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.
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