As messenger and translator for Hopi elders since 1948, Thomas Banyacya, Sr. (1909-1999) traversed the globe trying to help people understand the warnings revealed in the Hopi Prophecy. In November 1995, the Sacred Land Film Project followed Thomas to the Whole Life Expo in Las Vegas where he made two hour-long presentations over two days. Here is Part 2 of 2.
Background: Two events caused Hopi elders to call an unprecedented meeting in 1948: 1) the U.S. government’s creation of the Indian Claims Commission, designed to extinguish aboriginal title to land held by Native Americans by paying them money for lands “taken” but not affirming title to land or returning lands taken, and 2) the “gourd full of ashes” raining fire from the sky in the form of atom bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These two events confirmed prophecies held by individual Hopi clans and when the elders met to discuss the meaning of these alarming developments, they selected four young Hopi men to serve as translators, interpreters and messengers to carry a warning to the outside world. The inventions and writings of the white man, aka “bahana” in Hopi, were now in such extreme violation of natural law and the instructions of the Great Spirit that Western technological/industrial society threatened all of humanity with the same apocalyptic fate that has met three previous worlds. Thomas Banyacya, Sr. was one of the messengers chosen to deliver the warnings and the positive call to action embedded in the Hopi Prophecy.