Oswald White Bear Fredericks

It would be easy to write this book off as some New Age treatise because of the word "Lemuria" in the title, but the reality is more complicated than that. This bulk of this book (about 120 of its 142 pages) consists of the transcribed text of recordings in which Hopi elder Oswald White Bear Fredericks narrated migration stores and other oral histories of the Hopi. He equates New Age legends of Lemuria and Atlantis with the two warring parties that brought about the end of the Fourth World. show more Other than using the names, he doesn't seem to be overly influenced by New Age cosmology. I am not an expert on Hopi lore, but Fredericks assisted in the compilation of Frank Waters' The Book of the Hopi, and from my limited knowledge of Hopi lore I don't see any unorthodox material. It's only natural that Fredericks would use names familiar to his listeners and also try to understand his own culture with insight gained from others, just as Native Americans have in reciting their oral histories since the earliest European intrusions. In addition to the narrative of the destruction of the Fourth World and migration narratives, Fredericks tells several other Hopi tales.

The rest of the book consists of introductory material by Michael Lightweaver, who obtained the manuscript (but who strangely isn't credited on the cover or title page) and a four-page epilogue and some (not especially insightful) editorial notes by Kai Khriste King, who edited and published the book. show less