Native American Legends
The End of The Second World
A Hopi Legend
After their emergence, the people of the Second World lived in
harmony with each other for a time. They built villages and linked
them with trails. They began to trade food and hand crafted items
between villages.
This was when the trouble started. Everything they needed was on
this Second World, but they began to want more. More and more they
began to trade for things they didn't need, and the more goods they
got, the more they wanted.
This was very serious, for they did not realize they were drawing
away, step by step, from the good life given them. They just forgot
to sing joyful praises to the Creator, and soon began to sing praises
to the goods they bartered and stored. Before long it happened as
it had to happen. The people began to quarrel and fight, and then
wars between the villages began.
There were still a few people in each village who sang the song
of their Creation. But the wicked people laughed at them until they
could only sing it in their hearts. Even so, Sótuknang heard
it through their centers and the centers of the Earth. One day he
suddenly appeared before them.
"Spider Woman tells me your thread is running out on this
world," he said. "That is too bad. The Spider Clan was
your leader, and you were making good progress until this state
of affairs began. Now my Uncle, Taiowa, and I have decided we must
do something about it. We are going to destroy this Second World
just as soon as we put you people who still have the song in your
hearts in a safe place."
So again, as on the First World, Sótuknang called on the
Ant People to open up their underground world for the chosen people.
When they were safely underground, Sótuknang commanded the
Twins, Pöqánghoya and Palöngawhoya, to leave their
posts at the north and south ends of the world's axis, where they
were stationed to keep the Earth properly rotating.
The Twins had hardly abandoned their stations when the world, with
no one to control it, teetered off balance, spun around crazily,
then rolled over twice. Mountains plunged into the sea with a great
splash, seas and lakes sloshed over the land, and as the world spun
through cold and lifeless space, it froze into solid ice.
This was the end of Tokpa, the Second World.
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