Hopi tradition holds teachings of emergence through worlds and instructions to live humbly on the land, stewarded by clans and religious societies, mostly closed to outsiders. The public 'prophecy' derives largely from mid-20th-century intermediaries: the 1963 Book of the Hopi and 1950s-60s speaking tours by individual elders like Thomas Banyacya, whose 1992 UN address is documented.
The viral version: a petroglyph at Prophecy Rock near Oraibi shows the forked road, upper path to oblivion, lower to continuation, gourd of ashes, blue star kachina. Every decade retimes its deadlines. The rock is real; the standardized reading is a publishing product.
The pattern worth archiving: the Hopi nation's official distance from its own 'prophecy' is itself the lesson, a living tradition watching its words exported, flattened, and weaponized by the culture the words warned about. The prophecy about materialism became merchandise.
Who owns a prophecy, the elders, the rock, or the people who reprint it?