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Fourth World - The Migrations
[From Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters, 1963.] Masaw, [the] guardian spirit [of] this new Fourth World, outlined the manner in which [the people] were to make their migrations, how they were to recognize the place where they were to settle permanently, and the way they were to live when they got there. All this was symbolically written on the four sacred tablets given them The Sacred Tablets [these tablets exist; - sketches can be found in the book] One of the tablets Masaw gave to the Fire Clan. On one side were marked several symbols, and on the other the figure of a man without a head... [and] a piece [was] broken off from one corner. This is what [is] marked on the tablet: After the Fire Clan had migrated to their permanent home, the time would come when they would be overcome by a strange people. They would be forced to develop their land and lives according to the dictates of a new ruler, or else they would be treated as criminals and punished. But they were not to resist. They were to wait for the person who would deliver them. This person was their lost white brother, Pahana, who would return to them with the missing corner piece of the tablet, deliver them from their persecutors, and work out with them a new and universal brotherhood of man. But... if their leader accepted any other religion, he must assent to having his head cut off. This would dispel the evil and save his people. The deity of the Bear Clan, Soqomhonaw, then gave three stone tablets to the Bear Clan, which was to be the leading clan on this Fourth World. The first of these... [showed] the land pattern around the permanent village where they would settle, showing the land holdings to be apportioned to all clans supporting the religious ceremonies. On the other side of the tablet were marked two bear tracks, indicating that all the land beyond these religious land holdings was to be held in the custody of the Bear Clan, which was to reserve it for the animal kingdom upon which the people depended for food. The front of the... second Bear Clan tablet was marked with a cornstalk in the center, around which were grouped several animals, all surrounded by two snakes; and in each corner was the figure of a man with one arm outstretched. The two snakes symbolized the two rivers that would mark the boundaries of the people's land (the Colorado and the Rio Grande). There was still a third tablet which Soqomhonaw gave to the Bear Clan. On the front six men, arms folded across belly and crotch, were enclosed within the borders of two rectabgles. The double-lined borders of the rectangles again symbolized the rivers enclosing the land; and the six man represented the leaders of the most important clans. Along the left side, whose edge was notched with tiny cuts, were marked sun, moon, stars, and the nakwach symbol of brotherhood. The back was covered with a maze of symbols; corn, cloud, sun, moon, star, water, snake, nakwach, spirit of the Creator, and bear tracks. The Four Migrations Before Masaw turned his face from them and became invisible, he explained that every clan must make four directional migrations before they all arrived at their common, permanent home. They must go to the ends of the land-- west, south, east, and north-- to the farthest paso (where the land meets the sea) in each direction. Only when the clans had completed these four movements... could they come together again, forming the pattern of the Creator's universal plan. Some clans strated to the south, others to the north, retraced their routes to turn east and west, and then back again. All their routes formed a great cross whose center, Tuwanasavi (Center of the Universe), lay in what is now the Hopi country... and whose arms reached to the four directional pasos. As they turned at each of these extremeties they formed of this great cross a swastika, either clockwise or counter-clockwise, corresponding to the movement of the earth or of the sun. And then when their migrations slowed as they reached their permanent home, they formed spirals and circles, ever growing smaller. All these patterns formed by their four migrations are the basic motifs of the symbols still found today in their pottery [etc.]. Often one clan would come upon the ruins of a village built by a preceding clan and find on the mound broken pieces of pottery circling to the right or... left, indicating which way the clan had gone.... Everywhere too, the clans carved on rocks their signatures, pictographs and petroglyphs which identified them, revealed what round of their migration they were on, and related the history of the village. Some clans forgot in time the commands of Masaw, settling in tropical climates where life was easy, and developing beautiful cities of stone that were to decay and crumble into ruin. Other clans did not complete all four of their migrations before settling into their permanent home, and hence lost their religious power and standing. Still others persisted, keeping open the doors on top of their heads. These were the ones who finally realized the purpose and the meaning of their four migrations. For these migrations were themselves purification ceremonies, weeding out through generations all the latent evil brought from the previous Third World. Man could not succumb to the comfort and luxury given him by indulgent surroundings, for then he lost the need to rely upon the Creator. Nor should he be frightened even by the polar extremities of the earth, for there he learned that the power given him by the Creator would still sustain him. So... these chosen people finally came to settle on the vast arid plateau that stretches between the Colorado and Rio Grande Rivers. Many... people today wonder why these people chose an area devoid of running water to irrigate their sparse crops. The Hopi people know that they were led here so that they would have to depend upon the scanty rainfall which they must evoke with their power and prayer, and so preserve always that knowledge and faith in the supremacy of their Creator who had brought them to this Fourth World after they had failed in three previous worlds.
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