As you know, Oraibi is in a dry area and it is not easy to understand why we settled here. I will tell you the reason: the Clan of the Bear did not come to this area just like that. It is its divinity who insisted because here is the center of our universe. Actually it is within approximately three kilometers to the south of Oraibi in the valley. The place is called Tuwanassawi. People of the Clan of the Kachinas lived there, and you can still see the ruins. I will not tell you any more as we do not speak about it with other people.
Today our village falls in ruins because we are at the end of a period. We will rebuild it in the Fifth World, but it will be at another place. Perhaps our current Oraibi will be rebuilt as place of national remembrance, but it is not the rebuilding of Oraibi in the Fifth World that I come to speak you about. I would like to repeat an important point here: it's only when a clan had the permission to settle here definitively that the members became Hopis--those who remained faithful to the laws of the Creator. The few elected people who came here became Hopis.
As long as we were migrating, we were called the People of the Awl, in our language, 'Moochi'. Of course the Spaniards once again badly pronounced this word and called us 'Moquis'. For millennia we were a small group among the many tribes. There were always failures and temptations, and many were eliminated.
Even then we had our problems as we do today. I only have to remind you of the disputes among our people not so long ago at the time of Palatquapi. Like those disputes, estrangements from Palatquapi repeated themselves when people left Oraibi and founded Hotevilla, then Bakavi and left for Moenkopi and Kyakostsmovi. Do you see how history repeats itself?
Among other events, it is the arrival of the Spaniards which of course changed much. But before speaking about it I want to tell you first the story of Huck'ovi."
Huck'ovi
White Bear continues: "I have heard this history often since my most tender childhood. HÃ ºck'ovi lies on the next mountain ridge on the other side of the lowlands just opposite Oraibi. We keep this memory alive because it shows us what will arrive to the whole world. We will know when that time has come because it will happen again like that.
The village was created by the Clan of the Face. It is one of the three clans which have a relationship with heat and energy. It is the heat which destroys, and it is the heat which purifies; this is why these clans are so important. By order of power the Clan of Fire comes first, then the Clan of the Sun and then the Clan of the Face. Their divinity is Machà ¡qua: the frog with horns. We find the sign of the frog with horns many times on drawings and on the bottom of rocks. As for the Clan of Fire, we know what it did with the first world; it destroyed it. The Clan of the Face accepted his name during the migration. It was the last of the three clans that arrived at the Pacific Ocean. The two other clans were there well before, and this is why the Clan of the Face had to hurry to arrive here in this area. People of this clan could only rest one night on the beach and were then forced to return. And as they were late and had to go quickly, they had less status and power than the other two.
The time arrived when people did not listen any more to the chief of their village, lacked respect for him, and even disobeyed him. According to an old habit, this can only be solved by the departure of the people and the destruction of the village. It is what occurred before with the Third World, then with Taotooma (Tiahuanaco), Palatquapi (Palenque) and Casa Grande; it keeps on repeating itself. And it is repeated today in the whole world; think of all the disputes, contradictions, and the lack of respect. This is why we Hopis know that the end of the Fourth World is coming soon. We are close to it.
Anyway, the decision was made to destroy the village
by fire and an explosion after a last ceremony. Some did not believe it and
remained in the village to see what would happen. Others left before the
ceremony, in which thirty men and thirty women took part. Each woman
carried a braided plate with a hole in the middle filled with cornstarch.
Around the hole there were two rings--one of red hematite and the other of yellow. Perhaps the yellow mass related to the uranium that was discovered to
the east of where we live. Out of the hole came a flame, and we know that when
that flame goes down in the hole, an explosion will follow.
The group of women and men arrived through the rocks from the west side of the village. The women deposited their plate inside a circle on the village square. One of the plates was given to the chief. He took it and went in a house to bless it. Then he left to join the men and the women who had left the village earlier and the men and women who had taken part in the ceremony left with him.
As I told you, some men and women did not believe the warning, and they remained in the village. When the flames disappeared in the holes, there was a great explosion and an intense heat--the entire village was destroyed along with the people who had remained there. Even some of those who had left earlier suffered from the heat and had to be carried.
The survivors could not go to Oraibi because the time had not come yet. As I have said, only those could come to Oraibi for whom the Kachinas had defined the proper moment. Thus, the Clan of the Face continued its migration. Later this clan was the final one being accepted among the Clan of Fire. The event at Huck'ovi happened more than 3.000 years ago. We still have a song concerning this event. It doesn't say why Huck'ovi was destroyed but only what arrived after the explosion. This song is sung at the time of the ceremony of Huck'ovi and is in fact a warning for the whole world. In that area only one village was destroyed and the people who left in time were saved. But in the song the people go from village to village and do not find a refuge. They will not find refuge anywhere because it burns everywhere. There is no remedy, and the fire will destroy our Fourth World. It will not be an atomic war but a war with an electric weapon that is in development. I do not know how this weapon works exactly, but it will send some kind of radio waves from a station, and it will go everywhere."
According to White Bear, the end of the Fourth World is nigh.
The Arrival of the Spaniards at Oraibi
When the Kachinas left they said to us not to forget that one day there will be people of another country who will come to see us to speak to us about another belief. They gave to my fathers of the Clan of the Bear a stick approximately two meters long on which they asked us to mark each year that passed. The stick was black and each year at the time of Soyà ¡l we made a white mark on the stick. When the stick was covered with marks from top to bottom, people of another country would arrive. The Kachinas had asked us to meet these people at a place called Kowawayma, which is on the Rio Grande about fifty kilometers north of Albuquerque. There is inside a ruin a beautiful and great painting of which I copied a part for the Book of Hopi. It is the same place where the Navajos stopped on their return after being released from prison. They broke their arrows, laid them in the ruins, and swore not to cause trouble for the Hopis ever again.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
