WHY THE HOPI ELDERS TALK - A Guest Post by Thomas O. Mills

WHY THE ELDERS TALK

Thomas O. Mills

You have to ask yourself why any Native American Elder would want to talk to us.  What good have we ever done for him?  What is this deep seeded understanding that he has inside that makes him want to share his knowledge with the people who have taken all  the best, from him, and the land he loves?

His Ancestors; had free clean water in every stream, free housing for every family, free education for every child, free food for every meal, and no; fences, bills, pollution, taxes, boundaries, countries, or money.  John Lennon dreamed about this kind of life, he wrote a song that he called Imagine, and many of my elderly Hopi friends still imagine that the world could be this way.  They miss, very badly, those old days of peace and tranquillity, but that is not the reason why the Elders talk. 

The Elders see what drugs and alcohol have done to their sons, daughters, and grandchildren.  They know that the food we eat, the way we treat our livestock, oceans, air, insects, and fields, are not correct, and causes many health problems for everyone.  They know that government controlled tribal councils were created to provide a link between the government and the Native Tribes, to steal their cultural, land, coal, oil, and water, and then claim that the tribe wanted it that way. They know all these things, but that is not the reason why the Elders talk. 

The Elders know, that today is our day of plenty.  Grocery stores are full of food from all around the world, plenty of electricity and natural gas to heat and cool our homes and business, plenty of land to buy and sell, and plenty of credit to do all of these things, but that is not the reason why the Elders talk.

The Elders were told that a majority of all the people, from all four races, will never understand what they are trying to communicate. They are looking for just a handful of listeners, to listen and help them, but for some reason the majority of the people that they talk to, have an obstruction in their ears and the words of the Elders do not enter their brains and just bounce around the room like the sound of a beating drum.  They use hand gestures, lines in the sand, carvings on rocks, paintings, and ceremonies to convey their message but very few pay any attention to them nowadays.  Non-Indians try to put words in the Elders mouths and young people of their own tribe, even make fun of the elders and call them names, laugh, and imitate their gestures, after they go through the white mans public school system.  But still the Elders talk.

The Elders I knew, learned from their elders, the prophecies past down from their elders, all the way back to the Guardian Spirt (Kachina) known as Massau’u, who gave the Hopi permission to occupy this land after a great flood.  He told them what signs to look for in the future to tell when this world event might happen again.  Massau’u was the original prophet.  The Elders alive today do not clam to be prophets or try to foretell things as if by some divine inspiration. 

They are just repeating what was told to them in the past by their fathers and grandfathers exactly the way it was told to them.  Massau’u instructed the Hopi to repeat his stories to future generations and he also told them that it would be a very hard job for them to accomplish, as very few people would listen to his prophecy’s in times of plenty.  This was their job, and that is why the Elders talk to us today.  They do not claim to be prophets, they do not claim to be psychic or have any magical powers.  We put those titles on them because they talk about future events and those events are coming true today, just the way Massau’u told them they would.    

A group of traditional Hopi Elders decided in 1948 that Massau’u’s message was not being heard fast enough.  They elected four members to represent the tribe, giving each a scared prayer feather, in the hope that their words would be taken seriously.  This was a huge step for the peaceful people as no tribe member wanted to be singled out by the using his own name in public.  This was completely contrary to the Hopi way of life, living modestly in all ways, and at all times.  After this point, many books were written with the help of the Elders;  The Hopi Indians, 1956, Red Man, White Man, 1958, The Book of the Hopi, 1963, Truth of a Hopi, 1967, Me and Mine, 1969, The Hopi People, 1971, and Pages From Hopi History, 1974.  

By 1992, only one of the four spokesman was left, Thomas Banyacya, and he arranged to speak before the United Nations General Assembly on December 10th of that year.  All he took with him was his scared prayer feather and the ancient stone tablet (the most sacred object that the tribe possessed) that Massau’u had gave the Hopi when he greeted them, told them they could occupy this land, and proved that he existed.  I can only image the stress Thomas was under protecting this tablet on his journey and during his stay in New York City.   He practiced his speech for 44 years and was allowed to speak for 10 minutes before the group of delegates:

Nature, the First People and the spirit of our ancestors are giving you loud warnings. Today, December 10, 1992, you see increasing floods, more damaging hurricanes, hail storms, climate changes and earthquakes as our prophesies said would come. Even animals and birds are warning us with strange change in their behavior such as the beaching of whales. Why do animals act like they know about the earth's problems and most humans act like they know nothing? If we humans do not wake up to the warnings, the great purification will come to destroy this world just as the previous worlds were destroyed.   

Everyone at the assembly heard Thomas Banyacya speak, but no one listened to the loud warnings he was talking about, or did anything about it.  He passed away in February, 1999.  

On June 1,1993, Dan Evehema from Hotevilla, picked up the sword and gave written   permission to Thomas E. Mails exclusive rights to publish and write a book telling the history of the traditional Hopi people of his village concentrating on the prophecy that Massaw’u had given to the Hopi in ancient times.  The book was published two years later in 1995 and called Hotevilla, Hopi Shrine of the Covenant, Microcosm of the World.    On page 516 of this book the Elders quote Massaw’u, as saying, “I have planned for the day when man forgets his purpose and goes against My laws.  I have reserved the water, in the form of ice and snow, for My own use as a weapon for punishment to be applied when mankind gets out of control.  This will be a Judgment Day.  Mankind will no longer deserve to live on this land which I made for him.  Afterward, I will regenerate the earth.”

The Hopi believe that the earth was not in perfect balance when the Creator found it wobbling in space.  The Creator fixed this problem and as a result created the land we now live on.   Two twin ice caps formed on each end of the earth during this time, the Hopi call them the twins, and say they are sitting on their post keeping the earth in perfect balance and rotation so we can live here.   

Today, the twins are departing their post and melting, insects, animals, birds, plants and sea creatures are all searching for new habitats, this was prophesied by Massaw’u. For him to know these events were going to happen, they had to be predictable.  He had to have an understanding about global temperatures.  Here is a graphic of global temperatures for the past 400,000 years:

If Massaw’u had this information it would have been very easy for him to predict ice ages, melting poles, times of plenty and where temperatures are heading next. 

The lose of weight by the melting ice on the poles has caused the earth axis to shift causing massive earthquakes, tsunamis, and destruction.*  Seasons, tornadoes, and weather patterns have changed as the magnetic field moves westward towards Siberia.**  Islands are disappearing with sea levels rising and large areas of land are flooded, deeper and longer than ever before.  Each night the world news anchors ask the same question, “What is happening to our weather?” 

Today, mankind is more concerned about who said what, when, and why.  “How can we fix this global warming thing,” they say, “will it cost us any money, taxes, votes, or close any business?”  Many even say it is some kind of hoax or government plot against them, all the scientist are lying.  We can not even agree that the poler ice caps are melting, even when we see pictures of the event on a daily basis. 

In my view, I do not think it will matter if global warming was caused by Man or Mother Nature, maybe it was both.   We need to be looking for ways to stop the polar ice caps from melting to protect our planet and its balance.  The moisture locked in the polar ice does not drift off into space when it melts, it turns into vapor (clouds) or water, and it has to go somewhere.  Our Earth’s delicate balance is in jeopardy, a fact we might all have to deal with very soon.

Most of us just go about our daily routine with our heads in the sand and act like we know nothing at all, as the few remaining Hopi Elders, do what their guardian told them to do, and continue to talk.   

Thomas O. Mills,  May 2012

Author: The Book of Truth A Knew Perspective on the Hopi Creation Story &             Stonehenge, If This Was East

*Scientist say that the earthquakes are so strong today they actually shift the planet’s axis.  I believe that the earth tweaks account of the lose of weight on each pole and this event causes the earthquakes to occur, sometimes with three or four earthquakes happening all at the same time.  We have never had earthquakes that shifted the axis until recently and the only thing that has changed is the amount of weight on each pole.  

** http://sincedutch.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/1112012-north-pole-shifts-towards-siberia-warmer-latitudes-have-shifted-nw/

Special Thanks forTemperature chart to:  http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/temperature-and-co2-concentration-in-the-atmosphere-over-the-past-400-000-years_25ae