Presenter
Thomas Banyacya
Recorded in Los Angeles, 1985, Thomas Banyacya shares the Hopi vision, part of his 50 year mission, started 1948, to warn the people of the world and fend off the destructive power of deceptive mind and stifling of spirit, that had already led to World War II, the fighting of which had contributed to the development and use of atomic weaponry.
Part 1 | Part 2
Both Parts (zip file)
Excerpted from the NY Times Feb 25, 1999:
Thomas Banyacya, who spent half a century on a tireless and often thankless Hopi spiritual mission to save the planet from the ravages of modern materialism and greed, died on Feb. 6 at a hospital in Keane Canyon, Ariz., about 40 miles from his home in Kykotsmovi on the Hopi reservation. He was 89 and the last of four messengers named by Hopi elders in 1948 to warn the world of impending doom.
The 15,000 or so Hopis are a small nation, but their sense of burden is great. According to a 900-year-old religious tradition, the Great Spirit Maasau'u, Guardian of the Earth, assigned them the duty of preserving the natural balance of the world and entrusted them with a series of ominous prophecies warning of specific threats and providing guidance on how to avoid them.
The prophecies remained a secret oral tradition until 1948, when Hopi religious leaders, alarmed by reports of the atomic bomb's mushroom cloud, which they saw as the destructive 'gourd of ashes' foretold in the prophecies, appointed Mr. Banyacya and three others as messengers to reveal and interpret the prophecies to the outside world.