In “Kásskara: Sunken Land of the Hopi Ancestors” (18th March 2020), Hopi elder Oswald “White Bear” Fredericks (1905-1996) described the Hopis’ epic migration story as it unfolded through aeons and on several continents, a couple of them now on the ocean floor. Their mythology, which I explain more fully in the first article, essentially envisions a series of “worlds” through which the human being, personally and collectively, must pass, these worlds corresponding generally to vast periods of time and changing configurations of global geology.

White Bear described a succession of cycles through which human societies develop and then self-destruct because they have fallen out of harmony with the intelligent universal force from which all life springs.

According to Hopi mythology, the First World, Tokpela, was destroyed by fire. The Second World, Tokpa, was destroyed by ice. Both conditions may have come about through disturbances in the Earth’s orbit and polar shifts. In the previous article I mentioned that Plato, recounting in Critias his uncle’s Egyptian sojourn, said a temple priest at Sais had told Solon that “a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals…” caused the sinking of Atlantis, a notion consonant with the Hopi world view. Kásskara (Lemuria) was coeval with Talawaitichqua (Atlantis) and was destroyed by water, White Bear said, in the following manner:

“The kickmonguity, or Queen of Atlantis, had been threatening Kásskara with destruction from weapons that could be fired from space. Our people had knowledge comparable with the people of Atlantis, but we used it only for good and useful ends. As I already mentioned, we studied the secrets of nature, the power of the Creator in living things,” White Bear said, explaining that his ancestors did not seek revenge and avoided killing even to defend themselves. The Hopi culturally embody Jesus’ admonition not to resist evil: “Turn the other cheek”.

The Shield of Protection

“My people did not defend themselves when [Kásskara was] attacked. And it was right! If that seems strange to you, look at what the Hopi do today. The government of the United States gave us a reservation. Can you imagine? And then they kept coming to cut pieces out of it. They reduced our country more and more. Each time the government does that we say, ‘It is not right’, as we were instructed [to do] by the Creator,” White Bear said, noting that even if his ancestors had not defended themselves actively, they still had their “shield of protection.” He said he could not scientifically explain what this shield was and how it worked, but he described it this way:

“If there is lightning, it reaches our shield, and there it explodes. It does not cross the shield. I remember well how my grandmother showed me the way in which the shield acts. One day when I was still a child, she took a basin and turned it over, saying, ‘Now you are under the basin. If something falls on it, it will not hurt you’. Perhaps I should tell you that she wanted me to repeat all the stories that she told me,” White Bear said. “When I made a mistake she stopped me, and I had to start all over again. It’s why I know by heart all of what my grandmother told me.”

We might, in our modern sophistication, feel tempted to disregard or trivialise White Bear’s grandmother as a credible source of information, but consider that the matrilineal Hopi respect and value wisdom passed down by their elders. His grandmother would not intentionally lie to him, and her insistence that he repeat minor details he hadn’t easily recalled suggests that she took seriously the transmission of this knowledge to her grandson. This transmission is the basis of all oral traditions. The Hopi in their annual cycle of ceremonies re-enact these stories because they consider them too important to be forgotten.

“All the bombs, or whatever they were, exploded far above our heads, and the shield protected all people who were to be saved and had been gathered in a certain area. Cities were attacked and many people perished. Only we were saved. And then—as my grandmother said—somebody pushed the ‘bad button’ and the two continents sank,” White Bear explained. “However, the destruction was not universal. The entire Earth was not destroyed, and not all men were killed. But Atlantis disappeared very quickly into the ocean and our Third World, Kásskara, disappeared very slowly.”

The Laws of the Creator

One interesting feature of the Hopi religious mindset is its similarity to that of certain Eastern religions. The Hopi embrace the idea of reincarnation. They acknowledge “Kundalini energy” and the vortices of psychic vitality called “chakras, and they also recognise the universal law of karma, the spiritual equivalent of Newton’s third law of motion: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The law of karma is also expressed eloquently in the biblical admonition, “As you sow, so shall you reap.” White Bear explained the Hopi view of karma:

“Let us suppose that I want to kill somebody and that I have an accomplice. We agree to do it. Even if it is me that kills, the accomplice does it in thought. But he is not as guilty as me,” White Bear said. “It is the reason for the fast destruction of Atlantis; they attacked. We, or some of our people, were only collaborators at the time Atlantis attacked Kásskara. This is why the fault on our side was minor and our group had a new chance. If we had been as guilty as the people from Atlantis, we also would have been quickly destroyed,” he added.

“The power external to the human capacity did not allow that the People of Peace be destroyed completely. These people were reincarnations of men who had lived in the Second World, Tokpa, and who had followed the laws of the Creator. It was His will to give to those who were to be saved the means of succeeding.

“We were saved and we came here because since the First World, Tokpela, we have always obeyed the Divine Laws! We will see now what occurred then and what role the Kachinas played in bringing us to this continent in the Fourth World,” White Bear said.

Kachinas: Emissaries from Space

Since their emergence in the First World, the Hopi and their ancestors remained in a close relationship with Kachinas, who White Bear defined as “initiated, highly ranked, esteemed beings.” They were originally called Kyákyapichina, the plural form of Kyápchina, the term also incorporating the word “chinakane”, which means “growth” as in the growth of a plant, although in this context the word also indicates the spiritual growth that the Kachinas inspire. The language evolved over time, and now these entities are simply called Kachinas.

Pahlikmana, Hopi kachina doll, c. late 19th century, held in the Brooklyn Museum. (PD0)

Kachinas can manifest visibly or invisibly, but White Bear made it clear that these beings come from locations vastly distant from Earth.

“The Kachinas come from space. They do not come from our solar system but from very distant planets. It would require several generations for our astronauts to get there,” White Bear said. “The Hopi name for these planets is Tóónatakha, which means ‘close to each other’, in a spiritual sense rather than a material one because all their inhabitants share the same responsibilities and work closely together. For this reason, the Hopi translate “Tóónatakha” as “Confederation of Planets”; and because we know there are 12 such worlds, we also refer to the “Confederation of Twelve Planets”, he explained, adding: “While I pronounce this sentence, they can traverse vast distances. Their vessels fly with magnetic force even when they circle the Earth.”

In 1978, White Bear accompanied my anthropology teacher, Henry Denny, and me to Inscription Canyon near Prescott, Arizona, an area noted for its ancient petroglyphs. He pointed out an equilateral cross on a rock slab, its deeply etched outline suggesting an amniotic enclosure. The glyph pre-dates the birth of Christ, he told us, saying that it anticipated this future divine incarnation. White Bear also showed us a glyph of the aforementioned Confederation of Planets, indicating those inhabited worlds that communicate with each other.

In ancient times it was known among certain people that intelligent beings had come from space and helped cultivate mankind out of its primitive state, but this knowledge was nearly lost when the Earth suffered global and semi-global cataclysms. Some of this knowledge survived in the mythologies of aboriginal people, and even in the West some of this information remained concealed by various powerful institutions, often with contradictory interests, such as Freemasonry and the Roman Catholic Church.

White Bear explained that Kachinas have varying ranks depending upon their capacities. While they’re all called Kachinas‚ some are also called Wuyas, which means “divinity” and denotes an exceptionally wise person.

“Comparing Kachinas and Wuyas with Christian entities, we might say Angels for Kachinas and Archangels for Wuyas. They are all Angels‚ but the highest in rank you would call Archangels. The divinities are positioned above the Kachinas, and above all there is the Creator,” White Bear said. “Only Kachinas are in contact with the human beings‚ not the divinities who only give instructions to the Kachinas.”

The Hopi refer only to Kachinas when familiarising children with the initiated beings. “It would be too difficult to explain the difference to them, and this is where the Kachina puppets serve their role: they accustom children to these beings’ physical appearance so they do not fear seeing the dancers,” White Bear explained, adding that even tourists who buy these puppets call them Kachinas, but it doesn’t really matter if they are unaware of the deeper meanings.

“We do the same thing with the San Francisco mountains [a sacred range southwest of Hopiland]. When children see those high peaks, they understand when we tell them that this is where the Kachinas go when they leave us,” White Bear said, saying that it’s easier for children to understand a high mountain than a distant planet. “Think about what you tell your children about Santa Claus and the child Jesus. But when the children are accepted among the adults‚ the difference is explained. The Kachinas come from a very distant planet, and when they leave us they return there. The men who carry out the dances represent these learned beings who came to us a long time ago,” he said.

The San Francisco Peaks, a volcanic mountain range in north-central Arizona, sacred to the Hopi. (PD0)

White Bear described three kinds of Kachinas. The first involves survival and the continuity of life. In the Hopi dances, these Kachinas appear in mid-winter when in nature all life sleeps.

“They offer the certainty to us that life will return and continue; and as reincarnation belongs to the continuity of life‚ it means that we will take birth again and have the possibility to improve,” White Bear said.

The second group consists of the teachers. “We learn from them who we are and where we are‚ what transformations we can undergo and what we must do,” he noted.

The third group represents the guardians of the law. “They are the ones who warn us. They explain to us patiently what not to do,” White Bear said, “but in time they stop informing us and start punishing us for any evil we do.”

White Bear reported that children have been born following a “mystical relation” between Hopi women and Kachinas. “There was a physical proximity between our people and Kachinas. We could touch them. But even if that seems strange‚ they never had sexual relations. The children were conceived in a mystical way,” he said, apparently referring to the phenomenon called “virgin birth” in Christian doctrine.

“Such children‚ when grown, possessed great knowledge and wisdom and sometimes even supernatural capacities, which they had received from their spiritual father,” White Bear explained. “They were splendid, powerful men who were always ready to help but never to destroy.”

Flying Shields and Magnetic Fields

White Bear made it clear that Kachinas have physical bodies. “That’s why they need vessels to travel in our skies and return to their planets,” he said, adding that the spaceships have various sizes and names. “One name is Patoowa, ‘the object which can fly above water’. Pahu means ‘water’ in our language, and Toowata is ‘an object with a curved surface’. Because of this form, we also call it a ‘flying shield’. I will tell you what it resembles: if you cut a calabash [gourd] in two‚ a form is obtained with the aspect of a saucer. You may assemble two of these and approximate the shape of the vessel which they used formerly to go to these planets. A pilot sitting inside can move the craft in all the directions and does not lose balance regardless of speed. Because of this form, we call it Inioma,” he said.

I haven’t been able to locate a definition for Inioma beyond White Bear’s description that suggests the occupants were unaffected by the ship’s velocity. It’s also clear that White Bear believed that the spaceships flew by somehow utilizing magnetic or gravitational fields.

The Hopi know that some of their ancestors flew in these spaceships, which had also been used in other countries. In India, for example, they were called Vimanas. “People from Atlantis came to us in these vessels. Near Oraibi there is a petroglyph representing a woman in a flying shield. The arrow signifies high speed,” he said. “You can see that she carries the hair of a married woman.”

Describing these spaceships, White Bear said the two halves are held together by a “support” which the pilots must actuate. When they turn a lever to the right‚ the ship goes up. When they turn it to the left‚ it goes down.

“The vessels do not have engines like aeroplanes and do not use fuel. They fly in a magnetic field. Pilots must only know the adequate height. If they want to move towards the east‚ they choose a certain height. If they want to go north‚ they choose another height. It is enough to go up to the height corresponding to the selected direction and the vessel flies in the desired direction. This way, they can reach any place inside our atmosphere and can also leave the Earth,” White Bear said. “It is very simple!”

Toowakachi, The Fourth World

It’s clear that the Hopi embrace a world view which is more expansive, timeless and wondrous than our own. Members of our “modern culture” are slowly abandoning the anthropocentric view that humanity represents a pinnacle of Creation. Life must exist elsewhere in the Universe and permeate it.

It took our clever culture of reason and science hundreds of years to apprehend knowledge that the Hopis have embodied all along—awareness that malicious human activity, including large-scale warfare and wilful environmental destruction, disturbs a delicate balance that directly harms all life on the planet. The Hopi say they know what’s coming because their ancestors have seen this inevitable cycle play out before.