Thomas Banyacya Sr.
Thomas Banyacya Sr., Hopi Nation, Arizona, USA. Hopi Elder,
interpretor for the Kikmongwis (Hopi spiritual leaders)
First, I want to thank you for inviting me here to this very
important gathering, which seems to me a fulfillment of my own
traditional religious leaders' ancient traditional knowledge. Some
call it prophesies, warnings, religious instructions that they know
of. Back in 1948, they met four days. They were 80, 90, 100 years
old who can't read, can't speak English, can't read books, but what
they were saying in 1948, I found that message is not only for the
Hopi original native people in our country, which is known to them.
And so, they told many things that went back when human life
starts. Of course, they always refer to that as the lower world.
Well, we speak one language. But we always turn away from the
law of the Great Spirit, the law of nature, and invent many dangerous
things and misuse that power, and then it has to be purified by
nature, because human beings don't want to correct their
wrong-doings, don't want to stop. They knew there were certain
things dangerous, but they would not want to stop it. And they used
that against each other and against nature. So they said that the
first world was totally destroyed by people of land, some sank,
separated, different lands, and many people were destroyed.
A handful of people came out to the third one - I'm just
going to go quickly [through] what the old people say. The third
one. There they went quite a long ways and they expelled out many
things humans have invented. They said: We haven't got that far yet
in this world. We think we got power, but we haven't restored some
of the things that they'd already known there. And they're able to
converse with animals and birds, they're able to travel, some say,
like these flying saucers going around. They're able to talk to
each other without wire of any kind, and they do many things. They
had many inventions - much more powerful, but they misused it
again. High spiritual leaders, political figures become corrupt,
dishonest, greedy and selfish. They will not change, they will not
stop. Everybody knows that they're doing something wrong, but they
will not admit their wrong-doing, they said. And then, to the last
days, the moral principles, religious life, everything becomes so
corrupt and there's no way to stop leaders from doing anything that
they knew is wrong. And so, they said they finally decided that
they have to have just good time and make more money or power,
whatever, to give them more freedom to just enjoy everything, and
they have already disturbed the balance of nature by taking male
and female seed of every kind and make it over, thinking that they
could make things better - but they're destroying the natural
development of every living thing on this earth. And so that was,
they said, people started gambling, day and night, gambling. They
won't stop that. So the leader was concerned that they wouldn't
listen to anyone so they called on the force of nature for
direction above and below. Then, they were totally destroyed by
flood.
But a handful of people came out. And they said, we are living
of this fourth world, fourth Spirit that humans have gone through
from first, second, third. This is the last world that we are
living on, there is no other world like this world where human life
will live like this. This is supposed to last forever. And it's up
to us, the survivors of that last total destruction by flood.
And this time we came out and we were given languages: You
take this language, go this direction, you take this religion, you
take this ability to invent things, to record things, and you go
here and there, and they spread out all over the four - the Hopi
say they went four directions. I notice that in this room this
morning, when I looked up at the ceiling in the circle up there,
there are four directions, it's just like the symbol I wear here.
Four directions, the center is like the fire we built up in the
hill yesterday. The Spirits there, and we went four directions and
some of you people come over here. You were given the special
mission to record things, to invent things and to make life
beautiful, clean and lasting here because you're separate from our
country called America today.
Our native people have this color, brown or red, we are left
there from Alaska, Canada, United States, Central, South America
down to the tip of South America. We of that color were left there,
and some of our people went with the white brother to go to other
lands around here. So there are some other people with this color
who are over here and on the West side. So we went out around this
world and we were told to take care of it where ever we go with this
power, with the knowledge that we have, religious instructions and
the ability to make things, life, beautiful, clean, and this land,
Mother Earth, was given food every day, everywhere, and we should
share with everybody, share with animals, with birds. That is what
our native people say that, we are caretakers of this Mother Earth.
Every living thing depends on us human beings. Now, he has his
religious instructions, prophesies, warnings, and he may have
energy and power within him. If he can meditate and concentrate on
something, he could do something to heal a person when they're
sick, dying, and he has that power. But a lot of us feel that we
don't have that power. But we have that. We have these five senses.
They gave us deciding factors whatever happens, it's up to us to do
something. If we hear some bad word, we should try to straighten it
out. If we see something wrong, we should try to correct that.
These are some things that a human is supposed to be responsible
for.
Now, in our area, there is in the United States four
different states, and in that area where I came from, the Hopi
country, they call it Four Corners Area: Arizona, New Mexico,
Colorado, and Utah, came together and formed this center, and it's
surrounded by four sacred mountains and the old people knew that
that must be left in the natural state, it's the spiritual center
of the country. They say that that contains more mineral resources
than any other place, but we must leave it in it's natural state.
We must protect it that way, we must not allow anyone to come and
dig the mineral resources up, because in the first, second, third
worlds human political figures, even religious people, misused
power taking the mineral resources and they wouldn't stop misusing
it. So they might do that there.
So, two main things that came to the Hopi at that time. In
1948, they had a meeting like this, four days, those old people,
80, 90, 100 years old, and they really impressed me, what they were
saying, so they asked me to be one of the interpretors because they
do not speak English. They need to bring this ancient traditional
knowledge to the world. Because two main prophecies known to them
came about.
There are many other prophecies that are known to them.
One was that when white brother went over to this side of the
world, he was supposed to take a spiritual symbol, a spiritual
power that was given to us by Great Spirit. We, the Hopi, we have
sacred stone tablet in our hands yet, into which all of this
knowledge (...?); he just breathed into that, we still have them.
And the same thing happened to a white brother who separated from
him. He gave him that sacred stone tablet and he took it around
this side of the world someplace. So today, Elders, Hopi leaders
are still waiting for our two white brothers who separated from us.
Some day, he was to come back with these sacred stone tablets, and
he was supposed to have inventions to help us, not to destroy us
with, not to destroy animals, birds, but to help us to make this
life beautiful, clean. So we welcomed our white brothers when they
came. We gave them food and lodging. We let them stay on our land.
We're not heathens or cannibals or people who destroy everything.
If we were that kind of people, I don't think any white people
would be living on our land today. We eat everyone of them. But
we're not that kind of people, so we welcomed them. But it seems
like they have power, inventions. They have money for somehow,
they're supposed to use that in the proper way to help us, but
they're misusing the power again.
And to the Hopi, the Six Nations, on a visit all around the
country, met our traditional leaders. Some of the Navajos are here,
Yakimas and Lakotas. I've found the same thing is known to them,
and so this virtuous circle was put aside someplace and the white
brother came; instead of circle they bring the cross. And they said
when that happened we're going to find out that he's going to
misuse the power that he has. So he has a recording, he wrote a lot
of things in the paper and he said: "If you take this invention
it'll help you." But when we put our hand to get it, then he said:
"Wait a minute. You sign your name on this paper, your name, before
I give it to you." Old people warned us not to sign anything that
we don't understand; of course, we don't understand English
language in early days, but they're forcing us to sign something.
That writing some day is going to be used to take our land away
from us. It happened in 1946 when the United States government
passed a law called the Indian Land Claims Commission. To all the
native people in the United States, wherever the United States has
land, it took this land away from you a long time ago without
compensation. So now, I pass this law, if you follow, claim against
the United States according to this law, if you win through our
federal court, we'll pay you money. Old people couldn't think of
ever selling this land - this is our mother. We cannot do that. And
white people came to our country just yesterday, this land doesn't
belong to them, this land belongs to the Great Spirit. And he told
us how to take care of it for him: Through prayer, meditation,
ceremony, humbleness. We have gone through that, we kept that land
beautiful, clean. So we will not file any claim. Then our white
brother will have the ability to take mineral resources and he will
try to misuse that again. And it's somehow without permission from
the religious leaders, who are the real Hopi leaders, majority of
them.
Today, they have five traditional villages that I'm
speaking of. Those are members that were in 1948 the old people
that were 80, 90, 100 years old, say that we have never made any
treaty with any nations, not even with the United States
government. So if you're going to travel, you can't go to the
United States for their passports to travel with. We must have our
own Hopi passports. So they asked me to make one, so I made one
with a buckskin cover - Hopi passport - and they put sacred prayer
feather in it - eagle feather - that the spirit, the soul of our
people and the land and spiritual center, that I must not use that
because the white brothers now require that to travel to another
country. But they came to our country, they didn't have any
passport, they just flocked in there. So they said, if I should
ever check on them, if they don't have any passport, we may have to
send them back where they came from.
But the old people say, we must see that they do the right
thing with the mineral resources. But somebody took that uranium
out of that Hopi-Navajo area where they're living today. They
didn't know that it was dangerous. They went in and dig out this
uranium. And they tested out in New Mexico, and the Hopi prophecy
says that they just might do that some day, so I'm going to make
gourd full of ashes. This earth represents the world. The man that
was speaking summarized that four day meeting, about 86 year old
spiritual leader, he said: This represents the world and we're
supposed to get this land and life beautiful clean and green.
And these symbols represent women on one side (...?) of the
world, and the women on the other side of the world. We talk about
the importance of women today. It's their gift, their ability to
produce the next generations. Without women, I don't think anyone
would be living here today. Women have a very important part as
human beings, and the same way with plant life, trees, animals,
birds. Male and female have to work together to keep these green
valleys, and we try to keep it that way.
But when our white brother make gourd full of ashes, it's
more like this there on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and burned over
200,000 families in a few seconds. Everything burned up. Many
living things died from heat in the water. The Hopi people were
talking about this, and I was amazed they described that without
even reading books or can't even read, speak English, but there in
the Hopi language they described exactly what happened in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, and they said that poison and ash will be floating
there for many years. Many sickness will come out that medicine
will not be able to cure them. Deformed babies are appearing,
deformed animals, birds. These things will continued on because
once you threw that on the earth, it was bad everywhere. And I
heard that here today.
That's what old people say. Keep on going, spreading this
message for all the people: Don't do that anymore, don't misuse
that uranium any more or any other things. There's poison coming
from oil, there's poison coming from gas, natural gas. And there
are poisons from other mineral resources that's come up from Mother
Earth. There's something happening here on this earth and we may
create so much poisoned air up there, it may be like a gas fume-up
there some day, we may have a fire-up in the sky, we won't be able
to put it out they said. They described so many things and we're
coming through that point. So I decided, because they said that we
must not disturb any other countries anywhere, however. Spiritual
messages in that land to keep it in good state by prayer,
meditation, ceremony, fasting. That's why we have the sweat lodges
and sun dances, Kachina dances in the kivas, and we go through
three, four days of fasting, so that when you perform a ceremony,
your mind, body and spirit are in good health; so that you call on
four directions. Like we prayed last night up there. it rained a
little, they're helping us, sprinkling us, let us know that we are
now coming together. And it's rain again today. And I hope that
some of you realize that we are in the period that it's us human
beings, the children of those mothers, must come together. That's
what the old people say. So we must put aside all these
wrong-doings and that is so.
When I learned many things in the Kachina society, when I
listened to the Elders also not to go disturb any other peoples'
land and life over there. So the Second World War came, I did not
register. The United States law that passed over for the native
people, and we fought that and the government, some officials, say
that native people should not be going to army, should not go to
other countries to destroy other peoples' land and life. And the
Hopi know that, so we must stand on that, so I refused to register.
And you know, in the United States I thought they only sent
criminals or thieves or robbers in the jail, but I wanted to be
Hopi. "Hopi" means "peace", "kind", "gentle", "truthful", and I
wanted to be with the Hopi people. I wanted to have my people to
bring this message to the world, to bring about peace at a later
time. They said that would be hard, problems are so great. So I
refused to register. And I think I spent almost six or seven
years in United States' government prison for not registering. To be
Hopi, to bring this message to the world.
So, after I finished that almost six years beyond that years, I
came home and wrote a letter to the President of the United States,
Eisenhower, and requested a hearing on these Hopi prophesies,
warnings and religious instructions. So they had all the selective
service together; in Holbrook Arizona, we met a full day talking,
and they had about eight or nine spiritual leaders come and they
spoke about all these things to them, more things. That is amazing
that they know these kind of things. But many nations everywhere
are going to be affected by this, what you call "gourd full ashes"
or "atom bomb", and they're going to invent more destructive
things, and somebody's going to take all that power and say: "Now,
I've got this power. If you don't do what I tell you, I'm going to
do this to you." Somebody's going to do that some day. AN we know
that there'll be two great wars taking place, because inventions
that they brought, misusing it. First World War was so terrible,
many lives and property destroyed. It stopped for a while, but it
seems like they don't listen, or don't understand. They invent more
powerful stuffs so that the Second World War came about, this time
that gourd full of ashes, other destructive thins, poison gas,
developed.
Now, to the Hopi, this Persian Gulf War was the start of the
Third World War, but it stopped. So the Hopi say, when that war
stopped, it gave all men, human beings around the earth to
consider, what are we doing with inventions? Why are we destroying
people when we talk about peace, justice, honesty, talking about
spiritual things? Every United States government official place
their hand on the Bible, up to the President. There's ten
commandments in there. The same principles that our old people tell
us, the same things they tell us not to lie and steal and plunder.
Same thing. But why? That's happened to all our native people in
our country. Someone mentioned here today, our land is about to be
taken away by force, by violent ways, by legal tricks, and many of
our people are helpless, landless in our own country. That's the
only country we have. Many of our people are starving, many of them
homeless in their own country. Why is that? Why is our white
brother, who is going to straighten that out...
The United Nations is supposed to use legal things to
straighten out these things, they're not supposed to use war. And I
went after them, I told them that they should not use war. But they
should investigate people who are doing something wrong or violent.
The United Nations human rights or other provisions, they should
investigate and stop them or even punish them with that law and not
with war. But they haven't done that.
So now, we come into, maybe we'll have a Fourth World War. When
that happens, there's nothing going to be left on this earth,
because they're going to throw all this power known to the Hopi,
that we might find ourself into it. And that's why the Hopi are
very concerned, not only for native people, not only for other
nations, but more of younger generations coming after that. What
kind of thing are we going to leave for them in the future?
And the old man says: The woman used to - in our knowledge -
that man used to walk in front going through a woods or someplace.
Women and children follow them. Someplace in life, man and wife
walk side by side, children follow them. Now, today, later, women
will be up at the front. The way he explained it, women sometimes
have a hard time putting a baby to sleep at night. Finally, the
baby went to sleep about maybe two o'clock in the morning, and
the mother put her to bed, and maybe clean up the house or the
kitchen, then she go to sleep and she had to get up early in the
morning again and start cooking and cleaning, and then, finally put
on a nice table and invite the children to come and eat. All the
children come and eat - nobody clean up the mess - and went out. So
the mother had to come back and start cleaning up this mess. The
man that mentioned that was 86 years old - I mention: so now it's
up to the woman to start cleaning up the mess. Menfolk messed this
up, they don't want to clean up. It's time for the women to really
get after them and help them clean this mess up before it's too
late. And Mother Earth's already pulling up the order - bringing
forces - Florida, hurricanes, earthquakes, hailstorms getting
bigger. We're getting close to the last days that we either clean
this mess up or we're going to find ourselves in a terrible spot.
I'm just going to show you this map and tell you that my people
knew about this a long time ago, and this is all I want to tell you
now because I don't want to run over my time. [In the next two
paragraphs, he is referring to a picture]
This white part is on the rock near my home in Oraibi. The
Great Spirit laid this path for us to follow. There's no end to
this work, none to the circle, there's no end to that as long as we
follow instructions. The white brother came. Instead of bringing
this circle he brought this cross. And we let him go up the road. We
refer to that materialistic path, inventing of many things,
powerful things that are supposed to help. They go side by side -
First, Second, Third World, First World War, Second World War and
this on the upper line, to the Hopi, is the beginning of a Third
World War, the Persian Gulf, but it stopped. So it gave us people
to correct, to change, to stop this thing we are talking about.
Uranium mining is a dangerous thing - we know that now. Are we
going to continue to develop that? Are we going to continue to mine
them? We know it's dangerous and we test out many things like the
Nevada testing area - some day, we're going to burn ourselves up.
So many things known to the Hopi, tell the world not to do that any
more. Stop uranium mining, testing. Stop everything. So I hope we
will correct this and whoever comes out will meet the Great Spirit
on the other end again. "I'm the first, I'm the last and I will
welcome those that survive and we will have beautiful, clean life
again, everything will become new again." These are some of the
things that are mentioned, that we as human beings [are] like these
flowers, and they form a circle. And outside there are many kinds
of flowers. We, the people, are like that. We will no longer have
any discrimination against black, white, red yellow. We are going
to be one human being. We are brothers and sisters, and we are
going to help to protect this Mother Earth for the next
generations, and then we will have a good life again. So this
symbol represents male, this one represents female, and this sun
symbol represents also the power. If we do not correct this
ourselves - we're talking about peace - if we do not correct this
thing, those with that symbol will have to purify this with the
power that the Great Bear [Spirit?] will give them. These are some
of the thing known.
Somehow it struck me, because when I saw German people in the
War, Hitler, with the swastika symbol, there must be something to
it. [the sun symbol referred to looks like a swastika] First,
Second World War - terrible. Now I think that the United States
began to worry about these things and I think the German people
should get together. I think that the German people should begin to
really start cleaning up this mess. That's their mission. They're
going to use their scientific knowledge and inventions and clean up
these rivers, oceans, replant trees, cover up all the uranium, and
purify with the scientists - maybe we can have a clean life again.
That, I think, is the German people's mission today, to do that.
And I'm glad that I came here, and I hope I can have more time
to explain this. There's so many things - it would take four days
to explain these things. And I want to thank Alexander, who has
written up many books and brought me here several times, and I want
to thank all of you who have helped me, because I have no money or
job, but somebody sometimes sent me a little money to help me
travel. So I'm very glad that I came here today, with Hopi passport
you let me come in.
Thank you very much.
[Moderator speaks]
I want to say that this there is of "Uranium Hearing" this
year, you hear a lot of stuff; next time you have a "Uranium
Stopping" - could be on there. "Uranium Stopping", "Uranium
Eliminating" or something we should have, that is better than
"Hearing", we hear too much!
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*+*+*POISON FIRE, SACRED EARTH*+*+*
Salzburg, September 1992:
Affected people from every continent gathered at the WORLD URANIUM
HEARING to break the silence cloaking the radioactive genocide
perpetrated by our nuclear society. The witnesses - predominantly
indigenous peoples - came as living proof: whether we mine uranium,
test nuclear weaponry, or attempt to dispose of nuclear wastes, our
victims are always peoples we do not know living in regions
unfamiliar to us. At the conclusion of this international hearing
arose a unanimous request: "Leave the uranium in the earth!"
The proceedings of this historic week are now available in English:
"Poison Fire, Sacred Earth," 314 pages, b/w photographs.
The book is available from:
The World Uranium Hearing at The International Action Centre
39 West 14th Street, Room 206, New York NY 10011, USA
Tel: 212-633-6646 Fax: 212-633-2889
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"When we walk upon Mother Earth, we always plant our feet carefully
because we know the faces of our future generations are looking
up at us from beneath the ground. We never forget them."
-Oren Lyons, Onondaga Nation
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milo@scicom.alphacdc.com Michele Lord Alpha Institute
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