In this "strange and wonderful book," some thirty elders of the ancient Hopi tribe of Northern Arizona freely reveal for the first time in written form the Hopi world-view of life. The Hopis have kept this view a secret for countless generations, and this book was made possible only as a result of their desire to record for future generations the principles of their "Road of Life." The breaking of the Hopi silence is significant and fascinating because for the first time anthropologists, ethnologists, and everyone interested in the field of Indian study have been given rich material showing the Hopi legends, the meaning of their religious rituals and ceremonies, and the beauty of a conception of life within the natural world that is completely untouched by materialistic worlds.
"Only a person as deeply steeped in Hopi mysticism as the Hopis themselves could have produced this volume. Mr. Waters and Mr. Fredericks have approached the task of combining Hopi art, history, tradition, myth, folklore, and ceremonialism with dignity and authority.... Deserves to be part of the library of any student of the American Southwest."
I have wanted to read this book for a long time, but it wasn’t easy finding it in audio, and when I did, I realized that there were things in the beginning chapters that bothered me, such as the belief in the chakras, which are the tantric teachings of Hinduism. Next were the beliefs of the Australian Aboriginals, singing the earth’s animal and plant life into existence, and then came the Babylonian creation myth that makes up the book of Genesis in the Bible. I began to suspect that Mr. Waters had made these things up, so I looked it up. Yes, the Hopi do believe these things. My other thoughts had been that the Hopi went through India and had picked up some of their beliefs. While the origins of their Hindu beliefs in this book were solved, I never learned where they came up with the other two that I just mentioned. Maybe in regards to the Aboriginal beliefs, they stopped on the island of Australia on their way to America.
When the Hopi made claims that they were from South America, I remembered my recent DNA test from CRI Genetics. Other members of my family had chosen Ancestry.com. I didn’t trust that company, especially since the results were so vague. I called CRI about my Native American heritage, and I learned that it showed up in my test as my ancestors being from Peru, China, and India. So, Now the Hopi book made sense.
While the section on migration was boring, I also found it somewhat interesting. It was claimed that they came to America from China on the steppingstones in the ocean, the Islands. They were told to not come through the back door, which would be the Bering Strait. This warning was given because had they done so, had they used their magic to melt the ice caps, it would have flooded the earth. Such wisdom.
While this book was excellent, it was tedious and therefore, boring to me. I can’t give it less than five stars due to this. I just found little value in it myself. I am not interested in ceremonies from any religion, nor am I interested in myths. I mainly wanted to learn about their prophecies, and that, as you will learn, was the biggest disappointment. I was also interested in their religion, but very little of it is revealed. You can’t even find much about the Cherokee religious beliefs either, which is my own Native American heritage. I live in the Cherokee Nation, and not being on the rolls, I found very little. One Indian told me that it was private, whereas, my friend, who has now passed on, had claimed otherwise, but she, too, was not on the rolls. The books she gave to me said very little. The one I liked best was by Chief Dan George, who was not a Cherokee. He boiled the beliefs down to thanking the Creator for what he had given us, this earth, and to take care of the people and the earth. I like the simplicity of it. No more is needed.
My friend also believed that we should not take a little from one religion and a little from another as the New Agers had done. Yet, in reading this book, it is obvious that the Hopi had, just as all religions have done, borrowed from each other. This is why I believe that the Hopi teachings contain Hindu and Aztec beliefs. I don’t think it hat it matters what one believes just as long as it doesn’t harm others. Only most religions do harm.
I came to the last chapter, the one that I was most interested in, the prophecies. It was a big disappointment and changed my views of the Hopi. They believe that World War III would come shortly, and when it does, the U.S. will be bombed and destroyed due to how the Hopi had been by them and still are being treated. Only the Hopi will be saved. Wow! Along with this and their belief in punishment in the underworld, I can only say that they are no different than any other religion that I have come to immensely dislike. What is more, they all claim to be a peaceful people. Their Creator certainly isn’t peaceful. I don’t believe that you can be a pacifist if you desire other to die, even though you claim that this is God’s will. I don’t believe for one second that this is a true prophecy. It is one thing to see the earth being destroyed by fire or by climate change, but to see this happening with only your people remaining, well, I call that wishful revenge.
A book like this one is a rare thing – a work that truly takes one inside the folkways and mindset of a community that is different from one’s own. Writing with a painstaking level of attention to detail, and in a strong spirit of respect, Frank Waters introduces the reader to the ways of the Hopi Nation of Native Americans in his 1963 Book of the Hopi.
Waters, the author of over 20 books, spent most of his life in the American Southwest; he was part Cheyenne, and lived among the Navajo and Ute people at various points in his life. His interests in Native American life and culture, and in the history of the Southwestern United States, are defining parts of his literary sensibility; and while his novel The Man Who Killed the Deer (1942) is widely regarded as his masterpiece, Book of the Hopi is probably his most widely read work nowadays.
For this book – The First Revelation of the Hopi’s Historical and Religious Worldview of Life, as the book’s cover subtitle has it – Waters consulted with 30 Hopi elders, hoping to set forth the Hopi worldview in a manner that would not be mediated by Euro-American cultural assumptions.
Waters organizes his study of the Hopi Nation around four key themes: (1) Hopi myths, including the belief that we currently live in the fourth of nine worlds that constitute the cycle of existence; (2) Hopi legends regarding the process by which the Hopi people made their way to their homeland in what is now the state of Arizona; (3) the ceremonial cycle of mystery plays around which the Hopi organize the life of their community; and (4) the often difficult history of Hopi interaction with the European and Euro-American cultures of Spain, Mexico, and finally the United States of America.
Waters’s fascination with Hopi culture is clear throughout Book of the Hopi. His interest in a creation cycle in which the world becomes corrupt, comes to an end, and then renews itself around the cultural integrity and religious devotion of the Hopi people makes sense in terms of the Cold War context within which Book of the Hopi was published in 1963 – a time when it seemed all too possible that the people of a corrupt world would use nuclear weapons to bring the world to a premature end. Interest in the Hopi concept of the Nine Worlds persists both in scholarship (e.g., folklorist Harold Courlander’s 1972 book The Fourth World of the Hopis) and in popular culture (as with novelist Martin Cruz Smith’s 1977 thriller Nightwing).
Waters seems particularly interested in the cycle of Hopi ceremonialism, writing that
The entire course of the Hopi Road of Life is unfolded every year in an annual cycle of nine great religious ceremonies that dramatize the universal laws of life. No other “folk art” in all America remotely compares with these profound mystery plays. They wheel slowly and majestically through the seasonal cycles, like the constellations which time their courses and imbue their patterns with meaning….[A]ncient and alien to modern ears, they take on for us the dimensions of the mystical unreal. Even their names seem derived from an ancient and cryptic mythology known only to the mirroring stars above: Wúwuchim, Soyál, Powamu, Lakón, Owaqlt – words unknown to us, perhaps, but great names for great things, old names, as old as the shape of America itself. (p. 125)
Waters’s appreciation for Hopi culture is clear throughout, though sometimes his choice of language betrays his status as an outside observer; elsewhere in this same passage of otherwise glowing description, he refers to the cycle of Hopi ceremonialism as being “Barbarically beautiful”. “Barbarically”? Really?
The “Mystery Plays” section of Book of the Hopi takes up more space than any other single section of the book – 122 pages, out of a 337-page book – and readers may find some of this part of the book heavy going, simply because of the sheer conscientiousness with which Waters seeks to set down every single significant aspect of every single ceremony. But the depth of Waters’s fascination with the Hopi mystery plays often calls forth the most poetic aspects of his writing, as when he considers the role of a captured eagle in the Hopi Home Dance:
Over and over through the years one sees it, and it is never less beautiful: the still, flocculent dawn; the wonder and the mystery in the eyes of the villagers crowding the housetops; and, down below, the two spruce, male and female, standing in the empty plaza. Nothing breaks the silence save the great, proud bird tethered by one leg to his platform nearby. No living being has soared alone so high as this lord of the air. None is so proud – too proud to pick at the leash that tethers him. He simply flaps his great wings to soar aloft, only to be jerked down once more. (p. 203)
There are times for poetry, and occasions that are more prosaic in nature; and the section “The History: The Lost White Brother” sets down a difficult history that does not lend itself to a poetic rendering. The section’s subtitle refers to the longstanding belief that the Hopi would one day be visited by the pahána, a “lost white brother” from the east whose arrival would usher in a utopian new age of intercultural harmony and shared prosperity.
Unfortunately, however, what the Hopi got instead was the Spaniards, and then the Mexicans, and then the Americans – a grim, centuries-long tableau of conquest, forced religious conversion, and the imposition of alien cultural norms. This long sad history fostered divisions among the Hopi, as when Waters considers the situation of the traditionalist leader Yukioma when a split occurred among the Hopi at the village of Oraibi in 1906 and 1907:
The Oraibi split was more than a social schism between two factions. It was a psychological wound no Hopi can forget, that bleeds afresh whenever he talks. In Yukioma’s avowed retreat back into the prehistoric ruins of the past, back into mythology, we read the retrogression of a living tradition unable to confront the future. And even this retrogression was a failure. (p. 306)
To say that the Hopi have faced many challenges would be an understatement. Encroachments upon their land by the more numerous Navajo (whose much larger Navajo Nation completely surrounds the Hopi Nation) have been a regular problem in Hopi life. And the U.S. government has all too often exacerbated the problems it has claimed to want to solve. Hopi children, like Native American children from other nations under U.S. sovereignty, were taken away from their homes, forced into “Indian schools,” made to dress like white children, punished for speaking their own language. And during the Second World War, Hopi men who told U.S. Army authorities that the Hopi religion forbade them to kill were arrested, convicted, and sent to prison. Would the same thing have happened to white conscientious objectors?
Against the backdrop of that difficult history, Waters closes by asking his 30 Hopi informants a key question: how can the Hopi, and the rest of the world, move forward into an uncertain future? Their recommendations, against the book’s backdrop of Cold War tension, remind us how the large nations of the time, like the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., could have learned much from small nations like the Hopi.
Illustrated with helpful photographs and a glossary of Hopi terms, Book of the Hopi remains a valuable introduction to Hopi ways. While some contemporary observers may find the book dated, Waters’s work, in the context of a time when Native Americans across the U.S.A. were still fighting for recognition and respect for their culture, should be appreciated as a work that invited readers from the dominant culture to respect the Hopi people and Hopi ways.
I read this as a teenager, and the world view of the Hopi's affected me deeply enough at the time to consider running away from home. It was probably one of the major catalyst's to me to think about other cultures in a way that wasn't presented to us in the western world at the time via the media. (which was typically racist and demeaning).
Holy cow this book is fascinating. The Hopi have such interesting legends like how the earth was destroyed three times. Once by volcanoes, once by a flood, and once by an ice age. Also their creation story is pretty cool. But some of the things I loved the most were how they say that the creator had to destroy the earth because people would get really selfish and also they would start misusing their "powers of creation". Wow so true. Also their god led them to their land that they have now because is kind of harsh and not too easy to live on so they wont become lazy and selfish. They have to work too hard just to survive. Definately worth the effort to read.
“And now the world grows old, which is why the fine point of Wisdom is lost to us. Nobody now is equal to the Lore Masters of past times, or could even pretend to equality.“ - Fredegar’s Chronicles (written in 600’s AD) p. 2
No man today believes there was a Divine Being World then 3 more Being Worlds after of different form types before Man-Form came to (be). Yet all 12 Archaic Cultures, we all come from and disgrace (?) as moderns, taught this, not least of all the Primordial Hopi. They are a key branch to the so called “Amerindian & Maya” Cultus as one of the Big 12 Archaic Cultures I am a last guardian of.
Knowing once again of these 4 Worlds clearly is of more than this lifetimes’ value in this book collected by Waters verbatim coming precisely from a great many Elder who sanctioned not only he but this writing, exactly in order to rediscover such matters, your own history as a being on this planet becoming increasingly cheapened, devolved and confused.
Long Review (some minor spoilers):
To amplify and laud the eternal contribution of the Book of the Hopi, I CeleBrate it with corroborating proofs here confirming its value in review, from all parts of the world showing it is honest lore, of highest worth as to reading.
For Man is the 5th Being World per “western” Hesiod too, not just the Hopi (Hesiod includes the etherial, trans-temporal Divine Aegis as “one”; Man is 4th in the systems that do not, given the First World’s non linear nature).
Such number of worlds before Man are also in the Chilam Balam and Popol Vuh in South America, retained from these equally valuable archaic cultures writ not intellectually connected with each other for geographic ages per their own testimony, or the Hopi, thirdly, for many many centuries before the Europeans came.
Yet all say the same number of Being Worlds before Man Form. But they are all fools telling lies in their naivete and superstition compared to you oh wise double fooled modern?! Oh emotionally atheist, squeamish, racist supressors in your wrong octave prometheanism and glib, dismissive, amnesiac, fake-nice, fauntleroyism, about to burn down into a chimney the wrong way in such wrong octaves of “development;” glory be to your *rat*iocentric synapse changings, blessed be compared to these old naive, unupdated, “gods and fantasy believing” pagans right?
Anyways, lol or not so lol, I just want to “demonstrate infallibly” (as we say to you exo religious types) and “logically” (to you unreflecting faux skeptic majority - whom I can’t prove anything to anyhow unless I somehow get your face close to a test tube where it is repeatable in the visible materia for your - who knows where you got it - ridiculous epistomology) just what is so.
This is impossible because most are not in psychological attunement to all true knowledge in our Elders: asleep; yet just going through the motions of affronting such of that, falling into rather that which has corrupted almost all the modern masses into auto uncritical thinking: infantile and irresponsible, fauntleroyistic demand for “evidence” rather than working to corroborate the testimony of your Elders and achieve it yourself visibly (see the recent comedy that will make you cry as you laugh: “Don’t Look Up” for a read on this geschicte inside about all moderns now, all people’s unreflective auto-irony). To confront such is enjoyable enough in and of itself to me as a renegade to expose; such sleep.
For almost none now know inside themselves about the Four Worlds that came before us, Man Form, by these grey iron days we are now in; yet all of you will, perhaps 40 years from now, by the time I croak, or as the Maya say: “Enter the Path.”
Because I am spreading this globally again for the first time in ages as I alone almost am doing in any great detail (actually a few others but not enough traction yet); having actively, critically, corroboratively and confrontatively assimilated the testimony of the Big 12, including this book in review and thousands of others, and shown it all far too intricately intertwined (and yet independent geographically from the others till recently among these 12) to have been hoaxed up willie nillie by some “naive superstitious mentally under-developed pagans;” as about every modern proudly thinks of all the 12 Archaic Cultures they came out from and now spit on in their “there, there” ism (as Thom Yorke would put it). Such malaise is more dangerous than violence - and I am against violence.
Nevertheless, or in sacred newtonian causative spite of such, here then is the hard data, the testimony of the 12 I am guardian of…not some crap ted talk pouring from the meaningless into the void:
The Five Worlds of Being (so far)
[and I challenge anyone to show me the Hopi are wrong or that any culture, other than canaanite, ever taught we auto-evolved up from the mud and monkies with no finer aspect ever existing to us or in the universe and not rather that we have come down from the stars devolving through these 5 worlds as all the Big 12 teach, including the monkies being devolved man forms]
Hopi, again in clarification on the number of these Being Worlds, mention the Theogonic then Three Worlds of Beinghood that came before present man-form.
But because the first was more divinely ineffable beyond normative time scale, and we now as the 5th ending are so different compared to our beginning, they say just 3 before us; others 4 including the more ineffable Theogonic accordingly.
Any who say less than 3 or more than 4 though are liars and the Archaic Tradition of the 12 is not upheld in them.
There are different ways of understanding, parsing, the same deep history, however, that are not contradictory once the basics are comprehended among all the 12.
****These 5 Worlds are all the same in all 12 Traditions =****
First the Hopi Lore as presented in this Book:
0 < Lady Hahn’s “Elohi” Cherokee’s Elohi Mona > Trans-Temporal World: Taiowa with Sotuknang (Saoshyant/Ptah) came and made the web of life through spider woman and made things himself and the two boreal pole brothers were next
1st World < “ “ Hyperborean > a start after trans-temporality, a purple light in the North then yellow light era when breath of life came from Sotuknang. A soft spot and humidity at forehead for transmitting with Taiowa in tune or song. Ant beings at end (“antet” in egyptian cycle - see Australian Aboriginal depictions) who guided the first beings very deep to safety as their world was destroyed by fires (fires after the 25DM Permian Extinction).
2nd World < “ “ Lemurian > a start after the fires, animals were no longer conscious and began eating the beings (in Jurassic on Pangea splitting) and beings themselves lost the third eye and became animal like, hairy. Blue Midnight time in the South. It was destroyed by Ice Age (25DM Permian or 12.9DM Berriassian Age ending with Ant People coming again to protect).
3rd world < “ “ Atlantean > Kuskurza the Red Age and lands (Pushkara it is called in Hindu Writ), a start over after the Ice Age but these evil ones made citadels and wars and Patuhwvota, flying shields (Proto-man/Latter half Atlanteans/Titanomachy). They became evil, greedy, dense in materialism, and were destroyed by flood (4.5DM greatest flood ever at their peak, KT Extinction of Dinosaurs, the 867K BC Brunhes Extinction Flood ended most the second half of them).
4th world < “ “ Man > 3.8DM & 867K after the flood: man, us.
In Greco-Roman you have
1. Pre-Ouranic unnameable Fire gods descended from what a sacred plaque at Dionysius’ Areopagus called “The Unknown God” and whom Proclus said Plato and Pythagoras called “The Ineffable One all goodness comes from”
2. The Olympian Hyperborean Pantheon of the latter *Theogony* period after this, they from afar, the more ineffable to the Arimaspians (best candidates for the ancient alien theorists)
3. Maiades of the *Gigantomachy* after the Theogony Aegis (Lemuralians being mentioned by more than Pausanias at such’s demise)
4. The *Titanomachy* in the Aegis of Alphaeus, from early Artemis land to her “foot maiden” Atalantas sinking in stages as Ovid and all the Greek writers mention, not just Plato as idiot moderns are taught.
5. The Boreals, early Anthropos of Erebus and Adtanatos (we the 5th World as Hesiod says, first 3/4 I descry here)
Then scruffulous iron age man ending as we presently are
Among the Egyptian, African, Arabian, Islamic Heritage:
1. Ka’s are like Pacific Tradition’s “Kama’s” = Hidden god powers, the “unnameable One” is surrounded by Ka as Amun literally means “unnameable one.”
2. Amun-Rah beings: Rah becomes Ptah/Hephaistos, the breathing in of fiery life that breathes here by such second world’s 4th
3. “Rha is the upholder of Ma’at his daughter” (Lady Mai/Mu) and from Ma’ come the Maiades as they are also called among the Ellenes, not just Egyptian lore. This is the time of Khnum, the Hermetic Knuphs, and by end come the Horai of the 4th world (Arabs’ Mairid’s, Ifreets then Djinn fall here before the later people of fourth world Ad - the latter being they that Muhammed mentions existing and falling before the contention wars between Hudad and Hadad began but after Man started shortly after his kindred beings before he. He calls this certain line our elder kindred that was here when man first began)
4. the Khenti Amenuit of Ad and Atum, time of the Horai (Khabirim) from broken Osiris and Isis. They who came out of the Ben Ben Capstone.
5. The Aoritse Shemsu Heru come as mid man before the dynasties of more present man form per Manetho (he says 36K BC but they were before then)
In China and Buddhism the 5 are:
1. The unspeakeable Lha’s, Han lords noumening as Shén and its Xuodou manifesting as Jedue Ti’An. Dhyan Cohans, and Ishvara most high among they per Buddhist texts.
2. Pa Sien beings of HuLing, the Super Celestials of Yima per Buddha. They are great in number. Yima becomes Yama here as Yahveh becomes Yahovah as Rah becomes Ptah here & Maya show the same and the Amerindians. This is the breathing in time of the Most High.
3. Xi Wang Mu “Queen” mother of the West called Amah and King Mu (Mu Gong, duke of the East): Ambika and Uma in Buddhist texts too, later stages of same.
4. Fei they called next such hamadryads, these are the Quilin 9 dragon dynasties before the greater flood, Ao kings of Kemfas
5. The first man beings were Suiren fire people of which Nuwas is just one (sometimes the 5th family of such)
In Norse and Germanic
1. Allfater among the gods who came down upon Elivager in the North.
2. The Vanar gods, each of their 7 houses mentioned, from Orgalmer becoming Ymir becoming Hymir and so on.
3. Teutonic lore records the war between sky and land Zyphers before the Aegis of the Giants of Muesphellim (Mu) this third inversion - time of the Muesphell as they call them.
4. Of course the El-Faé’s of Alfheim arose next.
5. The Aesir from Asgard and Vanir Land before present man form descended from early Ask and Embla yet long after the giants.
Tolkien is right the Caeltic Druidic is hard found straight but his similitude, per T.’s son, ever was in self correction by his father till it accorded as exactly as possible with all the old Northern Lore’s. I and Queen Meathe of Denmark have remarked on such incredible scholarly accuracy of such. Here then is his not even veiled Similitude found in his massive 12 volume collection of all his notes and writings on History of Middle Earth recently published which I have scoured many times:
1. Eru noumening as Illuvatar (Ishvara) came with the singing fire gods: Ainur; with the Vala Ainu assistants on Araman doing much by end of this being world time.
2. The Valar on Valinor, Manwe coming in their mid period; and the Vali Mayar doing much by this Aegis’ end.
3. The Mayar, they began as play sleepers on the Great Lands, Maya become more Vanyar Djinn by end and then the Noldori on to Eldamar (Alfheim) by such periods far end as the Faé began.
4. The Faé (Enoch’s “Eliuj” and South America’s “Aleush”) or El-Faé of Eldamar increase then go among Beleriand (Hellene’s Belus Zeus Isle, Roman’s Artemis Isle...Boreal first Atlantis). Vanyar, Noldor and Teleri were their first three houses per he, in that order (Greeks call the third the Telchines and Gurdjieff the Thlinkithians and Navajo much the same), then came the Eldalie Exalias from all these and then the pereldhur half el-faé half humans, the fallas.
5. Atanatari made the shell bodies for the Hurin brought down and beginning from Beor in Hildorien and the north after Thangorodrim and Tell Erresea were ended and they later lived among Eriador and HunMar becoming the Edain/Dunedain after Akallabeth/Atalantas/Foamara also fell as he says (mid large later 3rd stage of Atl which sank 867K then came Cirdan’s time - who is the Hindu Kasyapa before Indra’s time beginning into our 5th before being replaced by Hanuman the monkey man lord...).
Gurdjieff in our times revealed symbolically in his book perhaps the most ancient of renditions still available and coming from what he calls Sarmoung not far from Kashmir and Tadjikistan.
1. The Absolute noumening as “Our Common Father” and his Venoma compositions of the most high commission, From such comes Sakaki bringing ilnosoparian life beings here
2. The Venoma Arch-angels become Hariton composition and the secondary angels come to earth sector including “Beelzebub come to repent” who is “Orome Angel of the levels” in Tolkien and other traditions and who discovers beings here on earth. Iranan is the land it seems at this time.
3. G. says before the “Atlanteans” (4th beings) were ilnosoparians capable of “making Moon/Mu” - Tolkien shows in the 3rd that the mother of all and wife of Manwe (who is Odin in Norse legend - and T.’s Tulkas his son is Thor), is named ilno.
4. He speaks of the Keschapmartnian Atlanteans and their demise when human houses were just beginning, including the second house’s progenitor who was an Ackhldan and began after Atalantas sank. After such Transapalnian major disaster he says beings went from longer living Fulasnitamnian rhythm to their composition, to more mammal mixed Itoklanotz rhythm in make, devolution into what we are now: slugs.
5. He speaks of more than one house of man-form including those Imastun long after the Ackhldan and the 10K BC flood and we becoming by all these times, again: “slugs” in comparison to afore beings we descended from of more longstanding.
In Esoteric Hebraism (I was for 12 years an adept of a great Kabbalist) (Old Canon - the Canons were once more fluid, expansive and gnostic as the Essenes showed; but Old Testament as presently known, not something lesser but penultimate among such). And, as I have said elsewhere, there are over 20 non-human-forms mentioned by these writings no exo hebrew or christian knows of any longer today except one or two.
Different “Adam” re-phase beginnings are implied from the first in Genesis for any reading it with half attention. The first began it says from the starry Elohim, which means gods, and was hermaphrodite male-female. Then Ya-Ho-Vah breathed life into clay ones after this (in truth there have been so far at least 5 Adams or beginning Manu progenitors of Root Being Worlds, this per Hinduism as well and tucked into the Bible plainly for those who have eyes to see).
So we have before our man form in the ole holy writ:
1. The One who comes down shimmering as Shamah and El Enyalion (means Most High among the El’s or Lha’s) from Seraphic to Cherubim Arch-Angel heights to elohim of this earth, Jehovah being head of such hosts.
2. Then Angelic times when they fashioned the earth and they are called powers or principalities, rephaim and terraphim being but the latter one’s in late times of all this
3. Masakim came next per the most sacred of books, the book of Enoch, by end they are described as Nephilim giants. Neph means psychic-flesh in Hebrew (Nephesh), elim means gods, hence psychic-flesh (terrestrialized) gods were these here. Ovid shows Mai to be “mother of the time and land when gods first became terrestrial in form,”and “Uma” in Buddhism, whom Jim Morrison sings of, is the same.
4. Next came they Plato and Hebrews call the Bne’ Elim or sons of the gods and the original Isaiah scroll says all nations were named after such pre-human beings calling them Bne’ Elim. The Book of Enoch calls them Eliuj.
5. Then came Boreal Man, Ashers, “tall noble men who went bad and sank under the sea after battles” says Ezekiel. And 3 Prophets mention their land Aiseroom which is described as connecting the Siberian Mt Shinar to another land mass beyond that sea (America’s) which is as a vineland - remember the Norse discovered America long before Columbus and called it Vinland and Fallas - their Asgard, the Budhists Agartha, was located near Sakakin above present day Japan (but was pushed in 867K into becoming the Subeshi wastes). The Hindu’s called lower Vinland (the America’s): Pushkara. Joshua speaks of the former ken of man, the early anakim (after the anunaki) as being “the people before the people” - they long before exoteric histories 5.5K BC “Adam” Al Buruni the Hyrcanian and The Book of the Cave of Treasures reveals much concerning.
Esoteric Gnostic Christianity The Syballine Oracles were once part of the New Testament Canon in many Eclectics till sociopaths ripped it out. Such writings begin with talk on these 5 worlds in great and magnificent detail.
Hinduism
1. Agnishwata Pitars, Planetary Governors
2. Narada’s, Sunanda’s, Jata the Chief, Kumaras, Vodu’s, Panchasikha’s of Aryan Vaegha
3. Lords of the Moon, Kriyasakhti Rishis from Meru, Nagas, Buta Ghanas, Vaivasvata Manu, Manaswin Devs, Priyavrata & Daksha’s 10, Manasa Putras, Naga Serpent Lords
4. Swayambhuva Manu, Siddhe’s from Siddhapura, Sadu’s, Ghandarvas of the seven rivers and Apsaras, Suras who became Asuras: they coming out of Rhuta and Adaitya, Daitya and Atala
5. Asura Proto Men of Uttaru Kuru, Rudra Maruts of Kasyapa then Indra Indrahah, Danavas then Sakyas then Hanuman Ape Lords age who ended Indra’s age.
Sumerian & Zoroastrian
1. Ainu, the 7 planetary gods
2. Anu then Upulu gods of Anu & Saoshyant’s war against Vohu Maneh on Aryan Vaega
3. Nakim (Nagas/Nephidim) “Mouru is the 3rd creation of Ahura Mazda,” (Avestas) Masakim of Mulil Bel
4. AnuNaki also called Alulim like the Maya “Aloesh”
5. Anakim proto men then man from Kanaka, Khnoom before moderns so called “Adam” of mere 5.5K BC.
I have left out Pacific and Atlantic Islanders Traditions on the same and a few others among the Big 12; but hopefully, it is my dearest wish a few of you gain the giste and see there is no possible way all of these Archaic Cultures - so long stranded from each other till the 1600’s - could have possibly all coincidentally, accidentally or intentionally fabricated such detail. It is my prayer a few of you see this and show others this is our actual, objective, history on earth as beings and that all that the Hopi taught in this book is sacredly correct. Rupert Sheldrake’s scientific finds of slow morphic resonance to all laws of science (including the changes in body forms over time) are real. Yet there are also real octave changes, ends and beginnings, for all kinds of beings here probably not unrelated to intergalactic influence as well, from time immemorial on this planet.
This book is arranged in to three parts - a section on Hopi myths and stories, another on rituals and feast days, and a last portion covers the historical record since Europeans came to the southwest. They're all fascinating, but the first two take a bit more focus to keep straight and follow the threads of, at least as someone who isn't steeped in the culture and customs. The book is slightly dated, I would like to read an updated version that continues the historical narrative and gives more context and explanation to the myths and customs. It's remarkable for its day and still readable today, ie not just a pile of racism.
A classical study of the Hopis supposedly written with the elders information and consent in the 60's. Traditionalists discredit Frank Waters information in this book, so it makes it hard to decide what to believe or not. Despite this, it makes a fascinating read, especially for me the history according to the elders and the creation myths. The ceremonies bogs down as its so intricate, but worth reading through.
4.5/5 This book is phenomenal, not perfect, but I think it might have changed my life. Even though it was published about 60 years ago and might be outdated now, the Hopi history is fascinating as well as heartbreaking. I learned so much about Hopi myths, ceremonialism, and culture.
The testimonial on the back of this edition proclaims "deserves to be part of the library of any student of the American Southwest", which I find to be very short-sighted on the part of the reviewer.
This book is not just an origin myth of an indigenous people. It proclaims the history of the Americas and a history of a pre-historic people, and, if one wants, a geological history of the world. Any anthropologist, geologist, or sociologist needs to study what this book has to tell us about our origins.
The detail of the Hopi migrations, the explanations of the worlds destroyed by fire, ice, and then water, are fascinating in what they reveal. Though most anthropologists do not believe that an oral history of the past 30,000 years (pre-history) could possibly exist, it seems that it does for the Hopi, and if I had a Ph.D. candidacy to fight for, this would definitely be my subject of choice.
But is also much more than a history (though that was, for me, the most fascinating part): it is an explanation of Hopi ceremonies and dances. Mr. Waters details a pathway to the sacred, if one is so inclined to follow it. I only wonder how much more was left unrevealed - the various secret societies are only briefly mentioned, and their ceremonies still shrouded.
I was left feeling saddened and hopeful after reading this book: saddened (once again) about the treatment of all of the people that the Europeans found here, but also hopeful that the Hopi revelations tell of a path to the next world that we all may find. (though our own may be destroyed in the process...)
I don't even know for whom to recommend this book, but I would start with history buffs, enlightenment seekers, and those who are open to life. Wondrous and full of new ideas, the love and concern of the author and his collaborators in writing this comes through on every page.
Five stars if you are a scholar, only three if you just want an overview.
This in-depth anthropological study begins with a narrative of the creation myths and migration legends of the Hopi tribe of native Americans.
The creation story involves a series of Worlds, each of which becomes contaminated by Man’s deviation from following the rules and rites ordained by the Creator, each of which is destroyed, first by fire, then by ice, then by flood. We are now in the Fourth World. The Hopi myth postulated that seven worlds will come and go before Man finally becomes one with the Creator.
The legends tell of the wanderings of the Hopi tribe over the earth until they reach their destined home in central Arizona. They seem to tell of travels originating in Mexico and going as far north as the Arctic.
These sections of the study are fascinating, as the myths and legends eerily echo the stories of Genesis and other creation stories.
The third section exhaustively recounts each of the Hopi ceremonies which keep the tribe linked to their tradition and to the Creator. Exhaustive is the correct word, as Waters with the help of his Hopi collaborators lists every detail of each dance, its participants, its location, its background, its costumes, its accessories. And there are a lot of dances. If your interest is not scholarly, you could skip most of this.
The last section is the History, a sad recounting of how the Hopis were betrayed by the American government over and over, their peaceful villages left unprotected against the depredations of their warlike Navajo neighbors, and their clans dwindling to a hollow shell of their former culture and cohesiveness.
I’m a big fan of Tony Hillerman’s series about Navaho policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. This study gives a different vision of the Navajo tribe which is a useful corrective.
A really beautiful book with some excellent illustrations and photographs, however, I found the writing style to be extremely dry and tedious. The first two sections on Hopi creation myths and migrations were fascinating, then it just went downhill from there. The section on their annual ceremonies was a tough trudge, even though the material was interesting, and the last section concerning their history with Europeans and Americans was one of the worst most oversimplified accounts of Western History I have read in a while. I do understand that this book was written in the early 60's and the discourse/conversations about indigenous people are much different now, but I would say buy this book for the awesome cover, illustrations, and photographs and get your historical information from another source.
I read this book to cap off all I've learned about the Ancestral Pueblo Native Americans. The Hopi are thought to be their descendants. The book takes you inside the Kiva to observe a bewildering array of ceremonies, rites and performances. The religion is complex and focused on natural events, not the least of which is rain. It also provides a backdrop of the Hopi's own creation story, flood story and ancient migrations and the formation of the many different clans. Clan symbols are often left in the petroglyphs and pictographs on the canyon walls.
Utterly fascinating book. I knew virtually nothing about the Hopi Indians before I read this, and I was amazed to learn about the rich spiritualism of Hopi ceremonies, beliefs, and world view that are described and explained here. I don't think the word "primitive" applies at all. Reading this book is just not enlightening, either. It's thought provoking, and I might even say transformative. Hopi traditional culture, as I learned, is mostly a peaceful one, rather unlike the rational, materialistic culture in which most of us live.
It is easy to get lost in the detailed descriptions of the overwhelming number of symbols and spirits that form the basis of the Hopi culture that Frank Waters lays out. It is a monumental effort and much too rich to read in a month or two. In my opinion this research takes more of a life long commitment to read and understand. This is my second time through the book and it is just as fascinating as my previous effort. A very complex culture indeed.
A classic title dealing with native American religion. I've worked my way through it two or three times over the years. Don't know why it wasn't on my list of books read.
An amazing read -- one to be savored and thought about rather than sped through.
This work explores the culture and traditions of the Hopi Indians. It includes their creation legends. The ceremonials and the picture writings are discussed.
An often fascinating book, but its chaotic arrangement betrays its underlying problems. Waters argues that previous studies of Hopi religion had been written from a hostile rationalist position: I can't argue for the trajectories of American anthropology, but there's no need for an author to accept a belief system as true for them to represent its truth to its practitioners seriously and sympathetically.
Waters is careful to begin with the most universalised view of Hopi belief practice, through sections that are littered with promises that the material under discussion will finally be explained properly at a later point in the text. The religious universalising goes too far, to the point where Waters is all but arguing identity with far eastern religious practices he'd introduced as analogies (while simultaneously downplaying actual historical assessments of the other potential influences). However, when we reach the useful final historical section, it becomes clear that even his proposed universalism throughout all the Hopi communities is somewhat overstated.
It's fascinating, and the area's not one I'm over-familiar with, but the ethnography here seems insecure and not entirely reliable. (We very rarely hear his informants directly in their own words, and they disappear anonymously into Waters's construction of a synthetic whole that turns out not to reflect the reality of his informants' actual lives). I'll read further.
Fascinating research on Hopi belief, history, and tradition. I read this book to prepare for a trip to northern Arizona and found this additional context to be useful in getting more out of visits to pueblos and heritage sites. I now feel more informed and sensitive to Native Americans living in the US and for that I am grateful.
For the most part the book is at a good level for a reader with no existing knowledge of the Hopi, but at times I felt like it lacked explanation for some of the terms used. I also felt that the chapter about the ceremonies and dances was too detailed for my interest level; I skipped this chapter. However, I did learn a lot from the chapters devoted to explaining the creation myths, clans, and recent history, especially in relation to the US. The pictures and illustrations were also a key inclusion -- I'd insist on a print copy over a digital copy in order to help flip back and forth between the illustration and the explanation as the annotations on the illustrations themselves are limited.
If I had stopped reading before the last part, which is lots of history, I would have rated it lower than five, because a couple hundred pages is given to details of the many ceremonies, and I felt overwhelmed by all the information. However, once the historical part puts the ceremonial stuff in the context of the history and current (at the time the book was written) condition of the Hopi people, I was glad I had struggled through all the ceremonial detail, because it gave me a perspective about how important the religion is to the culture, at least to the traditionalists. These are heroic people, who have since time immemorial disdained violence and believed that if they lived in accord with their creator they would be rewarded by their creator. Learning about the Hopi experience and attitude could be giant step in the redemption of our world.
Reading a sacred text such as this book takes time and focus. Do not attempt to read this book unless you are prepared to study the Hopi’s tedious rituals & ceremonies. I chose to study this book because of my fascination with Ancient Pueblo Culture. My family has land in Williamson Valley,AZ so we have visited some of the ancient ruins in the area. I found out about this book from reading about Jimi Hendrix. He loved this book. This is book is a treasure that feels like you are reading the mysteries and truths of the human existence. Kachina theory is through and the costumes are beautifully precise. The history part of this book ties together the meaning of the ceremonies & rituals of the Hopi. Like all Indigenous history this one is unjust and sad.
The first three parts of the book are well-researched with lots of photos and illustrations. It sounds like things came together so that this level of completeness could happen.
The fourth part, with more modern history, suffers a little from being so without conclusion and things we have learned since then. It might be worth revisiting to see if things have come any closer to the ended recommendations. Is witchcraft still a problem?
I also can't help but know that the Navajo would probably have a different perspective on their conflict with the Hopi.
So I know that the book has shortcomings, but it still has a lot that is fascinating.
As problematic as it is dry. It's a book that should make you ask the question "Can this possibly be accurate?" because the likely answer is "no."
I got about a third of the way into the book before I felt compelled to put it down.
I highly encourage folks to look deeper into the history of this book's creation. In my view it is extremely suspect.
Geertz, A. (1983). Book of the Hopi: The Hopi's Book? Anthropos, 78(3/4), 547-556. Retrieved September 7, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40460648
Fascinating book with incredible details,drawings,pictures about the old Hopi Indians immigrations,life,ceremonies,rituals,legends and ofc the 4 worlds stories and the 9 world prophecies . It talking about the 3rd world Flood and our current 4th world and ending of current world and beginning of the 5th world . With nowadays science and deep research you will find geological proof of the radical changes around the year 9500 BC and sudden emerging of the civilation after that at once. The flood stories all over the world and many documentaries what can factualises it very well.
After considerable volunteer work in Hopi, and making many friends on First & Second Mesas, I thought I'd read this "popular guide" to Hopi to see if and how it may actually align with the people. I have misgivings but we'll see.
I wish, though, that so many would worry just a quarter as much about how Hopi, a small tribe, struggles to maintain their rich culture and identity as they do about Hopi prophecy and mythology.
With his interesting look into the “Hopi” way, Frank Waters chronicles an ever-lost way of life. One full of spiritualism and meaning, the Hopi stand unique amongst the many tribes of Native Americans. Their lore and history stands as deep and enthralling as any Europeans culture. The book does well to cover all bases, but it is redundant and lacking some refinement. Overall, a good read for any anthropology, religion, spirituality, and/or history fan.
It is gives some interesting looks at the religion of the Hopi's and also gives a written history of the Hopi that had been oral before. The writing seems to be from a viewpoint that reflects the beliefs of a faction of the Hopi. This was written in the 1960s and I wonder how things have changed with the passage of time. This is not your normal history. It is very important history but it is not a viewpoint neutral history. I generally liked it, but I did not buy it all.
This is a very detailed look into Hopi religion, creation myths, migrations, tribal factions, interactions with neighboring tribes and the foretelling of The Lost White Brother. I really enjoyed this one because I'm into the Native American scene. And, have been since early childhood. I gave this one a solid 4.5 stars! Cheers everyone!
Highly recommend this book. I read it four times over a three year period and hope to give it another go later in life. The Hopi creation story is magnificent; one of my all time favorites. The author does a great job with the subject and I appreciate his matter of fact delivery style.