Light-skinned people will come out of the Eastern sea in great canoes powered by huge white wings, like giant birds. The people who get off these boats will also be like birds, but they will have two different kinds of feet. One of their feet will be like that of a dove, the other like that of an eagle. The foot of the dove will represent a beautiful, new religion of love and kindness, and the foot of the eagle will represent strength, technology, and power. The sharp foot of the eagle will dominate, for though they will talk much of the new religion, not all of the light- skinned people will live by it. Instead, they will claw at the Red Nations with their eagle feet, exploiting and enslaving them.

After offering mixed resistance to this clawing, the Indians would seemingly lose their spirit and be herded into small, barren enclaves. This would be the way of their world for many years: poverty, suffering, disrespect. Then, in time, the world will become sick. Because of the unrelenting greed,the Earth would be filled with deadly liquids and metals, the air would be rendered foul with smoke and ash, and even the rains - which are intended to cleanse the Earth - will plummet in poison drops. Birds would fall from the sky. Fish would turn belly up in the waters. Forests would begin to wither. There would be mounting chaos – koyanisquatsi – in the world.