© 2009 Dave Holt
© 2009 The Urantia Book Fellowship
| Volume 10, Number 1, 2009 (Summer) — Index | The Role of Emotions and Feelings on an Evolutionary World |
The migration of the red race across the Bering Strait landbridge began 100,000 years ago. It took many generations and lifetimes to complete. During the last era of glaciation when ice sheets absorbed large amounts of water, a drop of 300 feet in sea level created an exposed land mass one thousand miles wide from north to south. Early groups of the Sangik people who traveled through Beringia to present-day Alaska were nomadic tribes, uprooted by wars and looking for safe shelter. But they were not herders, and did not, for example, bring horses to America as the Spanish did later. It was an era of hunter-gatherer cultures, hunters who practiced agriculture to a small extent. [UB 79:5.7]
Although the first Americans were a highly mobile group, the migration across Bering Strait probably consisted of a succession of settlements that gradually encroached eastward as they were founded and then dismantled. The “Clovis First” theory, named after Clovis, New Mexico’s first arrowheads associated with prehistoric sites, places the migration date at about 13,500 years ago. Because of the Clovis flint-knapped blade and weapons technology, this theory emphasizes the early migrants from Asia as a hunter culture that followed mammoth herds. The theory implies there was a straight running chase by one hundred hunters or fewer across the strait in pursuit of the Wooly Mammoth. But such was not likely the case. Every year there is more evidence uncovered to show that Native Americans migrated long before the Clovis hunters. Without the powerful and effective Clovis point technology that developed later, the first hunters may not have been so eager to follow mammoth. Instead these Sangiks moved camp in chase of different types of game or other natural resources. One contending theory has shown that the people might have made the journey in fishing vessels using the safe avenue of the kelp forest that grew along the entire North American west coast, making occasional camp on the shore where the glacier had retreated. As our climate’s warming phase continues, there will be more opportunities to excavate Pacific Northwest ancient settlements that will become exposed where ice and permafrost covers them now.
By 85,000 years ago, the last of the original eleven tribes had departed Asia, ending an era of migration that lasted 15,000 years. This time period, derived from a close reading of The Urantia Book, is much longer than we had ever imagined or been led to believe by modern science. Recent research based on samples of DNA from nearly 200 people in the region has led scientists to the new conclusion that the colonists may have stayed on Beringia for as long as 20,000 years.[1] Because of the current explosion in new knowledge (DNA research, linguistics), a longer migratory timeline is under consideration and there are many currently proposed theories about the settlement of the Americas.
The red race didn’t know they were entering into a long period of isolation from the rest of the human family. During a subsequent period of warming, the exposed land bridge of Bering Strait was again submerged by rising sea levels. Except for some contact with the Eskimo-Aleut, the red race was cut off from other races and cultures.
More significantly for Urantia Book students, they were isolated from the spiritualizing influence of three subsequent epochal revelations: Adam, Melchizedek and Jesus of Nazareth. If the red Sangiks wished to grow and progress spiritually as a people, they were forced by circumstances to rely on the natural wisdom to be gained from religious experience. They turned to the more gradual spiritual acquisitions, intellectual developments, personal insights and revelations of their human teachers, “Knowing Ones,” the Seven Grandfathers, elders, and other hard won discoveries of their talented shamans. The Urantia Book designates this phase as evolutionary religion.
The Urantia Book also shows us that the continued evolution of Native American religion was initially founded on the revelation of a Local Universe son of God, a bestowed Lanonandek Son. The red race preserved much of the instruction of their first teacher, the Planetary Prince Caligastia, as it was given by the Prince’s staff in the now-submerged Persian Gulf city of Dalamatia 500,000 years ago. American Indian lore has descriptions of its own about bestowals from above, traditions that parallel some of the book’s description of the first epochal revelation. However unclearly the Dalamatia teachings were preserved and remembered, I believe we find the remnants to this day in the Native Peoples’ lore that has survived through the centuries.
Revelation as an epochal phenomenon is periodic; as a personal human experience it is continuous. Divinity functions in mortal personality as the Adjuster gift of the Father, as the Spirit of Truth of the Son, and as the Holy Spirit of the Universe Spirit . . . [UB 101:2.12]
American Indian cultures benefited indirectly from another “epochal” revelation. The Urantia Book assures us that the Spirit of Truth came to all races and peoples at Pentecost (30 A.D.). This bestowal of spirit followed upon the last days of the fourth epochal revelation made by Michael the Creator Son incarnated as Joshua Ben Joseph, Jesus of Nazareth. The one hundred and twenty men and women assembled in the upper chamber all received the new teacher, as did all the honest of heart throughout the whole world. This new teacher was bestowed upon mankind, and every soul received him in accordance with the love for truth and the capacity to grasp and comprehend spiritual realities. [UB 194:3.6] Thus, all believers in the Creator (Son) could, from that time forward, fraternize with his spiritual presence. The red race, isolated in the Americas, was empowered to participate in the revelation of Michael’s human life, even though they had not actually witnessed the events of his bestowal. To this day, many Native American prayers are addressed to “Creator,” not so much to Father as Christian prayers are. Perhaps guided by the Spirit of Truth, many Native Americans continue to convert to Christianity in search of the teachings of Jesus that are maintained and preserved there.
Christianity and other established religions have rejected the idea of a religion that continues to evolve and change, and generally disapprove of applying the concept of evolution associated with Darwinian science. Christians question how principles of continuous evolutionary change can be applied to spiritual truths held to be Absolute by nature, beyond time, eternal, unchanging. Native Peoples’ indigenous religions provide a fruitful area where we can learn more about the interaction of revelation episodes and evolutionary developments in religion. A study of evolutionary religion will provide alternatives to absolutist positions about truth that are adopted with an ever more fanatical allegiance in our century. Let us not forget that even in our times, religion is still evolving and will continue to evolve.
I have heard readers say that The Urantia Book gives us a “new” mythology. One of the startling new myths or stories is about a West Coast Indian named Hesunanin Onamonalonton. He was the greatest teacher and leader ever to help his people advance spiritually. He once “maintained his headquarters among the great redwood trees of (present-day) California.” [UB 64:6.7] At first I thought there was no evidence of this personality outside of The Urantia Book. Then, as my investigation unfolded, I began to find hints, echoes, and threads in surviving Indian stories of a figure much like the heroic peacemaker described in the The Urantia Book:
. . . it appeared that . . . tribal wars would result in the speedy extinction of this remnant of the comparatively pure red race. …the red men seemed doomed when, about sixty-five thousand years ago, Onamonalonton appeared as their leader and spiritual deliverer. He brought temporary peace among the American red men and revived their worship of the ‘Great Spirit.’ [UB 64:6.6-7]
It is important to note from this passage that The Urantia Book does not consider Onamonalonton to be the originator of the concept of the Great Spirit. If he revived it, where did it originate?
Out of the original eleven tribes of the red race who crossed Beringia into North America, The Urantia Book has given us the name of one modern-day tribe that is descended from Onamonalonton. “Many of his later descendants have come down to modern times among the Blackfoot Indians.” [UB 64:6.7] It should be noted here that Blackfoot is the name that was given by non-Indians to three related tribes of the Blackfoot Confederacy, Piegan (Pikuni), Kainai, and Siksika.
Were we to apply this statement within a Western, historical, linear context, we would place Onamonalonton securely among the peoples speaking the Algonkian (Algonquian) dialect, so named by our anthropologists. Strangely, Algonkian is a parent tongue of the Western Great Lakes region not commonly associated with California. Linguistic theory holds that the Blackfeet were the earliest Algonquian speaking group to live on the Plains. They may have branched off and evolved their own variant of speech if we assume a movement in a west to east direction from a Bering Strait point of origin. Alternatively, the Blackfeet may have forsaken the Eastern Woodlands and returned westward to the Plains, as the Lakota did. The majority of Algonkian speakers inhabited the Eastern Woodlands and modern Blackfoot tribal members acknowledge a direct relationship with other Algonquian tribes of that region.[2] Their Creation Story of the “Earth-Diver” is a variant of the same origin stories told by the Ojibwe, Seneca, Onondaga and other Eastern Woodland tribes. Even up to historic times, the tribes speaking this common dialect extended from coast to coast, a fact that supports the former existence of a more unified people living in a commonly held culture and civilization.
The Indians known as the Lenni Lenapé (Original People), or the Delaware, so renamed by European colonists because the Delaware River ran through their lands, are believed to be an original tribe of the Algonquian-speaking peoples. They were known as one of the “grandfather tribes,” perhaps one of the original eleven, to the Ojibwe, Blackfoot, and other relations.
The Cheyenne of present day Montana have preserved an account of eleven ancient clan names that may represent our closest approach to the remaining knowledge of the grandfather tribes. In preserved oral accounts of their lineage, North American Indians once revered these ancestors, the Lenni Lenape, at least until the Lenapé were conquered and humiliated by the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) in the mid 1700s. The power and position of the Lenapé was so respected their presence was requested whenever a spiritual solution was needed to settle disputes among rival tribes. They had loyally preserved Onamonalonton’s teachings of peace.
¶ Onamonalonton’s Spiritual and Intellectual Achievements
Was the “revival” of the ancient concept of the “Great Spirit” taken from the preserved teachings of the Planetary Prince’s staff of one hundred?
“Of all who received the teachings of the one hundred, the red men held them longest.” [UB 92:4.5] Based on this Urantia Book account, it is a reasonable theory that if Onamonalonton wasn’t the originator of the idea of Great Spirit, it had lain dormant in lore known to the tribe as the Original Instructions. Like all young men of promise, Onamonalonton was given these traditional instructions as part of his childhood upbringing. He must have discovered the idea of a great spirit in his own higher mind as well, and was able to connect it to the ancient teachings of his people.
Because of his Algonquian origin, I will primarily use the word Manitou from the Anishnaabemowin language when I discuss Onamonalonton’s teaching of the Great Spirit. Anishnaabemowin (Ojibwe, Potowatomi) is an Algonquian dialect that is very ancient and derives from the Proto-Algonquian language probably spoken by the grandfather tribes (about 1,000 B.C.). Manitou is the word used to describe an other-than-human, extraordinary spiritual force that pervades all nature, all animate and inanimate beings. It describes a power that evokes wonder (worship), and can mean that which is incomprehensible, a Great Mystery.
To the Lakota (Sioux) of the Plains, Manitou is known as Wakan, sacred, consecrated, sublime, incomprehensible, possessing or capable of giving an endowed spiritual quality which is received or transmittable to human beings. Wakan, being anything that was hard to understand, also evoked reactions of awe and fear. When anyone did something no one understood, this was Wakan. People could not create it. They cannot control it at first, although a tradition that control could be learned first arose within the grand medicine societies.
“Good Seat,” (in Dr. Mark Hollabaugh’s essay) tells us that long ago, the Lakotas believed there were marvelous beings whose existence, powers or doings were a mystery. These beings they called Wakan Kin (The Wakan). In this we find a hint that the sacred power was associated with the Prince’s staff. Manitou is also equivalent to Orenda in Haudenosaunee (Iriquois Six Nations of the Eastern Woodlands). In the Middle East, the same concept of an innate supernatural force was known by the term ilam in ancient Mesopotamia.
The Native peoples believed that lakes and trees had separate spirits and the “Manitou” of a particular lake or tree could be addressed or propitiated.
“My power from Birch Mountain helped me just as much in hunting as in sickness . . . I would say: ‘My mountain, I want you to help me get some of these deer. They are yours and live upon you.’ . . . My mountain is always good to me . . . My mountain spoke to me in a dream and asked me to become a doctor. It told me how I should cure.” (Hoavadunaki of the Paiute tribe) [3]
. . . As nature worship developed, man’s concepts envisioned a division of labor in the supermortal world; there were nature spirits for lakes, trees, waterfalls, rain, and hundreds of other ordinary terrestrial phenomena. [UB 85:0.3]
Onamonalonton’s people were at a pre-agricultural stage, practicing an economy based on the hunting of game, fishing (also whaling) by the men, and the gathering of roots, grasses, seeds and herbs mostly done by the women. A hunter who desired more spiritual power, who sought to possess and control Manitou, might make a worshipful appeal to the spirit of a mountain, or to an animal spirit ally, one he had communed with in his sacred ceremonies of the dream quest or vision fast. Manitou then was a power that could be acquired or transferred from a spirit being or deity.
You may and perforce must conceive of the functioning of plural Deities and postulate the existence of plural Trinities; but in the worshipful experience of the personal contact of every worshiping personality throughout the master universe, God is one . . . [UB 56:4.5]
Onamonalonton grew up in the indigenous peoples’ world of nature spirits. As a boy, he learned by watching how the warriors, hunters, and women seed harvesters of his clan prayed. They performed their sacred rituals to Manitou seeking to obtain power and success in the hunt, asking Manitou to bestow good fortune on their undertakings. From this he understood that his people had a natural belief in a providential, seemingly personal force, a god that cared enough about human beings to answer prayers and petitions. This overarching supernatural force could be appealed to in prayers for blessings, and requests for power. The men and women taught him what methods they’d learned for acquiring the skill to direct and control this power. Onamonalonton understood the implication of a superior Manitou spirit in these rituals. Yet he was the first to move intellectually from the mere implication of a mightier spirit ruling all others to a full declaration of the idea of Kitchi Manitou, the Great Spirit.
Onamonalonton directed this race from the worship of many gods to the veneration of ‘The Great Spirit’ [UB 45:4.5]
Just as Jesus took as a starting point the Jewish scriptures of his youth, Onamonalonton began with the sacred teachings of the red race. He possessed spiritual genius in his use of tribal lore that he was taught as a child; he found it reinforced by his own theophanic insights. His understanding was perhaps highlighted by the presence of his Thought Adjuster (God within). His vision of God earned him the Great Grandfather’s [4] gift of the indwelling spirit. At this point, he made a giant step and empowered his people to make a sudden progressive leap in their evolution. He did not discover golden tablets, clay ones, or even a new set of birch bark scrolls; we can speculate that his people’s ancient teachings had probably been recorded and preserved in pictographs on scrolls handed down to succeeding generations. The grandfather tribes such as the Ojibway, and Lenni Lenape carried bark scrolls that recorded their most important histories.
For writing material these early peoples utilized tree barks, clay tablets, stone slabs . . . the Dalamatia library, destroyed soon after the Caligastia disaffection, comprised more that two million separate records … The red man preferred pictorial writing… [UB 66:5.9-10]
Nor are we told that an angel such as Gabriel appeared and spoke to him. He made a connection in his own questing mind and hungry soul without the aid of an epochal revelation, a connection between the will of the Universal Father as Great Spirit and the compelling desire to serve his fighting and feuding brothers.
Since the Third Person of Deity is the source of mind, it is quite natural that the evolutionary will creatures find it easier to form comprehensible concepts of the Infinite Spirit than they do of either the Eternal Son or the Universal Father. The reality of the Conjoint Creator is disclosed imperfectly in the very existence of human mind. The Conjoint Creator is the ancestor of the cosmic mind, and the mind of man is an individualized circuit, an impersonal portion, of that cosmic mind as it is bestowed in a local universe by a Creative Daughter of the Third Source and Center. [UB 9:5.4]
I believe he saw even more. In his encounter with the mind of the Infinite Spirit, or that “portion of that cosmic mind” of the Creative Daughter, the Universe Mother Spirit, he discerned a supreme plan in the divine mind. The Spirit’s desired purpose was that peace and goodwill someday rule in the affairs of humankind. On fire with his revelatory insight into the will of the Great Spirit, a vision of the brotherhood of mankind burned within him. He set out against great odds to establish peace among all the tribes.
. . . Never after the days of this great teacher did another leader succeed in bringing universal peace among them. . . . [UB 64:6.8]
A surviving teaching in the Secret Doctrine of the Blackfoot shows that Onamonalonton may have attempted to impart a deeper insight into the nature of the Great Spirit. He may have tried teaching his more receptive followers the truth of the divine spark indwelling the Great Spirit’s faithful followers. Indeed, if Manitou is everywhere, then Manitou was an integral part of each human being’s makeup as well. “The Great Mystery together with the Great Unknown which is Everywhere fire builds inside (illuminates).” [5] Onamonalonton using metaphors his people would understand may have reinforced in them the ability to speak to the Spirit and “hear” its guidance by opening their very own hearts and minds. A fire of illumination is built inside if one prays with sincerity, devotion, and spiritual power.
¶ A 7-Stage Spiritual Journey
I will summarize my theory of Onamonolonton’s spiritual journey and discoveries by presenting a way of viewing it in seven stages (knowing how Urantia Book readers enjoy seven stage lists):
- He suffered from the burden of ghost-fear and dread of bad luck that all his people had carried for many eons.
- He had a vision of God, “When the suffering servant obtains a vision of God, there follows a soul peace which passes all human understanding,” as happened with Job. [UB 148:6.3]
- He received a fragment of the Father, the Mystery Monitor, his Thought Adjuster.
- He began to live his life under the guidance of the will of the Father fragment, realizing that God-love ruled, not God-fear, “Primitive religion prepared the soil . . . for the bestowal of a bona-fide spiritual force of supernatural origin . . . the divine Adjusters have ever since labored to transmute God-fear into God-love.” [UB 86:7.6]
- He achieved a peace in his spirit; “Peace in this life . . . [is] achieved (in spirit) now when the creature personality consents—chooses—to subject the creature will to the Father’s will.” [UB 111:5.4]
- He understood the need to establish a brotherhood of man, and set about to create it by preaching the cause of universal peace to all the tribes and confederations.
- He laid the groundwork for a high civilization on the North American continent.
How was Onamonalonton’s message broadcast so far and wide that it brought an end to the conflicts and rivalries among his people?
The idea of a peaceful trading economy was exciting to the tribes. Eyewitness accounts of new alliances being formed, based not on war but on industry and exchange, were broadcast slowly at first. Certain conditions of peacekeeping and the arbitration of disputes without violence were required. As more began to benefit from the trade alliances, the appeal of forming such confederations began to catch on more quickly. Emissaries from many tribes of the four directions were dispatched to learn about the new peaceful and profitable trade being transacted between western groups of “the people.” They sometimes traveled thousands of miles to reach Onamonalonton’s forest headquarters on the Pacific coast.
In actuality, we have no clues as to whether Onamonalonton traveled to other tribes to teach his message, or whether delegates from the tribes came to him. The Urantia Book’s emphasis on his “headquarters” does suggest that the technique used was much like the method employed in the Planetary Prince’s headquarters of Dalamatia. Caligastia’s staff would bring in those individuals they believed were ready to receive higher teachings. Then these students would be sent back to teach their own people the good news about “the Father of all.”
¶ Where Were Onamonalonton’s California Headquarters Located?
The Hupa, a tribe that lives in the redwood forests of northern California (Humboldt County), have preserved a legend that tells of an “immortal” being, perhaps a father of a race, who appeared among them:
“In northwestern California the god who made the nice things in this world for people is known as Yimantuwingyai, which in English means, He-who-is-lost-to-us-across-the-ocean. He first appeared in a place on the Klamath River. …After he appeared, there grew everywhere in the world a race of people who lived there until the Indians appeared, when they went away across the ocean never to be seen again. These people were immortals who did not die.” [6]
Aside from the depiction of this bestowal as an appearance, not requiring an actual human birth, another detail in the Hupa story is very striking. It is the suggestion of the founding of a human race. Are there preserved memories in this tale of the Planetary Prince and his staff’s role of parenting a new race? “There grew everywhere in the world a race of people,” the Hupa storyteller told his listeners. This correlates with history in The Urantia Book that a radical decision was made by the now fallen Prince’s staff after the outbreak of the Lucifer Rebellion. At that dramatic turning point in history, Daligastia directed the sixty members of his staff of one hundred, who were followers of Lucifer and Satan, to immediately initiate sexual reproduction with “the daughters of men.” (as described in Genesis 6:2-4) [UB 67:4.2] He knew that because of the Rebellion against the Father’s plan, they would be isolated and then deprived of the life-sustaining energies of the universe. He saw they would immediately become mortal. Thus, a new race appeared on the world stage. They are known in The Urantia Book as the Nodites.
What I am suggesting here is that the Hupa account seems to have combined two old memories: the one of the Planetary Prince’s staff who were immortals and who “went across the ocean never to be seen again,” (when in reality the red race went across the ocean), with the memory of Onamonalonton who may have lived among them in the redwoods of the Klamath River region. One Hupa story places Yimantuwinyai, the bestowed god, between the Kixunai, “a race of Immortals who preceded humans on this earth, and “mortal Indians called Kyuwinyanyan (“those who eat acorns”). The Kyuwinyanyan began to emerge where Yimantuwinyai had paused in his travels.” [7] Legend accorded this middle figure a status equivalent to the Planetary Prince.
While hardly “sons of the gods,” the [Prince’s] staff and their early descendants were so regarded by the evolutionary mortals of those distant days; . . . This, then, is the origin of the well-nigh universal folk tale of the gods who came down to earth and there with the daughters of men begot an ancient race of heroes. [UB 77:2.3]
Like the Hupa legend, stories of a heroic figure from the deep past have traveled to many far locales. The locations where stories survive are clues that reveal which living tribes had encountered and learned from Onamonalonton’s teachings. When the Ojibwe people of the east and north woods tell their tales of the “Original Man,” Waynaboozhoo, or Nanabush, they may be recalling all that is remembered of the original real events of Onamonalonton’s life. Nanabush is even shown to be present at the creation of the world. In some versions, Nanabush is floating around on a nearby log when Muskrat, “Earth-Diver,” makes his successful dive. After the failure of many other animals to do so, Muskrat dives through the deep water, reaches the bottom and retrieves the mud needed to make land grow on turtle’s back. The similar shared elements of the “Earth-Diver” creation stories may indicate a former cultural unity, and/or the cross-cultural exchange of religious lore that once took place between the many tribes of Turtle Island (North America).
Where in the California redwoods were the headquarters of Onamonalonton located? Unfortunately, The Urantia Book withholds the answer to this burning question. The Hupa tribe’s memory of “a place on the Klamath River,” which originates in southern Oregon and flows into the Pacific near the Oregon border, may be correct. Even the Indian word “Klamat” is of mysterious origin and predates known native languages. There is a great spiritual energy or drawing power that attracts Indians, New Age religionists, and metaphysical students to the area. They are drawn to make pilgrimages to a sacred high peak near the Klamath. The spiritual doctors of the Winnemem Wintu tribe conduct their annual summer renewal ceremony within view of Bulyum Puyiuk (Shasta), the sacred mountain of their people.
Their well-known elder, Florence Jones (now passed away), revived the ancient Wintu ceremony in the early 1980s. Snow-covered Mt. Shasta stands not far from the Klamath River, about an hour by car, fifty miles distant for a traveler on foot.
“The morning star is up.
I cross the mountains
Into the light of the sea.
A white mountain is far at the west.
It stands beautiful.
It has brilliant white arches of light
Bending down towards the earth.”
(Song of the Papago, an Arizona tribe)
“In a time of famine a young medicine-man went into the wilderness with a woman, the wife of a chief, journeying until they came to a forest-clad mountain, beyond which lay a sea of waters. The mountain opened, and they entered; and Roaring Thunder, who talked to them from the top of the mountain-peak, instructed them in the ritual of the dance. ‘From henceforth, by following my teachings, you and your children shall be blessed abundantly.’”
This Cheyenne mythology about the founding of the Plains Indians’ Sun-Dance ceremony may be based on the more ancient story of Onamonalonton’s teachings at Mt. Shasta.
¶ What Happened to the Message After Onamonalonton Was Gone?
If the history of the early discovery of the Great Spirit 65,000 years ago were generally known and accepted today, it would end the controversy and disagreement over the idea of Kitchi Manitou (Great Spirit in Ojibwe). Many native traditional thinkers believe that the term translates more correctly to an impersonal force, Great Mystery. They contend that Great Spirit represents a concession to the Christianity of the Catholic Church missionaries who began preaching their religion the moment the Conquistadors stepped ashore. Beginning in the 17th century in Canada, the Jesuit Fathers won many converts to Jesus, including most of my Ojibwe ancestors. They taught a Holy Trinity of three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
New information that the Great Spirit was probably a teaching of the Planetary Prince’s staff of one hundred is a revelation made in The Urantia Book. We have no “historic” evidence of this teaching. It was given in the times before the Prince’s regime was destroyed during the Lucifer Rebellion 200,000 years ago, whereupon the staff’s efforts to uplift the planet soon died out. “. . . the idea of the Great Spirit [became] but a hazy concept in Amerindian religion.” [UB 92:4.5]
And so as a legitimate spiritual possession of Native American peoples, the Great Spirit lost ground but did not die out altogether. Perhaps American Indian spiritual thinkers will one day accept that the arrival of European religious thought reinforced a teaching already carried in their traditions. As The Urantia Book confirms, or observes, depending on your point of view, “contact with Christianity greatly clarified and strengthened [the concept of the Great Spirit.]” [UB 92:4.5]
From his birth in approximately 63,000 B.C., Onamonalonton lived for 96 years. After he died, the teachings continued to be nurtured from his California center. To our surprise, because The Urantia Book is the only source for the information, the red race attained a “high degree of civilization” because of his influence. Although the Amerindian culture of the Onamonalonton center disappeared by 35,000 B.C., it had lasted for an astonishing 28,000 years. [UB 79:5.8]
Perhaps the mysterious mound cultures of the South and Midwest sprang up as attempts to restore the vanished but remembered high civilization of former times. Trade routes were opened, art and pottery of a high order created, ceremonial worship grounds established, and techniques of working in stone were exchanged. A revived phase of the mound culture arose at the time of Pentecost with a group we call the Hopewellians (named after a site in Chillicothe, Ohio). This later group of mound builders practiced a more extensive form of agriculture that allowed the development of a large sedentary population, which in turn permitted the creation of large ceremonial structures. One worship center may even reflect the spiritual revival that must have taken place after the Spirit of Truth descended upon all peoples at the conclusion of our Creator Son Michael’s bestowal. The oldest of the three main phases of Mound Builder cultures dates no farther back than 5,400 BCE (Watson Brake, Louisiana) per current knowledge. However, our science and archaeology is just beginning to discover signs of American Indian colonization as ancient as 37,000 years ago though the findings are often disputed.
¶ Encounters with Europeans
Many people know now that Columbus was not the first European to encounter the American Indians. About 998 AD, Norwegian explorers sailed from Scandinavia to settle the New World. They founded a colony they called Vinland, so named because one of the men discovered grape vines growing nearby. The site of Vinland has not been positively identified but some believe it must have been located in present-day Cape Cod. A small “outpost” at L’Anse aux Meadows (Meadow Cove) has been discovered and excavated, and is now a public historic site in Newfoundland. Likely it served as a winter camp and resupply base for the Norsemen’s explorations.
The archaeological findings have substantiated the historical record preserved in the epic tales of the Norse. The Vinland Sagas describe encounters with the “Skraelings” (a derogatory Norse term for the indigenous people). These tribes were possibly the Mi’kmaq or Beothuk tribes.[8] The “Viking” colonists were the first white people seen by any natives of the North American continent, and there were clashes and hostilities between the two groups. Although they are often called Vikings, these Norsemen were in reality farmers and settlers, and were not as well prepared militarily as their warrior kinsmen, the Vikings. Outnumbered by the natives, weakened from their attacks, and suffering from hunger and illness, they decided to return home.
News of the European settlements spread like wildfire and reached all the Indian relations. Many tribal councils were called to debate what to do. Northern tribes such as the Ojibwe, and other Anishnaabek (Odawa, Potowatomi) preserve a tradition that the Seven Fires prophecies were brought to them at about this time by the “Seven Grandfathers.” The record of the Viking/ Skraeling encounter should cause us to look at the Anishnaabe tradition of the Seven Fires prophecies in a different light. There is circumstantial evidence to place the prophecies in the same time frame, over a thousand years ago, as the first encounter between Europeans and American Indians. Referring back to The Urantia Book, we discover that Onamonalonton’s other gift to his people was:
The first real governmental body . . . the council of the elders. . . . Certain tribes of the red men preserved the teaching of Onamonalonton in following the unanimous rule of the ‘council of seven. [UB 70:5.2,4]
Do the Seven Grandfathers represent an ancient memory of a great council of wise elders? The truth that could lie behind the prophecies of the Seven Fires is that the Seven Grandfathers came to a unanimous agreement and enacted certain policy decisions made to protect their people. Over time, the decisions of this revered group were remembered as prophecies.
The First Fire instructed the people, “If you do not move you will be destroyed.” Even at this first early encounter with the Norse colonists, native inhabitants of the New World died in great numbers from exposure to smallpox. The elders wisely foresaw the possible complete destruction brought onto their people by the diseases of the white visitors. When the Europeans abandoned their settlements, the houses and barns were burned down in a ritual of cleansing. The Grandfathers urgently called for a great migration west. This wise guidance motivated by the instinct of self-preservation did save the Anishnaabe people. Many of the tribes packed up and started out on the long journey inland from the Atlantic coast. The Seven Fires prophecies were encoded onto a wampum belt made with seashell beads so that the people would not forget them during long seasons of travel. The Seven Fires wampum belt still exists today and is held by its Keeper, Grandfather William Commanda, a chief of the Mamiwinini in Quebec, Canada.
It was the beginning of what would become a five hundred yearlong migration overland until they reached the place where “food grows on the water (prophesied in the Third Fire).” The Ojibwe people traveled as far west as northern Minnesota and Ontario. There they reached a land where wild rice grows in the sheltered shallow inlets of the Great Lakes just as had been foretold. Thus these Algonkin tribes eventually settled (possibly resettled) in a region where the wild rice is still harvested to this day. The tribes who stayed on the Atlantic coast, such as the Abenaki and Beothuk, were eventually completely annihilated just as the Seven Grandfathers had prophesied.
¶ Three Paths: How to Distinguish Where We Are and Where Trails Cross
We have three central figures and their stories to consider when we try to disentangle the separate identities of culture heroes in surviving Native Peoples legends and lore.
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The Planetary Prince, Caligastia, and his staff of 100 supermortals, who are remembered in Indian legends as Kixunai (Hupa), “the Immortals.” It is he who was “lowered to earth as if by a rope” in the Anishnaabe (Ojibwe) tradition
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The “promised uplifter,” Adam and Eve of the Bible, whose future “gift of a new race,” was part of the information given to the red race by the college of revealed religion in Dalamatia, the Planetary Prince’s capital. [UB 66:5.15-16] The teachings are remembered to this day as the Original Instructions.
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Onamonalonton, great teacher and peacemaker, who was not immortal or of supermortal origin like the two above. He laid the groundwork of a civilization based on a higher concept of God as One Great Spirit ruling all lesser spirits.
The stories of Original Man: Waynaboozhoo, Nanabush, Weyachack (Cree), and Yimantuwingyai (Hupa) referred to so far all belong to a common cultural heritage of peoples speaking Algonkian (Algonquian) languages. It is a curiosity that the same story of a heroic figure sent from the heavens, one “lowered to the earth as if by a rope,” to live a human life was also preserved in other non-Algonquian traditions. The Maidu, for example, whose home territory in the Central Valley lies right at the border of the California Redwood region, are a tribe of the Penutian linguistic group. Yet they recount a very similar legend. The story of a being with a heavenly origin had clearly crossed linguistic boundaries:
“Wahno-no-pem (the Great Spirit) caused Yane-ka-num-kala, the White Spirit, to appear in the flesh unto the people, that he might enlighten and turn them from their evil ways; and this good man began his teachings and for many years he lived among our people.” (Katie “Kitt” Clark, aka Yohema, ConCow Maidu) [9]
The Maidu’s tale of the White Spirit, and the Hupa stories of the Immortals echo an even better known story that originated further south among the Toltec and Aztec peoples of Central America. Quetzalcoatl, the great white teacher, appeared during their third great age, teaching the way of virtue and the arts of life. The doctrines he preached were an attempt to replace a rival priestly cult of human sacrifice. After he failed to prevent the bloody practice from dominating Aztec religion, it is recorded in their literature that he departed to the east (“across the ocean”), with the promise to return someday.
Perhaps the “White Spirit” corresponds to the Planetary Prince himself who was not one of the Sangik race. The Prince was not visible to human beings. Therefore “white” may have been used symbolically to represent his spirit nature, his spiritual light. His staff was Andonite― somewhat Eskimo-Aleut in appearance. Memories from the era of the Planetary Prince, or of the teaching of the “promised uplifter,” may have been blended together over time with the faded memory of the great human teacher, Onamonalonton. This would explain combined story elements in the Native Peoples myths that survive.
It is difficult to determine where in chronological modern time the Maidu might place their culture hero, Yane-ka-num-kala; or the Hupa their Yim-an-tu-win-gy-ai (my dashes added). I believe Quetzalcoatl can be safely eliminated from the list of possible representations of Onamonalonton because Quetzalcoatl is associated with bringing maize (corn) to his people, making him a hero and founder of the agricultural era. From current archeological knowledge, we cannot date the horticultural or agricultural phase any earlier than 9,000-12,000 years ago, far too recent to be associated with the hunter-gatherer peoples of Onamonalonton’s time.
Although the legendary persons in Maidu and Hupa stories may correspond more closely to Onamonalonton and his story than other figures in ancient native lore, there are still contradictions. There is, for example, nothing to suggest in The Urantia Book that Onamonalonton came into the world by any other means than by natural human birth. There is not even a hint that he had a supernatural origin. The stories found in American Indian mythology of a teacher being sent by the Great Spirit, suggest that he may have also become confused with the “promised uplifter,” the predicted Material Son known to us as Adam, and the corresponding Material Daughter, Eve. It is possible that even while Onamonalonton was living, his followers began to combine his accomplishments of peace with the remembered “prophecy” of the Adamic bestowal.
One fateful turn demonstrates the power and influence of mythical traditions to change the course of history. The tradition of Topiltzin (Our Dear Prince) Quetzalcoatl persisted within the Aztec memory, and it always told of his messianic return from across the ocean. It is no wonder that Moctezuma, the Aztec emperor on the throne when Cortez arrived from Spain, was possessed by an unreasoned fear of Quetzalcoatl’s predicted return. In his mind the “white teacher” of the legend became confused and associated with the Spanish conquistador. The Aztec encounter with Cortez in 1519 led to their destruction. The Urantia Book confirms that this idea of a return occurs naturally in many world mythologies.
Many races have conceived of their leaders . . . careers [as] liberally sprinkled with miraculous episodes, and their return is always expected by their respective groups…among the Amerinds it was Hesunanin Onamonalonton. [UB 92:5.3]
There is another way to make sense of the many threads in Native American oral traditions. Onamonalonton may have been the founding personality in a long line of peacemakers. As the Nahuatl (Toltec/Aztec) literature says, “The life of Quetzalcoatl became a pattern for the life of every priest.”[10] Similarly, the telling and retelling of the Onamonalonton legend around the fire during the story-telling time of the tribes inspired other potential leaders to take up his mantle. Some were born to the task, the role of peacemaker. Thus the stories of Quetzalcoatl, Deganawida (of the Huron), Hiawatha (of the Onandaga), Yane-ka-num-kala (of the Maidu) could be about later appearing wise and saintlike figures who followed in the footsteps of the original Great Peacemaker, Onamonalonton. There would be an effort to fit the heroic stature of later peacemakers to the original culture hero. To the Haudenosaunee (the Iriquois of the Great Lakes) the actual name of their teacher was considered too sacred even to be spoken. He was referred to only by his title, the Peacemaker.
Maidu tradition records a detail which accords with The Urantia Book account of the tragic fate of Onamonalonton’s teachings. The rule of peace and goodwill among all men was not to last:
“…the lessons were forgotten; the songs died away in the forests, and in their stead came the war whoop, the shrieks of struggling women, and the groans of the wounded and the dying; and the name of Yane-ka-num-ka-la became a jibe and a mockery all over the land.” [11]
One of the more intriguing revelatory statements in The Urantia Book is that Onamonalonton now sits on the advisory council for our planet. This council of twenty-four has been recruited from the spiritual leaders of all races and convenes on our system capital of Jerusem. [UB 45:4.5] It is intriguing to read about a universe equivalent to what our corporations nowadays call a diversity council.
How does Onamonalonton feel today when he looks towards Urantia and observes his people still enduring such pain? How does he bear the sad fate of the red race?
Undoubtedly, he has achieved full understanding about the destiny of the mortal survivors of our universe. They are to attain cosmic citizenship. Truth seekers will evolve from local, national, or tribal identities to learn a universe loyalty, a revealed fact of which few on our planet are conscious at this time. Although the wisdom of the great teacher of the red race seemed to have been lost forever on his home planet, Onamonalonton’s experience and knowledge are finding a place to be of continued service to the universe government. No hard-earned truth and wisdom goes to waste in the Creator Son’s universe.
¶ Time Line & Events
| Time | Events |
|---|---|
| 500,000 years ago | Planetary Prince dispensation begins. Red race is given teachings at Dalamatia |
| 200,000 | Lucifer Rebellion, Dalamatia civilization collapses |
| 100,000 | Era of Red Sangik race migration across Beringia begins |
| 85,000 | Bering land bridge is submerged per Urantia Book |
| 65,000 | Birth of Onamonalonton in present-day California |
| 35,000 | End of first Native American civilization per Urantia Book (not discovered by science) |
| 29,000 | Migration from Asia date obtained from mitochondrial DNA Geneticist, Torroni, Atlanta) |
| 13,500 | “Clovis First” theory’s start date of red race migration (currently in disfavor) |
| 9,000 | Beginning of maize cultivation agricultural revolution in North America |
| 9,000 - 7,000 | First Quetzalcoatl (Mexico) “discoverer” of maize (corn) |
| 5,400 | First known Mound culture, Watson Brakes, Louisiana (per current archaeology) |
| 2,000 | Hopewell Mound culture Spirit of Truth bestowed on all peoples |
| 1,000 | Norwegians discover North America, encounter indigenous Native Populations |
| 1,400 - 450 | Cahokia civilization (Mississippian culture), last mound builder culture |
| 568 | De Soto and Coronado explorations, 1539−40. Encounter with American Indian civilizations |
| 489 | Cortez conquers and destroys Aztec Empire of Mexico |
Dave Holt was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada of Irish, English, and Ojibway (Chippewa) Indian ancestry. Introduced to The Urantia Book in 1976, he joined the Family of God Foundation, and is now serving as Vice President of the Golden Gate Circle Society. An award-winning writer and poet, Dave lives in Concord, CA, with his wife Chappell and has a daughter, Kelsey, now 20.
¶ Bibliography
- Benton-Banai, Edward. The Mishoomis Book: The Voice of the Ojibway. Hayward: Indian Country Communications Inc., 1988.
- Bierhorst, John. Four Masterworks of American Indian Literature (Quetzalcoatl). Tucson: The University of Arizona Press (reprint from New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1974)
- Caduto, Michael J. and Joseph Bruchac. 1989. Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories and Environmental Activities for Children. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum, Inc.
- Chute, Janet E. The Legacy of Shingwaukonse. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998.
- Clark, Katie (Kitt) aka Yohema, essay on Concow Maidu web site: www.maidu.com/maidu/ourhistory/ethno-history.html
- Hultkrantz, Ake. Native Religions of North America. New York: Harper and Row, 1987.
- Johnson, Basil. Ojibway Language Lexicon. Ottawa: Indian and Northern Affairs, 1978. (I also used Lena White’s Practical Reference Workbook for Teachers, Explore Ojibwe, self-published in1988 to try to standardize spellings.)
- Looking Through Lakota Eyes, an Essay by David Little Elk 1997
- Margolin, Malcolm (editor). The Way We Lived. (for Marumda and Kuksu, Coyote and Falcon, Birch Mountain, etc.) Heyday Books, 1981 (revised since).
- McGaa, Ed (Eagle Man). Mother Earth Spirituality. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.
- McGaa, Ed (Eagle Man). Rainbow Tribe; Ordinary People on the Red Road. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
- Neihardt , John G. Black Elk Speaks. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961.
- The Portable North American Indian Reader (edited by Frederick W. Turner III) Viking Press, 1974
- Moyers, Ernest. The Moyer Papers (The Legacy of Adam and Eve) published on www.world-destiny.org
- Poole, William. Sacred Mountain, Ancient Truths (Detours column). San Francisco Chronicle, September 13, 1987.
- Tooker, Elisabeth. Native North American Spirituality of the Eastern Woodlands. New York/Toronto. Paulist Press, 1979.
- West, Naida. Eye of the Bear, a History Novel of Early California. Rancho Murieta, CA. Bridge House Books, 2001.
- Winslow, Edward and Gwendoline Harris Block. California Indian Nights. Lincoln, NE: Bison Books (University of Nebraska Press). 1990 (reprint of 1930)
¶ External links
- https://www.sacredtexts.com (for Hupa literature)
- https://www.angelfire.com/ar/waakomimm/sikblf.html. Siksika, Blackfoot Nation website (for the Secret Doctrine of the Blackfoot, by Sunrise Hart)
- https://www.8thfire.net for the Seven Fires Prophecies and other histories
- https://www.faculty.normandale.edu/~physics/Hollabaugh/Lakota/CWSConference.htm for Dr. Mark Hollabaugh’s essay on the subject of Wakan in Lakota Celestial Imagery
- https://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/indiansongs.htm for the Frances Densmore translation of the Papago Song
¶ References
- Article obtained from The Fellowship site
| Volume 10, Number 1, 2009 (Summer) — Index | The Role of Emotions and Feelings on an Evolutionary World |
¶ Notes
Study published in PLoS ONE, the journal of the Public Library of Science, Feb. 2008 ↩︎
Blackfeet Indian Stories; Grinnell, George Bird. 1913 ↩︎
The Way We Lived, Hoavadunaki (Jack Stewart) Paiute. Margolin, pp. 90-91 ↩︎
A name for the Father God found in Lakota Sioux prayers (Black Elk and others) ↩︎
Siksika, Blackfoot Nation website, the Secret Doctrine of the Blackfoot, Sunrise Hart ↩︎
California Indian Nights, Edward Winslow and Gwendoline Block, p. 112 ↩︎
Neither Wolf nor Dog: American Indians, Environment & Agrarian Change; David Lewis, pp. 71-72 ↩︎
History of the Concow Maidu (website). Katie (Kitt) Clark, aka Yohema ↩︎
Four Masterworks of American Indian Literature, (The Fall of Tollan); John Bierhorst, P. 41 ↩︎
History of the Concow Maidu (website), Katie (Kitt) Clark, aka Yohema ↩︎