TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
When I met Roy ["Littlesun"] Steevensz I had spent more than 20 years in close relationship to the Hopi people and especially the people in the village of Hotevilla. I had heard from a good friend that Roy was a "master healer".
My very first personal impression on meeting Roy was one of disbelief as I could intuit instantly that he was not a balanced or benevolent man. First of all, he affected behavior during a meal in a Hopi home that was out of sync with the place and the situation. He behaved in an inconsiderate way, verbalized egotistically and quite obviously presented himself as some kind of "holier than thou" individual.
None of this was lost on the Hopi women who were offering their hospitality and their food. Roy openly disdained some of the food, which among the Hopi is the gravest offense and display of ingratitude.
Roy and his companion moved into a trailer on the property of Rena Murillo just outside the village of Hotevilla and assumed the care and healing of Rena's elderly father, Titus. On one of my first visits to them there I noticed that Roy was carving figures of Hopi dieties with the idea of selling them. This was a bad sign.
Further, Roy was talking with great bluster about the village affairs with the attitude that he would assume some authority in the village and bring to bear his own plans about how to correct problems and who should be village leaders. I advised him to mind his own business and stay out of local politics and conflicts. He refused, claiming that he alone had a mandate from God to give advice and guidance to the Hopi.
From this point on Roy brought trouble, ignorance, disrespect and stress to many people. He sought and misused funds which he claimed was for the benefit of the Hopi people. He moved onto Titus's cornfield and proceeded to set himself up in the "healer-prophet" business which attracted many abberrant people.
He had plans for creating commercial enterprises on the land. He conducted his own religious "ceremonies" and started building his own "kiva", all of which demonstrated clearly to the Hopi and to others who understand the Hopi Way, that he had no comprehension whatsoever of the Hopi, their faith or their teachings.
In the meantime, he used and abused an elderly man who was exposed to people and places unhealthy for him and foods to which he was unaccustomed. Roy used Titus as his dancing monkey for some years. This caused great pity and distress for many of the people in Hotevilla.
I was present at a meeting called by the women of Hotevilla village where they, as a group, and representing the entire village, asked Roy in their traditional and very polite way, to please leave their land. He did not listen to these gentle women and responded with posturing, disrespectful language and tone and grandiose behavior. He told them that he would never leave, that he was right in all things and that they were more or less damned and doomed, the more so for not listening to him.
This meeting left me with sadness for the suffering of the women. All they wanted was to remove this demented man from their lives. They had and have many other internal and external sources of stress.
The Hopi have experienced the intrusion of thousands of curious, seeking, non-Hopis of every stripe: educators, missionaries, anthropologists, writers, historians, hippies, new-age air-heads, Cherokee princesses, movie-stars, druggies, false prophets, loonies and lost souls. They can spot a phony and a fraud coming from 50 miles away. Most of the trouble-makers do not stay long. Others, comprehending the Hopi message, have served in effective ways in assisting traditional Hopi to bring their urgent message to the world.
Roy, however, refused to go away. His meals were unpalatable, unattractive and lacking in spiritual essence. His attempts at playing doctor caused more harm to innocent people.
From observing Roy Steevensz for long periods of time both at Hopiland and in my own home as a guest, it is my opinion that he is not only a fraud but possibly insane and verging on evil. It is a significant matter that he goes all over the world misrepresenting himself as a Hopi spokesperson and giving out a message that in no way reflects the true meaning of Hopi Navoti. He has been spitting on the Hopi, their beliefs and culture and spreading lies and terrible distortions.
I understand that he is still collecting money for his travels and activities, and I urge anyone coming in contact with this man to stand up to him, call him what he is and spend no time, energy or money to assist his irreverent and self-serving schemes. As of this moment I myself have the perhaps unkindly wish to confront him again in person and perhaps force him to crawl on his knees over dry ground until he meets himself head-on.
I cannot include here all the harmful events set in motion by this man. First and foremost Roy arrived at Hotevilla, Third Mesa, Hopi Traditional homeland, with no background and no cultural understanding. He arrived with a personal plan and agenda which did not take into consideration the lives and dignity of the Hopi people. This demonstrated to me that regardless of his "spiritual" and "macrobiotic" front, he was a rather racist, ignorant and egotistical man. Little did he know, due to his own blindness, that everyone in the community could see him for what he was from the beginning. However, as is often the case, self-serving persons in the community gave him a foot-hold whereby he could maintain his spot in Hopi for a long time.
The damage he did was intense. Again, his very ignorance of Hopi, blinded him to the foolish and sacriligious things he did and said. First, if he had had the humility to listen to the Hopi he would have been aware that he was disregarding them and exhibiting blatant blasphemy and distain. He essentially tried to set up his own peculiar "religion", collect funds and followers right on Hopi land. This is about like some nut walking into a Catholic Church and proceeding to perform his own services at the altar and proclaiming himself the Pope if not Christ Jesus himself.
The Hopi have become accustomed to odd-balls and quacks over many years of observation. Roy was a rare phenomena. He was too rude to depart when asked. It is commonly accepted that the Hopi name for themselves is translated "peaceful people". Actually, the closer and more correct translation is "the polite people" or "the people of good manners." This would include having the manners not to stay where you are not wanted. A person of good manners does not walk into another's home and proceed to give orders, criticism and
moral instruction.
The man is ignorant, disrespectful, dictatorial, a fraud, dangerous to vulnerable people, a liar, a hypocrite, a blasphemer, a phony, a cultural thief and abuser. Closer to Hitler than to any indigenous concept of Holy Man or Spokesperson. I hope he is soon stopped from using the name of Hopi in any way.
Hazel Hatnenn
P.S. I just saw the Shake the Anthill site. it is clear that he is insane, psychotic, deluded.
First of all: all those things he claims Titus said to him are lies, outright. Titus never talked that way. Hopis do not talk and communicate like that at all, and they do not discuss spiritual matters except in designated meetings -- and even then nothing is ever said on a personal level. Ever.
Titus was not well when Roy took care of him. Roy carried him around like a limp doll and physically abused him. Roy invents his own stories. Almost everything he says about Hopi is incorrect except where he has lifted some information from other sources, such as about the prophecy rock. But even then he moves in to create his own interpretations which are far off the mark.
All the other writings I read on here (other than his Hopi rantings) make no sense. None of it makes any sense and would be very confusing to anyone who actually thought they were reading something imbued with spiritual knowledge or teaching. The writings are schizophrenic, meaningless, void.
All his descriptions of "visions", "messages", "magical happenings" etc. such as finding special rocks, seeing special clouds, special eagle feathers, all that is phony. Neither Hopi nor any other indigenous people relate to the voices of nature in that fashion and they never, never, never tell anyone all about such things. First of all such experiences do not translate into the languages we use. Anyone who tries to put this kind of experience into verbal form is a liar. It cannot be done. That's why it sounds so hokey.
He sounds like a woozy new-ager who has a fantasy life fueled by too many hallucinogens. I saw plenty of people who walked around talking like that in the '60's and most of them were permanently deluded and no help to anyone, much less as a teacher to others.
