Born in Moenkopi, Arizona, just outside the Hopi Reservation, Thomas Banyacya (1909–1999) was given the name Thomas Jenkins by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and sent away to school. He returned home in 1932 with a degree from Bacone College, a Baptist missionary institution, and began teaching—but he also began studying anew with tribal elders, learning the Hopi sacred traditions that his prior education had neglected.
When World War II broke out, Banyacya joined five other members of his tribe in refusing to register for selective service. Ancient Hopi prophecy had warned that “great trouble will come involving many nations,” and that “the Hopi should show our bows and arrows to no one at that time”; tribal elders explained this at his 1941 trial in Phoenix, but their voices had no effect, and Banyacya spent seven years in prison. In the excerpt that follows—from an interview by Deena Hurwitz and Craig Simpson, published in their 1984 oral history Against the Tide—Banyacya recalls the thinking that led him to follow his people’s “Spiritual Way.”
After his release, and in the wake of the use of atomic weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Banyacya was appointed to “carry the Hopi message of peace” to the world, and was instrumental in the revelation of Hopi prophecy. In 1992, after many attempts, he spoke at the United Nations: “If we humans do not wake up to the warnings, the great purification will come to destroy this world just as the previous worlds were destroyed.”
I STARTED with the Elders back in 1931 or ’32. When the Second World War started to break out, the President of the United States talked over the radio, “All of those 18 have to register to go to the Army.” I was single then and was living by myself in Old Oraibi. I had just finished all the pages in the book called Century of Dishonor when I heard the President of the United States telling Indians, “Look, we done you all kinds of things and we help you with these things and we took care of you and now you should appreciate and go fight for your country.” But I saw what happened all these years. And I can’t seem to agree. All this time I listened to the Elders, all this spiritual instruction and teaching. By that time I was convinced they (the Elders) were telling the truth. By that time I was taking part in the ceremony, so I know what they are talking about. Then being forced into school and learning to read the spiritual instructions and teachings, books written by the world religious people and memorizing the many verses which include the Ten Commandments. And one of these is “Thou Shalt Not Steal and Lie” and all that. And that made sense to me. I listened to my Elders’ instruction and warning. And I look at the Bible and other world religions’ warning all the same, and we are all under one power of God or whatever you call him. In Hopi we call him Massau’u. I better leave and go the way of the Hopi belief and follow the Hopi to maintain the peaceful way, Hopi life of truth, honest and peaceful, kind. And so I want to follow that.
So I never think of violating United States law. I just firmly believe in my people and stand by them. So that night when I hear the President of the United States talk about registration, I decided to wait awhile. And then I saw in my mind that I better not register. I think it best that I follow the law of the Great Spirit. So that decision was made there in myself during the night after the message of the President and finishing that book. Then I just decided I must hold onto the Spiritual Way like the Elders say. Then I waited and I thought I was the only one that didn’t register, but later I found a couple others. By that time I was helping my Elders in speaking out against certain things that they don’t want and writing letters and calling meetings with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.