Wanderings of the Spider Clan

Turtle Island more commonly refered to as North America holds many ancient and mysterious traditions, here i want to look at those of the Hopi in terms of their notions of origin and future expectation, also with regards to their great migrations in accordance with the directions of the swastika and their understanding of great world epochs.

It was indicated on the stone tablets of the Hopis that the first brothers and sisters would come back to them 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 and 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, just like turtles across the land.

So this was the turtles coming toward them across the land. So they went out to the Spanish men and they extended their hand, hoping 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.

Like all Uto-Aztecan speaking peoples the Hopi were truly dissapointed with a lack of understanding on the part of the Spanish and later Americans with regards to seeing the greater picture and their only interest being exploitation rather than a re-establishment of Brotherhood, and felt helpless against the evils that they brought which would surely bring about the end of the Fourth World.

There were two buildings, one for initiates and one for ceremonial purposes. The ceremonial building was four stories high, terraced like the pueblos we see today. The main door opened to the east, and there were two smaller doors facing north and south.

On the first or ground floor the kachina people taught initiates the history and meaning of the three previous worlds and the purpose of this Fourth World to which man had emerged.

On the second floor they taught the structure and functions of the human body and that the highest function of the mind was to understand how the one great spirit worked within man. The spirit or kachina people taught this so that the people would not become evil again and this Fourth World be destroyed like the first three.

The suggestion of five great ages common to much of the Americas arguably relates to greater precession cycles of 26,000 years or so sub-divided into 5,200 year epochs, thus if we are at the end of such an age this would have commenced at the beginning of the bronze age and the rise of civilizations.

In the third story initiates were taught the workings of nature and the uses of all kinds of plant life.

The fourth story was smaller than the three below, making the ceremonial building resemble a pyramid.

To this top level were admitted only initiates of great conscience who had acquired a deep knowledge of the laws of nature.

Here they were taught the workings of the planetary system, how the stars affected the climate, the crops, and man himself.

Here too they learned about the "open door" on top of their heads, how to keep it open, and so converse with their Creator

The traditional Hopi Kiva then related to five such stages of development and was sacred to spider-woman as she had led remnants of humanity into emergence within the successive worlds from the former.

The Hopi interest in Orion and it's relationship to the horizon and periods of invisibility again will find correspondence with the greater precession cycle as a great marker, the Hopi have traditions of migration and settlement according to the observation of stars, there has been suggestion that the pattern of their Mesa dispositions is according to Orion and that the complexes of Chaco canyon with all the lines and shrines and settlement that radiate from there thus relate to Canis Major and most probably spider-woman.

The Hopi have a total of nine mystery plays which are connected both with the position of the sun in relation to the earth and with the origin of the earth and the universe. The first, Wuwuchim, takes place around November. It is a preparation for the birth of the new year and also reflects the first invisible preparations for a universe in dark space.

Soyal, the second initiation ceremony held at the winter solstice, relates to the great birth of light or bright space. It symbolizes not only the birth of light but also the laying down of patterns at the birth of the cosmos and, on a smaller scale, of the patterns for developments during the coming year.

Orion is planted in the Underworld at the same time as all the various types of corn, thereby assuring their germination and quickening growth during the lengthening days of the year. During this part of the seasonal cycle a minor agricultural rite of planting is performed in the fields. This is actually a sort of native Passion play involving Masau’u, the Hopi god of earth, death and the Underworld.

Patterns of destiny and fate, development and progression always relate to spider-woman, it would be appropriate for the great centres of Chaco canyon and the many kiva located there to relate to her.

Then did Tawa and Spider Woman have the Great Thought, they would make the Earth to be between the Above and the Below. As Tawa thought the features of the Earth, Spider women formed them from clay.

Then did Tawa think of animals and beasts and plants, all the while Spider Woman formed them from the clay. At last they decided they had enough, then they made great magic and breathed life into their creatures. Now Tawa decided they should make creatures in their image to lord over all the rest. Spider Woman again formed them from clay. Again the Two breathed life into their creations. Spider Woman called all the people so created to follow where she led.

Having looked at a few basics of Hopi tradition it should be apparent that with regards to how they conjectured the roles of Orion and Canis Major they have commonality with many cultures world wide, particularly in the Near East from the earliest civilizations, for the Hopi the greater Pantheon of spiritual Deities finds expression in the Kachina which represented all spiritual archetypes sourced from nature from the terrestrial to the astral, and which could find correspondence within humanity when it took upon itself those aspects, through ritual and costume and general disposition and inclination.

In trying to understand the expectations of tribes such as the Hopi with regards to the return of the Turtle people or the great white brother with regards to the time of purification their migrational traditions have to be taken into account, in common with other Uto-Aztecan groups of Central America they seem to have represented Orion and Canis Major as lizard people with particular emphasis upon the hands, it was believe the hand of man was derived from the lizard that had established the right to have this created in his image by imprinting it upon a celestial stone, from this the earliest peoples had something of the reptilian about them and left their hand marks accordingly.

Through all the Four Great Caverns of the Underworld she led them, until they finally came to an opening, a sipapu, which led to the earth above."

The White People had taken with them the Spider which was very skillful, so that when they had traveled some distance the Spider rubbed some scales from her skin, and from these created burros. These the White Men afterwards used for carrying their burdens. So they got along faster and reached the place where the sun rises first. When they arrived there a star arose in the south, which told the other migrating people that some one had arrived at the sunrise.

The first emergence into the Fourth world included all peoples and their migratory distribution was understood as according to the swastika, in using that symbol there is the implication that the first migration traditions could trace back to central Asia were it was most common, first appearing some 7,000 years ago with regards to Vinca culture in the Balkans, if that is the case it would back date to at least their third age or around 10,400 years ago for common ancestry in that region.

Thereupon all people were to settle wherever they happened to be at that time, there to remain until the elder brother returned. The Hopi settled in the area now known as Four Corners, where the state lines of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado meet.

They lived in humble simplicity and the land produced abundant crops. This area is the heart of Turtle Island (the U.S.) and of Mother Earth, and it is the microcosmic image of the macrocosm of the entire planet. Each Hopi clan perpetuates a unique ceremony, and the ceremonies together maintain the balance of natural forces of sunlight, rain and winds, and reaffirm the Hopi respect for all life and trust in the Great Spirit."

So perhaps there are remnant myths that predate the settlement in the Four Corners region, certainly there are myths with regards to travelling to the Northern extremities and then Southward again, this the back-door to the Americas as it were.

The tribes then continued on all the way to the North Pole, which was the "back door" that Masaw had specifically forbidden them to cross. Spider Woman, however, was the one to disobey this time, and urged the people to use their powers to clear the way past the snow and ice.

However, they were unable to, and Sotuknang himself appeared and admonished them for their attempt, saying that had they succeeded in melting their way through the snow and ice, the Fourth World would have been flooded and wrecked. As a punishment, Sotuknang then ordained that Spider Woman's thread would run out, and she would not die, but grow old and ugly. Moreover, her clan, the Spider clan, would from thenceforth bring forth nothing but evil

The settlement of Turtle Island then is that of the younger brother, there is some suggestion that white brother of the ill fated spider-clan had made the journey earlier arriving at the Eastern extremity and that therefore this is the group that they one day hoped to re-establish contact with, even the suggestion that elder brother had departed Eastward from Turtle island itself.

"The elder brother was told to go immediately to the east, toward the rising sun, and upon reaching his destination to start back immediately to look for his younger brother, who remained on Turtle Island (the Continental United States of America).

His mission was to help his younger brother to bring about the Purification Day, at which time all evildoers would be punished or destroyed, after which real peace, brotherhood, and everlasting life would be established. The elder brother would restore all land to his younger brother, from whom the Evil one among the white men had taken it.

The elder brother [of the shining light] also would come to look for the Tiponi tablets and fulfill the mission given him by the Great Spirit. The younger brother was instructed to travel throughout the land and mark his footsteps as he went about. Both brothers were told that a great white star would appear in the sky; when that happened, all people would know that the elder brother had reached his destination.

The migration of the elder brother supposedly to the North Pole and beyond brings into consideration all sorts of strange Hyperborean and Thulean mythos and the Hopi don't help any with regards to the signs they associate with the expected return of the true white brother, it seems rather the case of ethnic Nationalists of the world unite and overcome the evil globalists.

The True White Brother will bring with him two great, intelligent and powerful helpers, one of whom will have a sign of a swastika , and the sign of the sun. The second great helper will have the sign of a cross with red lines between the arms of the cross.

Hopi Cosmology

The Wanderers of the Fourth World

The Wanderings of the Spider Clan

Theosophy among the Hopi

An Arizona star correlation

What little I know about the Hopis fascinates me, and this thread has really reignited my interests.

S&F for that and I will be back to this thread after some reading for sure.

a reply to: ChaosComplex


They are fascinating, Chaco canyon itself was first settled in 10,000 BC so there is deep rooted tradition there.

The first people in the San Juan Basin were hunter-gatherers: the Archaic–Early Basketmaker people. These small bands descended from nomadic Clovis big-game hunters who arrived in the Southwest around 10,000 BC. More than 70 campsites from this period, carbon-dated to the period 7000–1500 BC and mostly consisting of stone chips and other leavings, were found in Atlatl Cave and elsewhere within Chaco Canyon

Chaco Canyon was a major center of culture for the Ancient Pueblo Peoples.Chacoans quarried sandstone blocks and hauled timber from great distances, assembling fifteen major complexes that remained the largest buildings in North America until the 19th century

Chaco Culture

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Just adding Thomas Banyacya for people interested.

a reply to: Caver78

Thank you for that, here's a good story about a Turtle;

There was a chief, and he had a fine-looking girl. There was a painted turtle, and he fell in love with the chief's daughter. But he could not come to see her or get to speak to her, because neither the girl nor her parents paid any attention to him.

He kept thinking, "How can I win that girl?" And day after day he came, but still they did not notice him. Finally he thought, "If I would paint up, they would notice it and ask me why I painted." He painted up and went to the chief's lodge and the girl fell in love with him as soon as she saw him. So he told her to follow him and started off and went to a big river. When she first saw the turtle, she thought it was a human being, but when they got to the water and she saw that it was a turtle instead of a man, she said, "I cannot go any farther with you." He said, "Come and follow me. You will turn into a turtle the same as I am." When she went in, she turned into a turtle, but a different kind, a soft shell. Sometimes they name women after this turtle.

(As told by an unidentified Peoria informant to Truman Michelson, 1916; after Knoepfle 1993)

It is important to realize that the story telling and development is still very much an ongoing tradition and that these can reflect rapidly changing times, such that traditional culture heroes like the warrior twins can become the very Gods of guarding against Pole Shift and global calamity.

Following his instructions, Spider Woman took some earth, mixed it with saliva, and molded it into two beings. Then she covered them with the white cloak of the creative wisdom itself, and sang the Creation Song over them. When she uncovered them the twin beings sat up and asked, "Who are we? Why are we here?"

To the one on the right Spider Woman said, "You are Poqanghoya and you are to help keep this world in order when life is put upon it. This is your duty now: go about all the world and put your hands upon the earth so that it will become fully solidified...

Spider Woman then said to the twin on the left, "You are Palongawhoya and you are to help keep this world in order when life is put upon it. This is your duty now: go about all the world and send out sound so that it may be heard throughout all the land. When this is heard you will also be known as Echo, for all sound echoes the Creator."...

All the vibratory centers along earth's axis from pole to pole resounded his call; the whole earth trembled; the universe quivered in tune. Thus he made the whole world an instrument of sound, and sound an instrument for carrying messages, resounding praise to the Creator...

When they had accomplished their duties, Poqanghoya was sent to the north pole of the world axis and Palongawhoya to the south pole, where they were jointly commanded to keep the world properly rotating. Poqanghoya was also given the power to keep the solidify and crystallize the earth. Palongawhoya was given the power to keep the air in gentle ordered movement, and instructed to send out his call for good or for warning through the vibratory centers of the earth.

The presence of The Mysteries among the Hopi....this fascinates me.

Does this mean that a program of esoteric knowledge maintained by a group of initiates is a hard wired aspect of human cognition? Or that The Mysteries, as a concept, predate mans arrival in North America?

the use of the swastika kind of helps answer that, I suppose. Which is absolutely titillating.

Something else I am interested in is the migration stuff. I have looked for migration maps, and there isn't a whole lot. I think we miss out on connecting the stories with the people in the timeline. But there are a couple of basic elements, like the measurement of the ages coinciding with the timelines for Clovis culture.

Delightful Kantzveldt, but couldn't the story of the 'turtles being the Spanish' be a post contact re-imagining of an older myth - to make it fit into their present reality?

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

The swastika is probably a very old symbol relating to migration, being based upon the rotation of Ursa Major around Celestial North it indicated not only the four quarters of the day but also the year, and the cyclic pattern would have found correspondence in the seasonal migrations of hunter gatherers who would return to the same places according to the season, of course this also became important to agriculturists.

At any rate, in order to help them find their proper places in this new world, Masaw gave the chosen people clear directions, even writing instructions on tablets so that they would always have a reference and a remembrance to guide them. Interestingly, their journey was not merely to the four corners of the Earth, but in a swastika pattern. Each of the four tribes was to follow their stars towards the four cardinal directions, then turn right, their paths forming a giant swastika across the Americas.

ll their routes formed a great cross whose center, Tuwanasavi [Center of the Universe], lay in what is now the Hopi country in the southwestern part of the United States, and whose arms reached to the four directional pasos. As they turned at each of these extremities 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 migration 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 and basketware, on their kachina rattles and altar boards

Mysterious world...

I think there was a greater mystery before the latter arrivals into the Americas around 12,000 years ago and that they carried this with them and had commonality with the traditions of the Indo-Europeans and others that they had left behind, what one finds in the traditions seems to be a distant memory of this.


a reply to: Hanslune

Most certainly, it's an ever developing tradition of variations upon a theme. One of the advantages of oral tradition is that you can constantly update as seems relevant, keep up with the times whilst grounding your wisdom in tradition, by such means the Hopi have become the great prophets of the New Age, this isn't cheating as such, well not much...

a reply to: Hanslune

Hans, 

You are correct in this statement,

Delightful Kantzveldt, but couldn't the story of the 'turtles being the Spanish' be a post contact re-imagining of an older myth - to make it fit into their present reality?

As is attested by this very early recording of the mythos.

FIELD COLUMBIAN MUSEUM


PUBLICATION 96


ANTHROPOLOGICAL SERIES VOL. VIII


THE TRADITIONS OF THE HOPI


BY


H. R. VOTH


THE STANLEY McCORMICK HOPI EXPEDITION


GEORGE A. DORSEY


Curator, Department of Anthropology


CHICAGO, U. S. A.


March, 1905

THE WANDERINGS OF THE SPIDER CLAN (KOHK'ANG-ÑAMU). 3


In the under-world many people became very bad. They had many contentions, and began to kill the people and also killed the chief's son; so the chief concluded that they would move away from there. But the question was, how to get out?' So he sent the Mótsni to find a place where they could get out. He flew up and found an opening, and came back and reported the same to the chief. So the Village Chief (Kík-mongwi) and the Crier Chief (Chaák-mongwi) planted a pine (calávi), which grew up very fast, but did not quite reach the opening. They then planted a reed (bákavi) which also grew up fast and reached through the opening. On this reed they climbed till, first the Horn people (Áaltu), who then stood outside and held the protruding part of the reed or ladder. Many people then followed.


p. 39


The Mocking-bird (Yáhpa) was sitting outside and distributed the languages to the People. As they were climbing up one of them dropped one of his moccasins. Below the Hopi had pretty moccasins, but as this moccasin was dropped and the man had to make another one, and could not make it as nicely as the other one had been, the Hopi now have not very nice moccasins. The people had not yet all come out when the chief stopped them and closed up the opening, but one of the sorcerers (Pópwaktu) had also come out.


From here the people now started on different routes, the White Man taking the most southern route. All the other people took different routes further north. The 'Hopi brought with them Mû'yingwu, whose body consisted entirely of corn, his feet being ears of corn, so that he could not move very fast. The Hopi were to have the horse, but as they tried to ride him they could not do so, as they did not put any bridle on him; so the Navaho, wearing a band around their head, tried it and they could ride him. The two matched together better for that reason because they also bridled the pony, probably with yucca leaves.


They had not gone very far when the chief's son took sick and died. They thought that the sorcerer who was with them had killed him, but the latter said: "Nobody has died, he is not dead; just go and look down into the opening through which we came. He is down there." So the chief went and looked down there, and beheld his child walking about in the other world. So they took the Powáku with them. He said that hereafter no one would be really dead, but the people who would die would simply go back to the lower world. After they had travelled for some time, just how long tradition does not say, the Coyote who had carried the stars in his hand, and was traveling with the Hopi people, threw the stars into the sky so that from that time it was somewhat light during the night.


The White People had taken with them the Spider which was very skillful, so that when they had traveled some distance the Spider rubbed some scales from her skin, and from these created burros. These the White Men afterwards used for carrying their burdens. So they got along faster and reached the place where the sun rises first. When they arrived there a star arose in the south, which told the other migrating people that some one had arrived at the sunrise. This was a signal that they had agreed upon before starting. This star is said to have influence over the animals, and the old people say that whoever wants to own a horse, cattle, sheep, etc., should pray to this star, which the Hopi are doing to this day.


So the people traveled on. All at once one party came upon a


p. 40


bear that had died there. They were called the Bear (Hónawu) clan. Right after them came another party, who cut straps from the skin of the bear and were called Piqósha clan, the name given by the Hopi to this peculiar strap. Another party followed and found the cadaver covered with spider web, from which they were called Spider (Kóhk'ang) clan. A fourth party found blue-birds sitting on the cadaver and they were called the Blue-bird (Chóro) clan. A fifth party found that maggots had eaten out the eyes, leaving the cavities bare with a little fat still attached to the bone. From this they were called Fat Cavity clan (Wíkorzh-ñamu). A sixth migrating party came upon the scene and found that a mole had dug his way up under the place where the cadaver had been lying, and hence they were called Mole (Mû'yi) clan. 1 Here the parties who had thus received their clan names soon separated, and the Spider clan after this wandered about and stopped at various places for a long time. The other clans did the same, living shorter or longer periods at one place, which accounts for the many smaller and larger ruins with which the country is covered.


Finally the Spider clan arrived at a spring (about four miles north of the present village sites of Mishóngnovi and Shupaúlavi) called Homìqöpu. Here they remained for some time, there still being ruins at that place. From here this clan moved to a place about a mile northeast of Shupaúlavi, called Chûkúvi. At the foot of the mesa on which this village was situated was a very large spring. The Squash (Batánga) clan then ruled in this village, the chief belonging to that clan. The Sand (Tûwá) clan was also one of the clans being numerous in the village at that time. The inhabitants of the different villages were often harassed by enemies, among them the Utes and Apache. It seems that even the inhabitants of the different villages often made raids on each other. For this reason the inhabitants of Chûkúvi and those of old Mishóngnovi, which was situated, however, west of its present location, way down the mesa, moved on the mesa and built the present village of Mishóngnovi.


In Mishóngnovi the Blue-bird clan was then in charge of the village, the chief belonging to that clan, but it seems that this clan, shared the chieftainship with the following clans, which furnished the Kík-mongwi, the Village Chief, in the order named, for four year,


p. 41


a new chief being elected every four years: After the Blue-bird clan followed the Bear clan, then the Bátki clan, and lastly, the Squash clan, The Sand clan, having lived in the village of Chukúvi, is said to have moved to Oraíbi, east of which village they had had fields while they were still living at Chukúvi. At the time when the people lived at Chukúvi, Shúpaúlavi was also inhabited, but it seems that the people then, too, lived farther down, probably at the so-called First Ledge, but when Mishóngnovi was built the people of Shupaúlavi also moved on to the top of the mesa.

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Excellent read! Native mythology and culture is absolutely fascinating to me. S&F just for the pictures of Chaco Canyon. I've been there a number of times, and it never gets dull. In fact, I'm planning on going back in a couple of weeks for a day or two. Besides all the ruins and whatnot, the night sky from there is just amazing.

Great thread Kantzveldt why is the spider and the rabbit clever animals in both African and native American myth the spider I get because it traps it's prey which is sometimes larger than it's own size but the rabbit?? they don't seem particularly clever.