small one-room shack below Pumpkin Seed Point. He would live there for the next three years.
Things didn’t go well in the beginning. Oswald, who was outgoing and confident in the white man’s world, was very timid and shy in the Hopi world. Very few Hopi elders wanted to talk to them. He changed his name to White Bear Fredericks to be more in line with his father’s clan (Naomi instantly became Brown Bear); but all Hopis know that you take your mother’s clan
not your father’s. It wasn’t until Dan Qochhongva from Hotevilla (whose name means White Clouds Above Horizon), who knew Oswald’s father, agreed to meet with the pair that things changed.
Considered to be the foremost religious leader not only of Hotevilla but virtually all of the other villages at that time, Dan took a liking to Frank. He spoke softly and told Frank that he would have four dreams in the near future and not to be afraid. The first dream came four days later. Frank was awakened by two men in his small room late at night:
I was suddenly aware that there were two men in the room. My first impulse was to jump out of bed and throw the catch on the door as I had been told. But the men were already inside and looked quite harmless. They were probably two traveling salesmen, old-fashioned drummers of the sort who occasionally drove through the Reservation peddling knick-knacks from house to house. One was dressed in a reddish-brown suit with one coat button off, and the other in a rumpled dark blue suit.
Don’t be alarmed, said the man in the reddish-brown suit. We’re ghosts, and you should know that ghosts are just like people except that they live in a world invisible to you. We travel in great migrations, something like wild geese, along a traditional route from way above Bering Strait down to the tip of South America. My own home base between trips is northern Alaska. My partner here hails from the lower Argentine.
The one in the dark blue suit was just as sensible and friendly, although his voice sounded a little more stern.
We’ve dropped by to tell you that this place is directly on the route back and forth between the poles. You’re on the line now. Mind what I say. Stay on the line now. (See: Frank Waters, Pumpkin Seed Point, p. 27.)
Three additional dreams came, just as Dan had predicted. After hearing all four dreams, Dan agreed to help Frank Waters meet with more than 30 Hopi elders and write the history of the Hopi People starting with the Hopi Creation Story. Many of the elders were over 100 years old and had never been forced to go to the white man’s schools.
Dan wanted Frank to complete the book just as the sacred twins had instructed him to do in his ghost dream. And with Dan’s help over the next three years, Frank Waters was able to meet with and record the Hopi’s history with its many predictions and warnings about the future.
Predictions
Specifically, the elders predicted a blue star or planet would appear in the 1960s, though it would that would be too far away to be seen with the naked eye. Neptune was mathematically located in the year 1600; and while Galileo believed it was a fixed star, he was unable to tell what color it was. It wasn’t until 1989, when Voyager 2 took a picture of Nepture, that its blue color was recognized - just as the elders had predicted. (see: Book of the Hopi, 1963, p. 334.)
The Elders also talked about a string of time or cycle/pulse of the earth. They called/call the earth Mother Earth, as she provides for all living things; and they believed/believe she experiences cycles of Birth-Life-Death, just as all Mothers do. I believe this cycle, or string of time, is based on the Earth’s location in space, our relationship and distance from the Sun, and our tilt which changes on a predictable pattern. The Milankovitch study of Earth cycles
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