by Freddy Silva
The katsinam are commemorated in art and ritual wearing unusual and technical-looking headgear, sometimes with what appear to be antennae, certainly not the type of practical garb one wears in the extreme heat of desert plateaus. Hopi elder Don Talayesva offers an eye-opening portrayal of the relationship between the katsinam and the original people of this land: “My fathers and uncles showed me their ancestral masks and explained that long ago the real Katsinam had come regularly to Oraibi [Third Mesa] and had danced in the plaza. They explained that since the people had become so wicked — since there were now so many Two-Hearts in the world — the Katsinam stopped coming in person and sent their spirits to enter the masks on dance days.”20
Cultural traditions agree that katsinam appeared at the crossing point between the destruction and creation of world ages, that they inhabited two worlds, and traveled here from very far away. They are regarded as ancestors but not progenitors of the people during the migrations after the great flood.21 The unique nature of the katsina dances suggests an immortalization of physical people whose ideas, dress and appearance became ritualized and remembered because these benevolent outsiders were instrumental in the cultural, civic and architectural development of the Hopi and Anasazi during their time of origination. Even more surprising is how so many petroglyphs in northern Arizona depict the katsinam in a rectangular format with arms upraised, like a kind of hallmark bearing a passing resemblance to the Orion constellation.
Zuni tradition brings a layer of understanding to the relationship between katsinam and the "flying shields." The Zuni claim the katsina ceremony commemorates pilots communicating with each other, each katsina representing real people who once were referred to as gods.22 As for the flying shields themselves, Hopi legends refer to them as paatuwvota — literally 'magic flying shield used as a vehicle’ — whose derivative, paatsöviw, an insect that skates on the surface of water. That paints quite a picture of vessels hovering over the sea.23 These aerial craft have a curious parallel in the Indian sacred text Visuddhi-Magga, where an "air-katsina" is described in the context of a trance-inducing tool, one of ten items inherited from the time of gods.24
One of my favorite stories featuring the flying shields is that of a young Hopi bride accompanying her katsina husband back to her village: “This time on their way home, the two were going to travel by flying shield. Together they climbed onto the shield and the girl firmly shut her eyes. As the shield lifted off, the katsinam all gave out a boisterous yell. The spectacle was incredible; every sort of katsina conceivable was present. All of a sudden as the couple flew along, flashes of lightning were visible in the air and the rumble of thunder could be heard. When the shield rose higher, drizzle began to fall. The katsinam were now accompanying them. They actually followed the pair in the form of clouds... Customarily, a bride is returned to her residence in the morning. Therefore the parents had headed to the edge of the mesa at this time to look out. Looking down from the rim of the mesa, they saw an incredible number of people coming across the plain. To their amazement all were katsinam, singing and crying out their calls.”25
THE WATCHERS OF WALPI
The Hopi believe themselves to be one of the first inhabitants of the American continent, and certainly their village of Oraibi is the oldest continuously occupied settlement in the United States.26 Two other centers of habitation cling to vertiginous, six hundred-foot high mesas whose alignment bears a passing resemblance to the belt of Orion, and together with other main cult centers, form a close resemblance to the entire constellation across the American southwest.27
It is the village of Walpi that is of greatest interest to our quest. Located on First Mesa, the name literally means Place of the Watchers.28 Referred to as Tuuwalaqa (Protectors), one of their central figures is an individual called Sótuknang (Heart of the Sky God), a messenger of the creator god Taiowa, whose mission was to travel to Earth and create a landscape fit for habitation after the flood.29 Obviously this now establishes a direct link between the Hopi, the Watchers and the Anunaki, and opens up all kinds of possibilities. For one, if the Watchers and the katcinam are one and the same people, were they literally capable of inhabiting two worlds, as the Hopi and Zuni suggest? Is the collective term coined by the Hopi and Zuni for these individuals — Star People — merely a metaphor, or is it an accurate description of their astronomical knowledge as well as ability to travel among the stars? And if so, are these Star People the same as Starwalkers — the Urukehu of New Zealand, Easter Island and Tiwanaku?
It seems as though Hopi and Zuni traditions are finally intertwining a number of loose threads, so let’s see where the association with the stars takes us.
The peaceful Hopi people believed their ancestors came from outside the Earth, specifically the Pleiades, and it is said the general demeanour of Pleiadians is reflected in Hopi lifestyle. Dakota legends give similar weight to this star cluster – Tiyami they call it, their ancestral homeland. The Cree people believed that in a time before history, their ancestors arrived from the stars in spirit form, only to become humans on Earth. The Lakota speak of mysterious celestial beings that manifest as spheres of light and often choose particular children to follow them on a journey through space and time. No wonder Native Americans perceive the issue of alien visitation in a spiritual manner, as Plains Cree author Stephane Wuttunee explains: “[My people] give far greater attention to the seeking of the spiritual understanding of things rather than going after “the truth” as people from dominant cultures do. This is part of the reason why we tend to stand back and view or listen at first rather than bare in with questions or take the hard, direct approach.”30
Lookers with distinctive antennae. Sego Canyon, Utah.
Growing up in a tight-knit community, Stephane listened attentively to the stories passed down by the elders of his tribe. He says they spoke of “distant relations and Star People living amongst the stars many times, mainly around campfires and during traditional ceremonies. Far from being anything to be feared, Star People was just another term I grew up around. I remember listening in awe and fascination at the thought of us having relations that lived off and outside our world, and sometimes spoke to them in my silent moments at night. I wanted to know who they were and what they looked like, if they had families like us, etc... It wasn’t until my later teens that I discovered that people from the dominant cultures were talking about the same “people” as my elders did, though each side’s sense of perception of these people seemed radically different from one another.”31
One common characteristic among all the gods of the flood we’ve encountered so far is their advanced knowledge of astronomy, and the sentiment is shared by many indigenous people of North America: “My people tell of Star People who came to us many generations ago,” recalls Richard Wagamese of the Wabaseemoong First People. “The Star people brought spiritual teachings and stories and maps of the cosmos and they offered these freely. They were kind, loving and set a great example. When they left us, my people say there was loneliness like no other. If Star People did come to the Ojibway, where did they go? Where did they come from? Who brought teachings to them? What scientific magic did they own that allowed them to make such an incredible journey – and is it possible for us?”32
Flying shields depicted on a petroglyph panel. Three Mesas, Arizona.
This puts a better perspective on the aforementioned flying shields. Native Americans openly talked about them long before the recent ancient alien craze. The late Oglala Sioux holy man Black Elk describes one of his personal experiences: “So when I went to vision quest, that disk came from above. The scientists call that a… Unidentified Flying Object, but that’s a joke, see? Because they are not trained, they lost contact with the wisdom, power and gift. So that disk landed on top of me. It was concave, and there was another one on top of that. It was silent, but it lit and luminesced like neon lights. Even the sacred robes there were luminesced, and those tobacco ties lying there lit up like little light bul
bs. Then these little people came, but each little group spoke a different language. They could read minds, and I could read their minds. I could read them. So there was silent communication. You could read it, like when you read silent symbols in a book. So we were able to communicate… They are human, so I welcomed them. I said, “Welcome, Welcome…”33
All this brings a little twist to our adventure. We have been looking all along for terrestrial homelands for these ancient architects, but it appears we need to expand our gaze. Whoever these individuals were or where they came from, they certainly possessed an understanding, a technology even, that was far and above that of the average ancient human. But why should a group of Watchers have felt compelled to stay after the flood and assist in rebuilding Earth's decimated population, then disappearing, leaving future communication to be made through more subtle means such as telepathy and shamanic journeying?
I was sharing my thoughts with Clifford Mahooty, who has himself experienced close encounters with these beings on many occasions and feels they are nothing less than benevolent people. Then, in the middle of a conversation about the great kiva at Chaco Canyon, which I’ve always felt to be oversized for its intended purpose, Clifford remarked, "That's because it was never a kiva. That's what archeologists think. If they'd asked us we would have told them the real purpose. It was never used for ceremony, it was used as a space port."34
104 DEGREES IN THE CANYON
By the time I reached the Ghost Panel, Horseshoe Canyon was becoming toasty. Beneath a vertical limestone canopy, seven hooded figures in red ochre stand alongside a distinctive eighth. They are tall, elegant. Amid the stillness of the canyon floor, the silence is deafening. Yes, I had encountered them three times on my travels, and yes, the Hopi and Zuni are right, they communicate in a very unusual way. One experience was during an unplanned visit to Kephren’s pyramid, when the same hooded, cloaked people emerged from the walls of the Kings Chamber and, as three of my colleagues will testify, we saw them as clear as daylight amid absolute darkness. The full account is given in my book The Divine Blueprint. The experience has stayed with me to this day, partly because I wasn't expecting it, partly because it proves the indigenous traditions are correct, but mostly because it is as humbling as it is overwhelming.
A few years later I would take a private group to the Kings Chamber during one of my tours to sacred places. As I began a meditation I had the unexpected pleasure of watching the same figures reappear and position themselves behind each of the sixteen participants. Later at dinner, I asked for their impressions. Without prompting, a quarter of them felt a tall person stand behind, arms outstretched, and the feeling of being protected if they were to fall backward, like a sign of trust.
It’s exactly how I'd seen it.
Clifford was right, I did know the people pictured on the Horseshoe Canyon panel, they refer to themselves as Watchers.
Lookers, indeed!
Seven plus one Lookers. Horseshoe Canyon, Utah.
KNOWLEDGE OF THE FEW
My mentor, the late historian and antiquarian John Michell once argued that prehistoric monuments all over the world "were all designed in accordance with one scheme of proportion in units of measurement which are everywhere the same... relics of a former elemental science, founded on principles of which we are now ignorant... At some period, thousands of years ago, almost every corner of the world was visited by people with a particular task to accomplish. With the help of some remarkable power, by means of which they could cut and raise enormous blocks of stone, these [people] created vast astronomical instruments, circles of erect pillars, pyramids, underground tunnels, cyclopean stone platforms, all linked together by a network of tracks and alignments, whose course from horizon to horizon was marked by stones, mounds and earthworks."35
This “former elemental science” is precisely what people like the Hopi and the Tamil describe as having been part of a development of innovation during the Younger Dryas, in complete contradiction to the backward-cave-dweller-human model expounded by historians. Echoes of this knowledge are all around if one cares to look, and it begins to explain the spontaneous flowering of human civilization around 8000 BC. Humans suddenly discovered civilization because it had already been established before the flood.
To illustrate the point, during the reign of pharaoh Geb — one of the original Neterw — it is said he came into possession of a golden box long protected inside a fortress somewhere along Egypt’s eastern frontier. This talisman contained effects belonging to his grandfather Ra. The story goes that, once he ascended the throne, Geb ordered said box to be brought to him to be unsealed. In hindsight it proved to be a careless move because the moment the box was opened, “the breath of the divine serpent” sent out a bolt of fire of such force it struck dead all Geb’s attendants and gave the pharaoh what appears to be third-degree burns.36 The tale is remarkably similar to the later Hebrew story of the Ark of the Covenant, so much so that it makes one wonder whether this was the same device — Palestine and the Levant having once been part of the kingdom of Egypt — or whether there were many golden boxes of a scientific nature passed on from an earlier and technologically advanced culture. In both the Egyptian and Hebrew narratives each box contained a rod (Ra and Aaron’s respectively) and both killed or maimed anyone who failed to handle its contents without understanding the instruction manual, as the Philistine guards found out when they contracted hemorrhoids.
The priests of Sais once confided in Solon, "in our temples we have preserved from the earliest times a written record of any great or splendid achievement or notable event which has come to our ears."37 Fifteen hundred years later the Egyptian historian Ibn Abd El Hakim was still remarking on how so many of the temples were designed to protect the ancient knowledge and technology of the antediluvian gods. With regard to what was placed inside the pyramids, he describes, “arms that did not rust, and glass which might be bent but not broken... an idol of black granite... when anyone looked upon him, he heard on one side of him a voice which took away his sense, so that he fell prostate upon his face and did not cease until he died.” He further describes another protective device, a statue to which one was magically drawn “until he stuck to it, and could not be separated from it until such time as he died.”38
When caliph Al-Ma’mum and his men attempted to enter the Great Pyramid in the same era, they did so by blasting their way in because, by then, no one knew where the entrance was located. Only by blind luck and dynamite did they dislodge a limestone plug securing the ascending passage leading to the interior of the building, only to face a further succession of massive granite plugs. The building was still sealed. Ma’mum hadn't been driven by the promise of monetary treasure, but the certainty it contained objects from a high civilization, such as exotic metals, spells that held power over nature and, as we saw earlier, "a secret chamber containing maps and tables of the celestial and terrestrial spheres. Although they were said to have been made in antediluvian times, they were supposed to be of great accuracy."39 Like the pharaoh Khufu three thousand years before him, Ma’mum had sought out another temple somewhere on the Giza plateau said to contain a room called Inventory, where the books and objects once owned by Twt were stored. Like Khufu, he was to be thwarted.
Many pyramids in Egypt are problematic for the pyramids-are-burial-chambers cartel. The Pyramid of Sekhemkhet at Saqqara was found completely sealed along with its ‘sarcophagus’ which, when opened, was found to be empty. The Pyramid of Meidum was likewise sealed and contained nothing inside, not even a box. Perhaps the treasures that glory hounds such as Ma’mum sought were the buildings themselves, because anyone interested in numbers or astronomy is able to extract all manner of useful information. Take the Great Pyramid, for example, it encodes the precise value of the Earth’s polar radius. It is a scale model of the northern hemisphere on a scale of 1:43,200, a number deliberately chosen to reflect the seconds in a 12-hour day, making the building time-commensurate as well. The number
is not an accident, it reflects the Earth's full axial tilt (21,600 years x2), a recurring number expressed in myths as 432, 4320, 432,000 and so on. From its base divisor of 72 we can derive the age of each house of the zodiac, 2160 years. Twelve houses in the zodiac equals 25,920 years, otherwise known as the Great Year or the Precession of the Equinoxes.40 And this is just a quick synopsis of one antediluvian building.
The smaller pyramid, the one attributed to Menkaure, is especially puzzling. The lower sixteen courses are faced with megalithic blocks of red granite, interlocked in a jigsaw pattern much like those at Saqsayhuaman and features the same protruding knobs. Its descending passage and innermost chamber, which are fitted inside solid bedrock, are made from chocolate granite composed of feldspar, mica and quartz, an extremely hard material to work with under any circumstances.
Mica was the material of choice in Central American temples. An extensive layer of sheet mica was found sandwiched between two upper levels of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan; more sheets were discovered nearby in the aptly named Mica Temple. Two additional 90 square feet pieces were discovered under a thick slab floor, and of a specific elemental variety found four thousand miles away in Brazil.41