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Cherokee Prophecies
Excerpts from a talk at the 1986 Continental Indigenous Council, Fairbanks,
Alaska By Lee Brown, Cherokee
There was the cycle of the mineral, the rock. There was the cycle of the plant.
And now we are in the cycle of the animal coming to the end of that and
beginning the cycle of the human being. When we get into the cycle of the human
being, the highest and greatest powers that we have will be released to us.
t the beginning of this cycle of time, long ago, the Great Spirit made an
appearance and gathered the peoples of this earth together, and said to the
human beings, "I'm going to send you to four directions, and over time I'm
going to change you to four colors, but I'm going to give you some teachings,
and you will call these the Original Teachings; when you come back together
with each other, you will share these so that you can live and have peace on
earth, and a great civilization will come about. During the cycle of time, I'm
going to give each of you two stone tablets. When I give you those stone
tablets, don't cast them upon the ground. If any of the sisters and brothers
cast their tablets on the ground, not only will human beings have a hard time,
but almost the earth itself will die."
And so He gave each of us a responsibility, and we call that the Guardianship.
To the Indian people, the red people, He gave the Guardianship of the Earth. We
were to learn during this cycle of time the teachings of the earth, the plants
that grow from the earth, the foods that you can eat, and the herbs that heal
so that, when we came back together with the other sisters and brothers, we
could share this knowledge with them. Something good was to happen on the
earth.
To the South He gave the yellow race of people the Guardianship of the Wind.
They were to learn about the sky and breathing and how to take that within
ourselves for spiritual advancement. They were to share that with us at this
time.
To the West He gave the black race of people the Guardianship of the Water.
They were to learn the teachings of the water, which is the chief of the
elements, being the most humble and the most powerful. The elders have told
me that the black people would bring the teachings of the water.
To the North He gave the white race of people the Guardianship of the Fire. If
you look at the center of many of the things they do, you will find the fire.
They say a light bulb is the white man's fire. If you look at the center of a
car you will find a spark. If you look at the center of the airplane and the
train you will find the fire. The fire consumes, and also moves. This is why it
was the white sisters and brothers who began to move upon the face of the earth
and reunite us as a human family.
And so a long time passed, and the Great Spirit gave each of the four races two
stone tablets. Ours are kept at the Hopi Reservation in Arizona at Four Corners
Area on Third Mesa. I talked to people from the black race, and their stone
tablets are at the foot of Mount Kenya. They are kept by the Kukuyu Tribe. I
was at an Indian spiritual gathering about 15 years ago. A medicine man from
South Dakota put a beaded medicine wheel in the middle of the gathering. It had
the four colors from the four directions; he asked the people, "Where is this
from?" They said, "Probably Montana, or South Dakota, maybe Saskatchewan." He said, "This is from Kenya." It was beaded just like ours, with the same colors.
The stone tablets of the yellow race of people are kept by the Tibetans. If you
went straight through the Hopi Reservation to the other side of the world, you
would come out in Tibet. The Tibetan word for sun is the Hopi word for moon,
and the Hopi word for sun is the Tibetan word for moon.
The guardians of the traditions of the people of Europe are the Swiss. In
Switzerland, they still have a day when each family brings out its mask. They
still know the colors of the families, and they still know the symbols, some of
them. Each of these four peoples happen to live in the mountains. Each of the
four races went to their directions and learned their teachings.
It was in Newsweek not long ago that eight out of ten foods that people eat on
the earth are developed here in the western hemisphere because that was our
Guardianship -- to learn the teachings of the earth and the things that grow
from the earth. We were given a sacred handshake to show, when we came back
together as sisters and brothers, that we still remembered the teachings. It
was indicated on the stone tablets that the Hopis had that the first sisters
and brothers who would come back to them would come as turtles across the land.
They would be human beings, but they would come as turtles. So when the time
came close, the Hopis were at a special village to welcome the turtles that
would come across the land. They got up in the morning and looked out at the
sunrise. They looked out across the desert, and they saw the Spanish
conquistadores coming, covered in armor, like turtles across the land. So this
was them. So they went out to the Spanish man, and they extended their hand, h
oping for the handshake. But into the hand the Spanish man dropped a trinket.
And so word spread throughout North America that there was going to be a hard
time, that maybe some of the brothers and sisters had forgotten the sacredness
of all things and all the human beings were going to suffer for this on the
earth.
So tribes began to send people to the mountains to have visions to try to
figure out how they could survive. At that time there were 100,000 cities in
the Mississippi Valley alone, called the mound civilization: cities built on
great mounds. Those mounds are still there. They began to try to learn to live
off the land because they knew a hard time was going to come. They began to
send people to have visions to see how we could survive this time. They were
told in the prophecies that we should try to remind all the people that would
come here of the sacredness of all things. If we could do that, then there
would be peace on earth. But if we did not do that, if we had not come together
as a human family, the Great Spirit would grab the earth with His hand and
shake it.
The elders on the west coast prophesied that they would then begin to build a
black ribbon. And on this black ribbon there would move a bug. And when you
begin to see this bug moving on the land, that was the sign for the First
Shaking of the Earth. The First Shaking of the Earth would be so violent that
this bug would be shaken off the earth into the air and it would begin to move
and fly in the air. And by the end of this shaking this bug will be in the air
around the world. Behind it would be a trail of dirt and eventually the whole
sky of the entire earth would become dirty from these trails of dirt, and this
would cause many diseases that would get more and more complicated. So the bug moving on the land, of course it's easy to see now. In 1908 the Model-T Ford
was mass produced for the first time. So the elders knew the First Shaking of
the Earth was about to come about -- that was the First World War.
In the First World War the airplane came into wide usage for the first time.
That was that bug moving into the sky. And so they knew something very
important would happen. There would be an attempt to make peace on earth on
the west coast of this land, and so the elders began to watch for this. They
began to hear that there was going to be a League of Nations in San Francisco,
so the elders gathered in Arizona around 1920 or so, and they wrote a letter to
Woodrow Wilson. They asked if the Indian people could be included in the League of Nations.
The United States Supreme Court had held that a reservation is a separate and
semi-sovereign nation, not a part of the United States but protected by it.
This became a concern because people didn't want the reservations to become
more and more separate. They didn't want them to be considered nations. So they did not write back, and the Native people were left out of the League of
Nations so that circle was incomplete. In the League of Nations circle there
was a southern door, the yellow people; there was a western door, the black
people; there was a northern door, the white people; but the eastern door was
not attended. The elders knew that peace would not come on the earth until the
circle of humanity is complete, until all the four colors sat in the circle and
shared their teachings, then peace would come on earth.
So they knew things would happen. Things would speed up a little it. There
would be a cobweb built around the earth, and people would talk across this
cobweb. When this talking cobweb, the telephone, was built around the earth,
a sign of life would appear in the east, but it would tilt and bring death
(the swastika of the Nazis). It would come with the sun. But the sun itself
would rise one day, not in the east but in the west (the rising sun of the
Japanese Empire). So the elders said when you see the sun rising in the east,
and you see the sign of life reversed and tilted in the east, you know that the
Great Death is to come upon the earth, and now the Great Spirit will grab the
earth again in His hand and shake it, and this shaking will be worse than the
first. So the sign of life reversed and tilted, we call that the Swastika, and
the rising sun in the east was the Rising Sun of Japan. These two symbols are
carved in stone in Arizona. When the elders saw these two flags, they knew that
these were the signs that the earth was to be shaken again.
The worse misuse of the Guardianship of the fire is called the gourd of ashes.
They said the gourd of ashes will fall from the air. It will make the people
like blades of grass in the prairie fire, and things will not grow for many
seasons. The atomic bomb, the gourd of ashes, it was the best-kept secret in
the history of the US. The elders wanted to speak about it in 1920.
They would have spoken of it and foretold its coming if they could have entered
into the League of Nations. The elders tried to contact President Roosevelt to
ask him not to use the gourd of ashes because it would have a great effect on
the earth and eventually cause even greater destruction and a the Third Shaking
of the Earth, the Third World War.
So they knew after the Second Shaking of the Earth when they saw the gourd of
ashes fall from the sky, there would be an attempt to make peace on the other
side of this land. And because the peace attempt on the west coast had failed,
they would build a special house on the east coast of this Turtle Island, and
all the nations and peoples of the earth would come to this house, and it would
be called the House of Mica, and it would shine like the mica on the desert
shines. So the elders began to see they were building the United Nations made
out of glass that reflects like the mica on the desert so they knew this was
the House of Mica, and all the peoples of the earth should go to it. So they
met and talked about this. They said that in the 1920's they had written and
they had not been responded to, so they said this time we'd better go to the
front door of the House of Mica because things might get a lot worse.
So elders representing a number of tribes drove to New York City. When the
United Nations opened, they went to the front door of the house of Mica and
they said these words, 'We represent the indigenous people of North America,
and we wish to address the nations of the Earth. We're going to give you four
days to consider whether or not we will be allowed to speak.'
They retreated to one of the Six Nations Reserves in New York State. Four days
later they came back, and I believe the nations of the earth heard that the
Indians had come to the door. And they voted to let the Indians in. They wanted
to hear what they had to say. But the United States is one of five nations of
the United Nations with a veto power, and still they were concerned because
this time the Native sovereignty was even stronger. And I believe they vetoed
the entrance of the Native people.
So then they knew other things would happen on the Earth. So they retreated to
the Six Nations Reserve, and they talked about this, and they said the time is
really getting close now -- 1949. They said, "We're going to divide the United
States into four sections, and each year we're going to have a gathering. We're
going to call these the White Roots of Peace Gatherings." They began to have
these around 1950. And they authorized certain people to speak in English for
the first time about these prophecies.
One that I used to listen to many times, over and over, was Thomas Banyaca. He
was authorized to speak in English about what was on the stone tablets, and he
has dedicated his life to doing this. And they began to tell us at these
gatherings, "You're going to see a time in your lifetime when the human beings
are going to find the blueprint that makes us." They call that now DNA,
deoxyribonucleic acid. They said, "They're going to cut this blueprint." They
call that now genetic splicing. And they said, "They're going to make new
animals upon the earth, and they're going to think these are going to help us.
And it's going to seem like they do help us. But maybe the grandchildren and
great-grandchildren are going to suffer." The elders said long ago, "They will
release these things, and they will use them." This is going to be released not
too long from now. They are making new animals. The elders talked about this.
They said, "You will see new animals, and even the old animals will come back,
animals that people thought had disappeared. They will find them here and
there. They'll begin to reappear."
They said, "You're going to see a time when the eagle will fly its highest in
the night, and it will land upon the moon. And at that time, many of the Native
people will be sleeping," which symbolically means they have lost their
teachings. We're at that time now. The Eagle has landed on the moon, 1969. When
that spaceship landed, they sent back the message, "The Eagle has landed."
Traditionally, Native people from clear up in the Inuit region have shared with
us this prophecy, clear down to the Quechuas in South America.
At this time you're going to see that things will speed up, that people on the
earth will move faster and faster. Grandchildren will not have time for
grandparents. Parents will not have time for children. It will seem like time
is going faster and faster. The elders advised us that, as things speed up, you
yourself should slow down. The faster things go, the slower you go. Because
there's going to come a time when the earth is going to be shaken a third time.
The Great Spirit has shaken the earth two times: the First and Second World
Wars to remind us that we are a human family, to remind us that we should have
greeted each other as brothers and sisters. We had a chance after each shaking
to come together in a circle that would have brought peace on earth, but we
missed that.
Tonight they were talking on the news about the sign for the Third Shaking of
the Earth. They said they're going to build what the elders called the house in
the sky. In the 1950's they talked about this: they will build a house and
throw it in the sky. When you see people living in the sky on a permanent
basis, you will know the Great Spirit is about to grab the earth, this time not
with one hand, but with both hands. When this house is in the sky, the Great
Spirit is going to shake the Earth a third time, and whoever dropped that gourd
of ashes, upon them it is going to drop. They say at that time there will be
villages in this land so great that when you stand in the villages you will not
be able to see out, and in the prophecies these are called villages of stone,
or prairies of stone. And they said the stone will grow up from the ground, and
you will not be able to see beyond the village.
At the center of each and every one of these villages will be Native people,
and they will walk as hollow shells upon a prairie of stone. They said hollow
shells, which means they will have lost any of their traditional
understandings; they will be empty within. They said that, after the Eagle
lands on the moon, some of these people will begin to leave these prairies of
stone and come home and take up some of the old ways and begin to make
themselves reborn, because it's a new day. But many will not. And they said
there's going to come a time when in the morning the sun is going to rise, and
this village of stone will be there, and in the evening there would just be
steam coming from the ground. They will be as steam. And in the center of many
of those villages of stone, when they turn to steam, the Native people will
turn to steam also because they never woke up and left the village.
They say there's going to be the Third Shaking of the Earth. It's not going to
be a good thing to see, but we will survive it. We will survive it. And when we
survive it, there's going to be another attempt to make a circle of the human
beings on the earth. And this time the Native people will not have to petition
to join but will be invited to enter the circle because they say the attitude
toward us will have changed by then, and people will let us into the circle,
and all the four colors of the four directions will share their wisdom, and
there will be a peace on earth. This is coming close.
The prophecies are always either/or. We could have come together way back there in 1565, and we could have had a great civilization, but we didn't. Always
along the path of these prophecies, we could have come together. We still
could.
If we could stop the racial and religious disharmony, we would not have to go
through this third shaking. The elders say the chance of that is pretty slim.
It seems to me like it's pretty slim, too. But they say what we can do is we
can cushion it so it won't be quite as bad. How do we do this? We do this by
sharing the teaching that will reunite us.
Poverty is a noose that strangles humility and breeds disrespect for God and man.
- Sioux
Lightning strikes the earth about 8 million times a day.
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