Four Worlds
Hopi legend tells that the current earth is the Fourth World to be inhabited by Tewa's creations. The story essentially states that in each previous world, the people, though originally happy, became disobedient and lived contrary to Tewa's plan; they engaged in sexual promiscuity, fought one another and would not live in harmony. Thus, the most obedient were led (usually by Spider Woman) to the next higher world, with physical changes occurring both in the people in the course of their journey, and in the environment of the next world. In some stories, these former worlds were then destroyed along with their wicked inhabitants, whereas in others the good people were simply led away from the chaos which had been created by their actions.
Read more about this topic: Hopi Mythology
Famous quotes containing the word worlds:
“And who, in time, knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent,
T’enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in th’yet unformed Occident
May come refined with th’accents that are ours?”
—Samuel Daniel (c.1562–1619)
“Truth cannot be defined or tested by agreement with ‘the world’; for not only do truths differ for different worlds but the nature of agreement between a world apart from it is notoriously nebulous. Rather—speaking loosely and without trying to answer either Pilate’s question or Tarski’s—a version is to be taken to be true when it offends no unyielding beliefs and none of its own precepts.”
—Nelson Goodman (b. 1906)