I am re-reading parts of a Hopi warning book for Earth Day

[KurtNYC]

Back in the mid 1990s a former roommate contacted me and said that he had been traveling through New Mexico and he was approached by an elder member of the Hopi tribes there. He said the Hopi elder described me and then gave him a book which he had to promise to give to me. And THAT alone freaked me out initially but I have gotten used to it. What gets me now is some of the content of the book.

And so my former roommate mailed me this book. It is xeroxed on 3 hole paper and bound with brads. Much of it seems to be written in the 1980s and it is all about ecological disaster and how the world is out of balance. It starts:

This is a book about cause and effect.

It details parts of the "Great purification" and foresees the ultimate effects of climate changes and greed. Some of it is poetically brilliant and some profound and, to be fair, some of it is numerology and just kind of crazy but different pages are done by different authors and it is all interesting. Some pages are done by Cherokee elder Willy Whitefeather.

Here is page 70:

The Maze is a philosophy of Life. It tells the complicated, difficult and often puzzling way a man must walk to find Happiness at the center of the maze. Though he seems at times to be going in the opposite direction, if man will persevere, he will find Happiness and Peace.

It notes that maize is corn and corn is central to Hopi spirituality (and diet). The next page is classic Whitefeather stuff, further expanding on the connections between diet, balance and harmony. He makes much of the the number 4 here also. 4 is a divine number in some asian cultures. It is associated with balance and strength.

The Corn Mother
4 Golds, 4 Races
Black man got golden potato, yellow man got golden rice, red man got golden corn, white man got golden wheat -- All from Great Spirit.
Indian corn -- the kernels are red, white, black and yellow; the four races of this world.

And that's it. Each of the foods mentioned is storeable for months thereby providing sustainability. Growing wheat, potatoes, rice and corn was the basis of civilization for thousands of years, the end of hunt and gather. To quote John Boorman 'These people still know things we have long forgotten.'