Series Trailer
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Episode 1: From Caves to Cosmos
FROM CAVES TO COSMOS explores the deep roots of NATIVE AMERICA. It asks: who are America’s First People? Answers emerge from Hopi Elders on pilgrimage at sacred Chaco Canyon in the deserts of New Mexico, leading scientists examining ancient cave painting in the Amazon jungle, Chumash boat builders exploring their tribe’s ancient migration legacy off California’s coast, and an archaeologist digging deep below a towering pyramid near Mexico City.
Modern scholarship and ancient oral tradition work side-by-side to discover a shared native science and spirituality, maintained across thousands of miles, that offered the foundation for some of our planet’s greatest wonders. These stories point to the genesis of a single social network that connects people from Alaska to Brazil – one that began earlier than ever imagined. These discoveries are driving archaeologists and indigenous leaders to a new theory that will change the course of NATIVE AMERICA forever: that all Native Americans are part of a single interconnected world.
Now, new evidence hints that the very First Americans spent millennia developing their unique culture and beliefs as a single community, before spreading rapidly across North and South America. Together, they set NATIVE AMERICA in motion, continents apart and untouched by influence from Europe, Asia and Africa. The result was incredible cities, sophisticated cultures, and unique ways of life that continue to reverberate in native religious beliefs to this day.
Sacred Stories are interspersed throughout each episode of the series. This is an edited compilation of all the Hopi Sacred Stories from Episode 1.
Watch Extended Interviews with some of the program's contributors.
Episode 2: Nature to Nations
Shared beliefs give rise to governments from dictatorships to America’s first democracy. The hour investigates lost cities in the Mexican jungle, a subterranean temple in Peru, a potlatch ceremony in the Pacific Northwest, and a tapestry of shell beads whose story inspires the US government.
NATURE TO NATIONS explores the rise of great American nations—from dynastic monarchies to participatory democracies. What lies behind these diverse and sophisticated governments? Answers emerge from an archaeologist excavating America’s oldest temple in the Peruvian Andes, a tribe initiating a new chief at a ceremony surrounded by cedar totem poles in the Pacific Northwest, an expert reading ancient hieroglyphs from a sarcophagus to tell a forgotten history of Maya kings, and the return of an ancient shell wampum belt to the birthplace of democracy.
The hour centers on the democracy of New York’s Haudenosaunee Peoples, and reveals how elements of the natural world drive governance in NATIVE AMERICA. The story of Hiawatha the Peacemaker, as told by native elders, demonstrates how shell helped end war among five tribes and bring about America’s first democracy – five hundred years before the United States. Also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, Benjamin Franklin and the Founding Fathers integrate key ideas from their government into the United States Constitution.
Building on these revelations about the Haudenosaunee, the hour traces evidence that nations across NATIVE AMERICA use beliefs from the natural world to support governmental systems - from dynastic kingdoms to shamanistic rulers. Science and oral tradition reveal how corn, cedar, shell, and the jaguar each inspire new nations, and plant the seeds of great empires. All are part of an incredible three-thousand-year narrative of nature, nations, and cultural sophistication in NATIVE AMERICA.
Marcus Hendricks (Mashpee - Wampanoag) makes wampum beads
Episode 3: Cities of the Sky
CITIES OF THE SKY explores the creation of some of the ancient world’s largest and most splendid cities. Were people across NATIVE AMERICA inspired by celestial phenomenon to build their communities? Answers are revealed in American urban centers that bloomed from the Mexican jungle, a massive multi-cultural city in Central Mexico that is among the largest urban centers in history, and the capital of South America’s greatest empire.
A new discovery reveals that masses of people across NATIVE AMERICA made pilgrimage to a city outside present day St. Louis, Missouri. Nearly one thousand years ago, more than 10,000 people came here in a historic instant to build massive earthwork pyramids — some of the largest in the world — into a city now known as Cahokia. Their city was the largest city in North America until Philadelphia in the 18th century. But the reasons behind its emergence have remained a mystery – until shocking new discoveries of human sacrifice is now leading scientists to look to the sky.
Their research suggests these ancient urban centers are more than just great feats of engineering and artistry. They are heavenly cities—aligned to, inspired by, and synchronized with the movement of the sun, moon, and stars. It is the same story still told by the native decedents of Cahokia who consider sky worship still central to ceremonies performed at their ancestral mound.
This set of deeply held beliefs is expressed in the design of cities across the Americas, from the Mississippi to Mexico and Peru. All of it points to a role in celestial signs in the rise and fall of cities across the New World. The story is part of a narrative of native knowledge and astronomy that points to the incredible sophistication and shared beliefs of NATIVE AMERICA.
Teotihuacan as celestial clock
Episode 4: New Worlds Rising
Native Americans tap ten thousand years of beliefs and traditions to fight the forces of Conquest.
NEW WORLDS RISING reveals Native American cultural continuity in the face of genocidal warfare and history’s worst demographic devastation. Native Americans tap ten thousand years of beliefs to fight and survive the forces of Conquest.
The hour centers on a little-known empire forged by the Comanches in the American West. Their elders speak of how they transformed the horse — a weapon of conquest — into a treasured ally. And a stunning discovery of a canyon full of rock art reveals incredible new details about the empire’s birth. It is a window into the beginning of a long push back against colonialism, and an Empire’s defense of a vibrant culture that thrives to this day.
The Comanche story unifies diverse narratives of resistance, survival, and revival across North and South America. Other stories include an art historian deciphering messages hidden in an Aztec manuscript, a Nachez chief passing on traditional medicine-making to a new generation, the Amah-Mutsun of California using fire to restore their ancestral forest, and a Peruvian village weaving a massive suspension bridge from miniature blades of grass.
It becomes clear that it’s not the Old World that conquers the Americas - it is NATIVE AMERICA that transforms the entire world with new foods, medicines and cultural contributions. Tens of millions of peoples still speak their indigenous languages and practice ancient rites to celebrate the sacredness of the land and skies. The same spirit of Native Americans that forged the New World still lives today.
Jhane Myers (Comanche) prays for ancestors