Hopi Prophecy Says Past Worlds Fell to Greed and Balance Is Survival

According to Hopi tradition, people today inhabit a fourth era, after three earlier eras collapsed whenever humans strayed from a proper way of living.

In the earliest era, humans and animals dwelled peacefully and without strife until selfishness set in and people fought one another. Those who stayed loyal were guided below the earth to dwell alongside antlike helpers, who divided their stores and showed that endurance requires mutual help and generosity, while flames fell and volcanoes burst overhead.

When the flames ceased, the survivors emerged and formed a thriving second era of market towns. As commerce expanded, traders grew fixated on wealth and neglected spiritual obligations, so the creator had the pole guardians release the planet and it turned to ice.

The third era raised urban centers, advanced societies, and flying craft. That prowess bred pride, and rival nations made war with heavy loss of life. Then came a flood with towering waves that drowned whole lands, while the loyal rode out the deluge sheltered within enormous hollow stalks until the waters fell and they paddled east.

For the present era, accounts describe a guardian spirit who etched guidance for living in harmony on sacred stone tablets. One small dark tablet shows a figure without a head and lacks one corner, said to have been taken east long ago by the lost white brother, Pahana.

The teaching holds that Pahana's return with the missing fragment will open a time of testing through quakes, floods, and widening conflict. People who keep to a selfless path will endure, while people overtaken by selfish craving for possessions will perish.

Near Oraibi, believed to be among the oldest villages, elders etched that choice on a massive sandstone slab known as Prophecy Rock. One very long line marks the road of living with nature, the other marks the road of tools and inventions divorced from spirit, marked by three major upheavals.