If the foreigners did not come that year, we had to add five years on a new stick, and the meeting place in this case was 'Sikia'ova', meaning 'yellow stone' This place is close to the old road towards Oraibi. If, after this time, they were still not there, we had to meet them five years later at a higher place on the road which is called Chiwachukha, meaning 'hardened clay'. After another five years we were to meet them at a place called 'Nahuuyangowasha', meaning 'cross fields'. After five more years the last meeting place had to be on the edge of a cliff east of Oraibi. The name of this place is 'Taotooma'.
When the first stick was filled people had still not come. Five years passed and still nothing. In this way, five years after five years passed. According to our tradition, it is Pahana (the brother) who was to lead these people to our continent. Pahu means 'water', but we do not pronounce it entirely; we contract it and say only 'Pa'. The syllable 'ha' means 'journey on the water' as in a boat. Pahana is thus 'the man who crosses water 'in a boat'", which shows that several millennia before the event it already was known that people would come in boats and not on flying shields (airships).
Our people started to be concerned as nobody arrived. The great delay meant that they were not the awaited people who would come. Finally, with a delay of twenty years, they arrived, and we prepared to meet them in Taotooma as had been requested. You recall that Taotooma (Tiwanaku) was also the part of the continent that emerged from the water and the place 'which was touched by the arm of the sun'. The foreigners arrived at this place which bore the same name. A long time ago this name meant 'new beginning', and this time it was also a new beginning.
As I said, this delay of twenty years worried my people and when the Spaniards arrived, all had been prepared to receive them. Our old people and the religious leaders came to wish them welcome. The foreigners carried armor and all their weapons, but we were not afraid. We still thought that they were brothers, civilized human beings. Then the tragedy started. The chief of Oraibi tightened his hand for a 'nackwach'--the sign of true fraternity. If the man opposite had understood this sign, all would have been well, but when the chief tightened his hand, the Spaniard believed that he wanted a gift and gave him trinkets without value.
It was a hard blow for the Hopis. The foreigners not knowing the sign of fraternity! Our people realized then that as from that moment, misfortune would befall the Hopis. That occurred, and we lived it.
--end
The original story in this series, which appeared in Nexus Magazine (Feb/Mar 2016) can be found here:click here
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