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Article: Contemporary problems in the study of Native North American religions with special reference to the Hopis.(Special Issue: To Hear the Eagles Cry: Contemporary Themes in Native American Spirituality)
- Article from:
- The American Indian Quarterly
- Article date:
- June 22, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 University of Nebraska Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In my study of Hopi prophecies about the end of the world (Geertz 1992b), I documented the widespread interest in Hopi prophecy and culture by Europeans and Americans. Their prophetic message about the return of a long-awaited White Brother has moved, many groups and individuals to travel to the reservation, engage in cultural collision and sometimes cultural collusion, and return home to carry on personal crusades. These crusades generally thrive on the production and proliferation of stereotypes about Native peoples, and they have more often than not indirectly and sometimes directly caused harm on the reservation and off.
Such behavior reflects an age-old ...