(man) Do not tell the white people about this. Jesus is upon Earth.
He appears like a cloud. The dead are still alive again.
I do not know when they will be here. Maybe this fall, or in the spring.
When the time comes, there will be no more sickness and everyone will be young again.
(Native American chanting)
Daniel, tell us what must happen. Tell us what to do.
(man) How long you gonna hold up construction? Day, half-day?
It's an archaeological site. It takes time.
If you do it with a paintbrush and spoon.
It's not the kind of thing you do with a backhoe.
Could you at least get a bigger shovel? Come on.
Dr Michaels? Dr Michaels?
Well, Powell, it's not a construction or an archaeological site now.
It's a crime scene.
- Sergeant Walters? - Frank Black?
Thanks for coming. This one is too weird even for New York.
I knew from the get-go we'd need the Millennium Group's counsel.
I caught a break, being as you were in the area and not in Seattle.
I would have been here sooner, only I got stuck behind a truck loaded with elephants.
Yeah, the circus has some Wild West show on this week at the Garden.
They got it wrong, though. They should be moving the clowns out of Manhattan.
What are you doing? That's the old one. Fresh one's over here.
We didn't touch a thing. I was waiting for you.
Thank you.
Been dead about a week.
That one over there has been dead about 200 years.
Well, like I said, you're the first one to take a look.
The new dead guy looking like the old one, and the situation...
What is the situation here?
The anthropologist thinks this is some Indian burial site.
I got the construction company ticked off
because they've been ordered to stop until the site is excavated.
The anthropologist is ticked off cos the foreman's giving her grief.
What's going on with those guys?
Just a bunch of guys ticked off in general.
They're Indians who work construction.
Can they account for their whereabouts last week?
They hang out at a local bar and cover for each other.
- Did they know the victim? - Foreman lD'd him as Daniel Olivaw.
Worked here a couple of weeks.
He wasn't murdered here.
- Why do you say that? - There are signs of violence.
He would have bled profusely. There's no signs of blood in the immediate area. None.
You OK?
He was killed indoors. Somewhere nearby.
- How do you know that? - I don't know. I can feel it.
This is one of the priciest hotels on the West Side.
It's like a 12-star hotel or something.
Whoa.
The Mansons take Manhattan.
- Can I see that? - Yeah.
- They hung the guy? - Horizontally.
(police radio) I don't know Sergeant Walter's
20, but tell him that anthropologist is here.
Anthropologist?
I realise this is a crime scene, and I respect that.
But it's an incredibly significant
archaeological site, and I want that respected.
I told you once, I told you 90 times, Dr Michaels, this site is closed.
Nobody but the coroner is touching up a damn thing.
And I refuse to just stand around and watch
cops dig up my ancient shaman with shovels.
My name is Frank Black. I'm assisting with this murder investigation.
- I'd like your help. - What's in it for me?
- What do you need? - This body.
I need it carefully excavated and removed to the museum.
Not just yanked out, tossed into a body bag,
then thrown in a refrigerator at the morgue.
All right, there you go.
You can have everything inside that line. The rest of the site stays closed.
- Is that a deal? - Yeah.
Dr Michaels, you might want to prepare yourself. This scene is very disturbing.
Dr Michaels, I know you're not a detective,
but do you see anything that might explain
why he was buried at that construction site?
For starters, can you explain the significance of any of these symbols?
I know most of them, yeah. They're from many different tribes.
There's Mohawk, and Seneca, and the other Iroquois tribes.
And Cherokee, Hopi, Navaho, Seminole. I mean, there's even Chumash.
You never see 'em jumbled up like this.
My understanding is that North American tribes didn't practise sacrificial rituals.
My grandmother's mother was Crow.
You're more likely to see sacrifice among the South American tribes, but...
That's not what this is, either.
This is a mishmash of various cultural symbols from half the tribes in the US.
It's nonsense.
Is there even an attempt at a common theme here?
Almost everything here represents communication with the spirit world.
An apocrypha?
OK. The kachina.
The kachina's a Hopi figure that acts as an
intermediary between the living and the dead.
This right here is... This symbol is an owl.
- Symbol of death. - Right.
And in the Cree tradition, the skeleton is a helping spirit.
Like a guardian angel?
In Native American mythology, we all have a helping spirit.
- I'm told mine's an ant. - Why? You like to ruin picnics?
Some tribes believe the ants carry messages from our ancestors buried in the earth,
and that's what I do.
Thank you very much for your help, Dr Michaels.
May I call you if I have further questions?
Sure.
If you're ready to make a deal with me about my site.
How you doing? I'm looking for the guys that
work the construction site up the street.
Primarily the foreman. Joe Reynard.
You're here to tell me he hit the lottery?
No.
Then I can't help you.
(men mutter)
Joe Reynard. My name is Frank Black.
Where are you from? NYPD?
FBI? Bureau of Indian Affairs?
Seattle.
You might want to bet "don't come". Less risk.
- Shorter odds. - It depends on your intentions.
Why does anyone gamble? Because they believe they're sure of the outcome.
That they have some control over fate.
Daniel Olivaw worked on your crew.
Tell me about him.
He worked hard, showed up on time.
- That's it? - He worked for me. We weren't married.
- Was he a religious man? - And how would I know about that?
Some Christians wear medals with patron saints on them.
Or they put religious statues on the dashboard of their car.
Even if he did do that, it wouldn't mean nothing to me.
He was Mohawk, and I'm Hopi.
How many Catholics could say what goes on in a Jewish temple?
Probably not many. But they probably realise it's a religion.
Here. You recognise this?
- No. - No?
Hold it.
Eight. The hard way.
- Yeah! - Oh, yes!
Here you go. It was a sucker's bet.
This was not drawn on the basement wall.
How could he know of this?
Our ancestors gave it to him in a vision. One he does not understand yet.
Ha Wen Neyu travelled west to the edge of the world,
and argued with the Great Protector about who created and who owns the Earth.
They engaged in a contest.
Ha Wen Neyu won the victory, but upon realising the Great Protector's power,
the Great Protector was given a place to live in the west.
He will come whenever the people call him.
This prophecy tells us that we're on the right path, that we should continue.
He said he was from the west.
Daniel sent him.
He is.
He is the other one.
(radio plays swing music)
(hums along to music)
The Squirrel Nut Zippers.
Yeah. You know 'em?
- Who doesn't? You into Bobby Darin? - Oh, yeah. Gidget Goes Hawaiian.
No, that's James Darren. Frank Black, by the way.
- The forensics guy? - Yeah.
Do you want to take a look at this?
He was dismembered, then his limbs were reattached with fishing line.
3lb on the line, unless I miss my guess. It's a good weight for trout.
There are several lacerations around the
torso, the waist and neck, but no petechiae.
Hung postmortem. What was the cause of death?
Poison.
Mostly made up of peptides and proteins rich in enzymes,
with an incredibly low molecular weight.
- Snake venom. - Timber rattlesnake.
The venom has a high LD50. It takes a lot to kill you.
No oedema. Probably ingested, small doses over a period of several hours.
There's several puncture marks on the body,
probably from the hooks, but no bite marks.
I did find these contusions on the throat.
They force-fed him.
Most of the stitching material's just rotted away.
From the marks here on the shoulder,
it looks as if this body underwent the same postmortem mutilation as Daniel Olivaw.
- Yeah. - Arms and legs removed, then reattached.
Does this look like one of those South American sacrificial rituals?
Oh, no. This isn't a sacrifice. This is an attempt at resurrection.
- Resurrection? - Yeah.
There's an ancient Seneca myth in which an attempt was made to revive a corpse
by taking it apart and putting it together again.
Now, it usually followed an unsuccessful attempt by the victim to reach,
and return from, the spirit world.
So, in order to converse with his ancestors,
he would have to bring himself to the brink of death.
By ingesting poison, for instance.
Instead of bringing back a message from his dead ancestors, he becomes one.
These people believed, and still do believe, in another plane of existence.
People actually died from the heart squeeze -
a myth in which a Seneca sorcerer committed murder
by psychically squeezing a victim's heart.
Victims of curses die from their own fears.
But they're still dead.
Rituals may work, but not the way you expect.
Everybody gets hysterical when Nostradamus appears to vaguely predict an earthquake.
And our culture ignores the fact that the Hopi predicted the railroads,
the arrival of longhorn cattle, the strip mining of Hopi land.
The Native Americans appeared to have access to an elevated plane,
that no matter what I do, or how much I think I understand...
I just can't get there.
Do you believe in that plane? I mean, do you
think that any of us could really get to it?
Hey, what are you doing? You can't...
- How did you know that that was there? - Here.
It looks like a prayer stick.
- But this one's different. - In what way?
Well, early researchers thought that the prayer stick was a kind of Indian rosary.
The top and bottom represent heaven and hell, and the symbols in-between
normally suggest specific prayers that the stick's owner might say, but...
This one, it's just different. It's like...
It's like a series of events that lead up to an ultimate event.
I keep seeing this symbol.
You've seen that before?
Frank, I've never seen that before.
Could this be a resurrection symbol
one would carry if you were sent to the other world?
If this messenger was carrying one, Daniel Olivaw must have been carrying one too.
- Oh, my God. Oh, my God! - Mr Powell, what's happening here?
I know the Graves Protection Act and I followed all the regulations.
The rule is: we can't build until an institution
or an archaeologist removes the altefacts.
- That's right. - I notified the university in Albany,
and they removed the remains and transferred them to their facility upstate.
- And we are back to work. - Everything was supposed to remain here.
All I'm doing is following the rules.
Your gripe is now with the college in Albany.
I don't know how these should be studied.
You have destroyed the memory of a people so you can build an office?
The past is gone, Dr Michaels.
You can dig 'em up, study 'em, it ain't gonna bring 'em back.
You're wrong, Mr Powell. There was a prophecy to this field.
The white people took the bones, then we'd return.
Enough of this! This is not my problem. I did the right thing.
You are trying to convince yourself of that.
They wanted Daniel's body to be found.
Reynard wanted the bones removed for their prophecy.
- Prophecy? - Yes, prophecy.
Yesterday, they're all on the warpath. Today, that's what they want.
I don't know what your game is, mister, but I have done my bit. I followed the rules.
- Your own rules. - My heart bleeds for you.
You know something? You're as bad as me. You're digging 'em up too.
And don't tell me you have the right to...
I have a responsibility.
To a bunch of science journals. To a group of
people as far out in left field as that guy.
Now... No!
My responsibility now is to make up all the time I lost on all of this.
I don't want to hear about it any more. You hear me? I don't...
You're gonna give yourself a coronary. Come on, sit down.
Come on. Sit down, sit down.
Call 911.
- Is he dead? - Yeah, he's dead.
It always starts this way, with a single blade of grass.
(door slams)
This is the head of the Iroquois False Face.
It's identical to the one found on the body of Daniel Olivaw.
Red half symbolises the east, black half the west.
The mask represents half-human bodies able to
walk between the real and the spirit worlds.
- Half-human? - Well, not literally. It's...
Whoever dismembered Daniel Olivaw's body took it literally.
Daniel was buried with a mask that represents the ability to contact the dead.
I believe the symbol may belong to a lost tribe of the Iroquois.
When the Seneca were put on the first reservation in the 1790s,
the bond between the five Iroquois tribes was severed.
The other tribes ended up on reservations, with the exception of this one.
- Which apparently died out. - Or scattered.
The symbols at the murder scene were from different tribes.
What if the members of the lost tribe hid themselves among other tribes,
and they were so successful that the white man completely overlooked their existence?
Daniel was a Mohawk. The others were Hopi, Cheyenne, Navaho.
But in the beginning, their place was here. They've been hiding for centuries.
Until a prophecy told them to reunite.
Through separation and time, the original prophecies have been lost or forgotten.
The men who killed Daniel Olivaw
have been taking from other tribes and filling in the blanks.
(mud)
You see, the carvings tell a story.
The grass will grow over the white man, the ancestors will be resurrected,
and the buffalo will return.
That's ghost dance. Last century, Wovoka told the Indians to dance the ghost dance,
and the white man would be eradicated.
Only it was the Indians who were massacred at Wounded Knee.
The prophecy. This is a blueprint for another culture's apocalypse.
You can't believe that. This is just symbolic.
Like the Book of Revelation, or any other religious apocrypha.
The Book of Revelations may be portrayed allegorically,
but the overarching idea of the apocalypse is real.
"Everything starts with one blade of grass."
These events, to them, are coming true.
(mud)
You said this prophesies the destruction of the Earth, the return of the ancestors.
Well, that's already happened. When Powell's men unearthed the grave site.
This symbol represents a messenger.
The murder victim, Daniel, was sent to the west,
to the land of the dead, to speak with his ancestors.
Could be.
I'm still not sure what this lower figure is supposed to mean.
It's me.
Daniel was sent to the west. I came from the west.
They think I came here because I was summoned.
My death, my reunion with Daniel, will open the door to the east.
Frank.
People have researched this.
I have studied myths since I can remember, and I don't understand it all.
I see it, Liz - that other plane.
How you wished it were true. How you wanted it to be there.
When I'm here, touching this earth... I sense it.
I'm in that plane.
I can't call it up, I can't control it, I can't understand it.
I have an ability that I thought I'd lost.
I was told that it would change in ways I wouldn't understand. It's happening now.
A door opens in the west. A rough-hewn building.
- It's an Iroquois long house. - Yeah.
Crows fly in.
That could be the dead ancestors returning.
A coyote turns, and he looks at me.
He's a contradictory creature. He...
He manages to be both the trickster
and, in the southwest tradition, a creator of the universe.
I see myself walking on a road.
And then I fall into the earth.
That could be the spirit road.
This represents heaven.
- Phases of the moon. - What? I...
Full moon, first quarter moon, new moon, third quarter moon.
I don't understand. What...
It's a calendar, telling them when to act.
It's OK. The emergency lights will kick in in a minute.
Stay here.
(clatter)
Frank'?
Frank!
Oh, God.
The time is now.
(man) Long ago, there were two brothers, one red, the other white.
The Great Spirit gave them a stone tablet, with the sign of a circle upon it.
Each brother took half of the tablet, half of the circle.
The white brother went west to develop the power of reason.
The red brother stayed behind to develop the power of spirit.
When Pahana, the lost white brother, returns,
he will bring together both halves of the circle.
Spirit and reason will become one,
and at last we will have a paradise on Earth.
Once you've joined Daniel on the spirit road, the circle will be complete.
I'm not the white brother.
Killing me won't bring you paradise on Earth.
You are honoured.
You've been chosen to deliver the prophecy from the ancestors in the other world.
You will tell us what to do.
You, a single blade of grass.
You invented this apocalypse.
You created it, this ritual, out of old prophecy that never came true.
These interpretations are out of your own desperation.
It's what you wish it to be. You're seeing what you want it to be, Joe.
The grass will not grow over the white man.
No. No.
I told you. They'd be stupid to return to the scene of the crime.
His disappearance has something to do with the
rituals, events that happened in this area.
- Frank saw it. - If he's being used like Daniel Olivaw,
we'd better check that construction site.
I know.
Who? Who do you see?
The tribe dissolves.
No!
Resurrection.
What did you mean when you said "Frank saw it"?
I don't know. He just said that he could see
this, this area, an lroquoian long house.
They're 50 yards long, so if Daniel opened
the door to the west... there, in the hotel,
then Frank is intended to fulfil the prophecy by opening the door to the east.
So they're somewhere between 25 and 75 yards from the hotel in that direction.
I've had these visions before, you know.
The tribe reunites.
Tell us, Pahana. How does it happen?
What do we do?
Nothing. What the hell's going on down there?
(police officer) I don't know. An accident, or something.
The buffalo will return here.
When? Tell us when.
The prophecy has been fulfilled. You're just too blind to see it.
- No. - Yeah.
No!
The ancestors return.
A messenger.
The spirit road divides.
Falling into the earth.
Hey, guys, this isn't steam. This is smoke.
From the fire. They're down here. Hurry up, help me.
(Dr Michaels) Frank!
(Walters) Stop! Hey, stop!
I said hold it!
(police officer) Freeze!
(Walters) Come on, get 'em!
- Reynard! - It's OK. Walters' men went after him.
(Walters) They're starting to separate.
(hoof beats)
Frank.
They did return.
- Those were clowns. - (police officer) Stand there. Be quiet.
The prophecy, it came true.
Part of it.
But not the part they really want, I guess.
I wonder what's out there that's been said and will one day come true.
Will it be part of what we really want?
Visiontext Subtitles: Paul Burns
(child) I made this!
ENGLISH SDH