and upon emergence into this Fourth World, were greeted by a demigod in the form of a handsome man, named Mawsaw. He imparted all they needed to know about how to conduct life on the mesa top, and specific instructions for future events, leaving them with an outline of coming centuries, inscribed as symbols, on two rock tablets.

    The Hopi were told that after awhile, after they mastered the planting and harvesting of corn, and living the pueblo lifestyle, devoted to supplication of the Sun and Earth as benevolent providers of all, a people would show up called the Navajo. Prone to violence and war, the Hopi were instructed to give up land to the Navajo to make peace. They were then told, that sometime after the Navajos arrive, another people would arrive, and they were going to be white in color. They were given other prophecies and instructions by Mawsaw, to keep and hand down from one generation of elders to the next, until future events dictated they be revealed to the rest of the world.

    The Hopi and Navajo lived somewhat stably for centuries until the 1500s, when Catholic priests, soldiers, and settlers invaded their land, and for decades both Hopi and Navajo were killed and enslaved by the hundreds. The fear of white people was deeply instilled as priests set up checkpoints along rivers and forced locals to labor. Especially hurtful was the assault on traditional pueblo teachings and ceremonies. They were outlawed, and the religious masks of Kachina gods used in dances were seized and burned.

    Things came to a head in the late 1600s when fifty pueblo elders were arrested and accused of sorcery. Four were sentenced to death. Three hung, one committed suicide, and the remaining were whipped and imprisoned. News reached other pueblos, which resulted in an assembled force of warriors, which headed to Santa Fe to free the prisoners. After a siege and negotiations they won the release of their elders. Among those freed was one who took up residence at Taos pueblo, and for the next five years he and his two lieutenants traveled from pueblo to pueblo advocating for a return to the way of the Hopi. The Catholic priests had defiled the known ways of relating to the world, and the people were asked to revolt and destroy all things of the whites. They were asked to to do what the whites were doing to them. All pueblos joined in the plan. On a designated morning the Taos pueblo sent out runners to all the other pueblos. They carried with them pieces of string, each with a different number of knots. The elders of each pueblo were to untie a knot each morning, and the morning the final knot was untied was the day to rise up, kill all soldiers and priests, and advance on Santa Fe for a final extirpation. The plan worked, the invaders were killed, their settlements destroyed, and the traditional ceremonies and dances returned.

    Peace reigned for a little more than ten years, but then in the early 1700s another group of Catholic priests and soldiers marched into the land of the pueblos. This time they had valuable gifts for everyone, and marched to Santa Fe unopposed, promising clemency to whoever would aligned with their religion. In the following months other pueblos accepted terms. The agreement was bloodless, and most Hopi were happy to accept gifts and go along with the silly routines of the whites. But then, after awhile, when they started cutting off the feet and hands of those practicing seasonal rituals and dances, that was too much. A dozen or so pueblos attempted another revolt, but it wasn’t organized well enough. Retribution was unmerciful and prolonged, and by the end of the century the last resisting pueblo had surrendered to the whites completely. Then came the federal government of the United States and more decades of bloodshed.

    By the 1880s, due to acts by Congress, the Hopi had lost three-quarters of their ancestral land. Lololma, a chief of the Hopi at that time, went to Washington DC where he was persuaded to cooperate further. Yukioma, another Hopi chief, lead a tribal dispute against Lololma and his followers for being too friendly with the US Government. Within the entire Hopi tribe, across all mesas, were two factions—the Friendly’s and the Traditional’s. The Traditional’s would not allow their children to be taken to white schools, and especially when one of their gods, Masaw, had told them this would come to pass, that the whites would attempt to destroy their teachings. Soon black troops of US Calvary arrived to complete the Americanization of all Hopis. Parents were hiding children in holes which troopers dug out with shovels, only to ship them off to schools, where priests and nuns chopped off their hair before indoctrinating them into Christianity. Many Hopi fathers were put in Alcatraz Prison for resisting. Lololma, betrayed and shamed, died. Another Hopi took leadership of the Friendly’s and continued to rebuke Yukioma and the Traditional’s, until 1906 when the tribe reached a breaking point between those who wanted to go the way of the whites, and those who wanted to remain as they had been instructed to remain. The two factions agreed to a bloodless competition to decide the issue. The Traditional’s lost, and that night hundreds of men, women and children left ancient Oraibi to found a new village, Hotevilla.

*

    By the time ethnologist Stonefield showed up, a half century after the tribal split and founding of a settlement for Hopi Traditional’s, it was difficult to determine who on the mesas still knew what, and did it match with what was understood and still taught in Hotevilla? Stonefield told White Bear that he would not pay participants, but he would pay him as an agent, to get access and translate. At first White Bear was neutral, he didn’t care if the teachings and prophecies were brought to light or not, he just liked getting paid well to lodge and assist Stonefield. So he puts the word out to a few elders, and weeks go by and nothing. Stonefield is shut out. The elders, all of whom had lived through the horrors of being a Hopi at the hands of whites, were silent.

    Then one day Stonefield goes up to White Bear and Mrs. Bear’s apartment, and when he enters, there on the couch was another Hopi. An old, dark one, in an ragged red sweater and baggy Levi’s. A mop of black and gray hair cut chin length, he had tears running down his face.

    “I don't blame the white people for their ability to transmit power through machines,” he said. “But I know these machines will break down. We were taught how to live well with what the Sun and Earth provide. We don’t need machines. The First World was destroyed because people forgot and ignored the instructions—then the Second World, then the Third World—each time falling into ignorance. Now we are on the Fourth World and we are close to our final instructions. So I will continue to conduct our ceremonies, singing and praying to the Sun and Earth, so that we may continue life into the Fifth World.”

    The Hopi speaking was Old Dan, the son of Yukioma, the leader of the Traditional’s. Old Dan, as a young man, was one of the combatants on the day of the tribal battle and split. He had gotten knocked out, and came to after the battle was lost. He declared he would dedicate his life to keeping the Hopi prophecies alive and ceremonies protected. He helped his father build Hotevilla until Yukioma spent his last seventeen years in jail for continuing to resist. Old Dan kept Hotevilla in tact and in line with tradition. Now he was almost eighty years old, sitting on White Bear’s couch, torn about his feelings to protect Hopi knowledge from whites, and working with White Bear and Stonefield for the future preservation of his culture. He asked Stonefield about his family history, where his grandparents were from, and what they did. Then White Bear drove Old Dan home.

    It was November by then and the first ceremonies in the annual cycle were beginning. The first in the cycle supposedly was dedicated to the dawn of creation, a supplication to birth of all forms of life—plant, animal, and man. Old Dan conducted the ceremony as chief of the Two Horn society. Hopi priests wore one horn or two horns, designating their knowledge of the three previous worlds as well as the present Fourth World. No white man, and no Hopi, except for participating members, we’re allowed to witness the proceedings. Old Dan and the elders went into a kiva to conduct sixteen days of rituals before a final public ceremony on the final day.

    After that ceremony was finished, Stonefield and White Bear waited patiently for Old Dan, but he would not see them, and he kept putting them off for weeks. Finally he called a meeting of clan leaders at his home, where they were able to explain the purpose of their study and ask for cooperation.

    For three hours they sat talking, listening, and talking more. Finally the elders left saying they would think it over. A week later Old Dan sent word that one of his elders had turned against White Bear and Stonefield, saying they were being paid by the US Government or the church to discover Hopi secrets to use against them. The rival was someone known as Mr. Hopi. He was feared by many Traditional’s, with an aggressive lust for power and publicity. He declared himself a Traditional yet could gather with Friendly’s and members of the government backed Tribal Council. He dressed well, spoke excellent English, and wrote letters datelined The Hopi Empire.

    Finally White Bear and Stonefield were called to another meeting, this time at Mr. Hopi’s rock apartment. Here he informed everyone that they were either government or church spies, but it didn’t matter because none of the elders would give them any information. Old Dan did not utter a word in defense during the harangue, but sat head tilted back, eyes have close, his body shrinking. Stonefield and White Bear left without a word. White Bear was shaken, felt disrespected and defeated. “That’s it! The project is finished!” he told Stonefield.

    “The project is not finished!” Stonefield replied. “We’re going to have to find other Hopi who are sincere in what they believe!”

    Then White Bear had a dream where he was walking up a mesa, and saw a Hopi near the top who had a string attached to a boulder, and when he pulled it, the boulder of rock spoke.

    A few days later White Bear and Stonefield are walking up along the cliffs to one of the mesas, and they see a Hopi above, bare chested, in jeans, with long gray hair. Stonefield later recounted that his body glowed an earthen red color. It was John Lance of Oraibi. At seventy years old he was alert and deft in movement. He could race up a rocky slope sure as a mountain lion. He was invariably cheerful and good-natured, practical in all things. His devout belief in Hopi tradition reflected his regard that his life and livelihood were gifts of the Sun and Earth, and in return for them he strictly observed every ritual left to him, and made thankful prayers and tried to keep good thoughts at all times.

Political Science To a Sheriff In NorCal

Novel Excerpt

 Things looked ruined at that point, ten years of activism, trying to destroy the status quo, and the entertainment industry being apart of that, I was odd man out. Hopefully my political past would be forgotten and maybe there was a chance to slide into a career in theatre or film. Film the long shot, I had taken meetings in my twenties, but did not have a credit. One hit play though—one world premier and a run—and you have a property—and suddenly all kinds of opportunities appear. At the least I had to get a play produced. I had already published poetry and prose in university presses and on-line, but I’d yet to write a drama that said things about life worth hearing, validated by people wanting to produce and act it. I wanted professional status in all the arts. That was the only thing that mattered, and that’s what I was attempting to attempt, but then it got blown up.

    I was in a coffee shop getting notes together for a script when I see an email. I read that a county sheriff up north had notified neighboring sheriffs, detailing how federal agents had entered his county and set up operations without contacting his office. The disregard was unprecedented and unconstitutional. He got replies from sheriffs in neighboring counties and called for an open meeting, anyone who thought they had a solution was welcome to attend. I drop everything, print copies of information and PDF files from congressional records, put a pillow and blanket in the back of my station wagon, and get on the road to northern California.

    Driving up it seemed like this might finally be it—that but of course—it’s the office of the county sheriff that initiates the convention! If I could get them to point out the situation in a video, that the legal requirement for a convention had been satisfied, and send it out, that should be the tipping-point of awareness on the politicians purposefully ignoring the Constitution.

    It was a small banquet hall in rural California, near the border with Oregon. The sheriff who put out the alarm was a Vietnam Vet, known and respected far and wide for his development of SWAT systems and tactics, who looked the stereotypical general—full head of short gray hair, gray mustache, square jaw, could have been in the movies. He gets up there, thanks everyone for showing up, and goes into how much things have changed since the planes flew into the buildings in New York City, and that we have to protect our freedoms.

    “Now, most of us here know that in the 1990s a sheriff filed a suit in the federal court about an unconstitutional gun law, and they won. The US Supreme Court struck down the notion that sheriffs are subordinate to federal agents in the county where they were elected. The Chief Justice wrote the majority ruling, explaining how our system of government was a great innovation of design where citizens have two political capacities, one state and one federal, each protected from the other, each with its own relationship, its own set of rights and obligations to the people consenting to it. They quote Federalist 39, by Madison, father of the Constitution, that the local authority forms a distinct and independent portion from the federal, no more subject to federal authority than federal authority is subject to local authority. Someone said if men were angels we wouldn’t need government, but men are not angels, so we do need protection, and two distinct governments, a local and a federal, creates a double security of our rights.

    “The reason we call a chief justice a chief justice, is to designate who is highest in rank within the judiciary. In law enforcement we call it the CLEO, chief law enforcement officer, and in the county elected, the sheriff is the chief law enforcement officer, directly accountable to the people. If some local police force began harassing people in a county, the sheriff would be there to protect them. If some federal agency began harassing people in a county, the sheriff would be there to protect and defend their rights. It all makes such perfect sense that that is how it ought to be, but it seems like decade after decade since the Supreme Court ruling, we have to remind not only the public, but the federal agencies themselves.

    “Everyone knows that two years ago Sheriff Mattis from Bighorn County, Wyoming, lead the state sheriffs in a lawsuit demanding federal agents abide by the Constitution, or face arrest, and the Federal District Court agreed and ruled in favor of the sheriffs. And again ruled that in the states the duly elected sheriff of a county is the chief law enforcement official in that county and has law enforcement powers exceeding that of any other local, state, or federal official, including the President of the United States. For more than two years, all federal agents entering Bighorn County have been required to check in with Sheriff Mattis and state their intentions.

    “And about the same time we had the incident where Sheriff House in Otero County, New Mexico, had to threaten federal agents with arrest in the so-called chainsaw rebellion. So what it looks like, is that federal agencies will attempt to get away with whatever they can, hoping the sheriff they’re dealing with doesn’t understand their powers.

    “Last year, two of my deputies were tipped-off by a resident that federal agents had blocked off a county road. The deputies went out to the location, contacted them, and two agents came up holding their badges. The lead deputy checked ID but said they had no notice, which made the road block illegal. One agent started up with attitude, saying the deputies had no idea who or what they were dealing with, to which the other deputy informed them that their authority was higher. The moment escalated, almost to the point of drawing guns, but our lead deputy talked fast and neutralized the situation.

    “The public lands out here, out west, were considered problem lands until the passage of the Resolutions Act of 1780, from then on the federal government held the lands in trust. Upon a state being admitted to the Union, the federal government had the authority and obligation to dispose of the lands for expansion, occupancy, and production by the people.

    “Slowly, over the years many remote public lands still held in trust became more desirable to retain, rather than let go for the purpose they were held in the first place. Over the decades newly formed federal agencies worked their way into existence, each taking an expanding role—what we called Mission Creep back in Viet Nam. By the 1980s it became policy of the federal government that public lands be retained under federal control and ownership.

    “And so now here are all of us sheriffs in rural counties and remote forested areas and our region is ground zero for the US Forest Service. Forest reserves are not federal enclaves, local peace officers were to exercise civil and criminal process over these lands. Forest Service rangers are not law enforcement officers unless designated as such by state authority. The Tenth Amendment clearly reserves police rights to the states.

    “I had never encountered a situation where information was withheld from my office, the uncooperative manner presents a challenge of authority.

    “As the chief law enforcement of the county, elected by the citizens, saddled with the expectation and responsibility to safeguard their rights, I fully intend to uphold the laws against any threat, inappropriate or unlawful actions against them. The citizens of the county are complaining about unfair treatment and harassment by agents of the federal government.

    “The issues of illegal road closures, grazing, logging, minerals, taking land under the auspices of ‘monument’ status, citizen complaints against federal agents, high unemployment and other socio-economic issues we all face today; coupled with the uncooperative nature, are causing me great concern about our relationship and future cooperation.”

Political Science

Desert June 6

If you're interested....

OK, so we get it now, the kneeling before a game was never about disrespecting our heritage, it was an alert to whites that our shared society has a knee on black necks. My own brother was one of those saying the 49ers QB was a jackass, when all he was doing was recognizing a current and on-going injustice.... Now the truth gets highlighted with George Floyd's death.... And now come people who say it's time for change, it's time for a discussion about this, it's time to end this injustice; but when you tell them how to actually end it, they won't listen. It's really weird.... If perchance you are interested in ending institutionalized racism, the solution is a federal convention, in order to formally discuss/propose amendments, any of which would then need to be ratified by 75%+ approval (which means it's mathematically impossible for partisan nonsense to become high law). Meaning, we can have a formal discussion about society today, or we can informally discuss it on FB until corporate forces fold up Disneyland and replace it with something that resembles the Hunger Games, where there are the masses in rags, and globalists with painted eyelids and colored hair.

Poem

The astonishment of it all,
how it all went down hill
over two decades and then Bam, total chaos;
diminishment of the truth at every turn;
that there is even such thing is now openly
questioned again and again
at the end of each news report;

so maybe this is the age
we’re meant to bury it,
put it to sleep for a few centuries
so it can be discovered again
in some future year,
joy astonishing those who might deserve it,
like the favorite old bone
dug up by the dog
who buried it.

Writing