Apocalypse Here: Reading the Natural World in Native American Mormon Visions

Moenkopi is a Hopi town in a region that was occupied by both Hopi and Navajo people. [...]it is likely that the visionary here was a Hopi man, but Christensen never recorded his name.4 The fact that Christensen transcribed this passage of his journal suggests that he shared it with church members and may have sought to publish it formally. Folklorist Sven Liljeblad observed that in Great Basin cultures, "after finishing a detail of the plot, the storyteller used to pause for response or questions, whereupon he repeated or rephrased his utterance. [...]an episode or a single phrase would recur in the same or in a slightly different form, as the narrator continued his story step by step. The Indians were the ones who would have revenge on their enemies, and though it looked like the Mormons were not part of the group that "would be like the 'dry wood upon the mountains that would be consumed,'" the enemies of the Mormons were left out entirely. [...]Torbuka's vision afforded a glimpse of triumphant Indian identity, bolstered by, but not entirely dependent upon, white Mormons, constructed from Mormonism but congruent with Goshute culture and religion as well, and, importantly, located in the Goshute environment. [...]the visionary told Christensen, "there began a fam- ine that lasted for 7 years and my people consumed everything, corn, horses, dogs, snakes and all reptiles and then they suffered.