Jun 8, 2013 - Indigenous Blood? Better Repent, By Dana Her Many Horses
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9YP0tK7Buw]
A directive has been issued from the self-proclaimed prophet and frequent TBN guest Cindy Jacobs to American Indians, Mexican, Mayan and Aztec descendants: repent of the worship of the Animus spirit; repent of the generational iniquities. Her website states that she was called into this work with the scripture, “Ask of Me the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the world(s) for your possession.”
The video, which came to my attention today, demands a rebuttal by Indian Country. To quote: “If you have in your bloodline any Animus, any Native American blood for instance (not all Native Americans worshipped the serpent or crocodile, many did) but you might want to renounce that and repent for the generational iniquity.” She added further, “If you are perhaps – you’re Mexican and you have indigenous blood in you, or Mayan blood, those who have Aztec blood in any way, you need to repent for the sin of Animism before you begin to deal with this Spirit.” By “this spirit” Ms. Jacobs means to imply the self-named Spirit of Leviathan.
This is what white culture has done since the ships were in sight of our lands. They have been trying to save us, baptize us, cleanse us, anoint us and rename us. Cindy Jacobs isn’t proclaiming anything new. The demonizing of Indigenous people has been going on since her ancestors arrived in the Americas. White culture says we should repent; these Crocodile Totem Sons of Sulphur, Seeds of Fire, Animus-worshipping, Red Devils who are carrying forward the spirit of unrest and discord she has named the Leviathan Spirit. By proclaiming us to be demonic and unrepentant we become less than the superior, Christianized white race. We are not only fighting the stereotype of drunks, cheats, and liars we are fighting the established ruling race who so easily can cast a net over the Red Nations called generational iniquity.
The white culture stands in a pristine church with hands dripping in our blood. And they call us to repentance. The English settlers at Jamestown were cannibalizing each other; this is an established fact proven in Anthropological records. My Powhatan ancestors saw the depth of the depravity of this invading people and were moved with pity for them. We provided food, clothing, medicine to a race who ate their dead. And this is the race who calls for our repentance, our bowed heads, our contrite hearts, our broken spirits. The compassion of the Powhatan people was repaid in blood. The Christian race from across the Sea returned death for our kindnesses.
They continued to come and decimated us with violence of all kinds, with rape, with hanging, with bayonets and bullets, and with Missionaries standing guard at the doors of churches built on the mounds of our dead. These same people who proclaim to be prophets put coals on our tongues, cut off our feet, burned us with iron and molested our young and those who were defenseless. All the while the Church marched forward through forests and into our deep deserts waiving the flag of their religion, as they drove spears through elders who could not out run them. The soldiers cut off the breasts of Navajo women. They imprisoned toddlers in irons. In the name of the Church these men exterminated entire Nations without remorse; fueled by greed and stoked by the fires of their surety that their God would turn a blinded eye and a dumb ear to the atrocities they inflicted. And yet they called for our repentance.
In my great grandmother’s lifetime Indians were beaten for speaking their languages, their hair was cut short, they were forced into Christian schools, Catholic and Protestant alike the Missionaries measured out punishments for children with red skin, and dark eyes full of questions. An Indian wasn’t considered any different in value than an animal. The same Church that has told us we are hard to save, we being full of demons and dark spirits, has called out for our repentant pleas even as it has waded shoulder high in our blood for five hundred years.
So does it surprise me that in 2013 we are still labeled as worshippers of the Animus? Does it shock you that someone would say this, and believe it? Does it amaze you that this is an accepted Christian belief? Why should it. It’s the same as it ever was. If they demonize us, we are less. If they call on us to repent, they seem like the scolding parent of an inferior childlike race of red and brown faces.
Of all the things I could say to Cindy Jacobs as I sit in my living room tonight, I believe I would narrow it down to this. I will not bow my head to lick the boots of the ones who brought murder upon my Nations. I will not repent for the beliefs of my Nations. I will not beg God for forgiveness of my ancestors or their religions. I will not forgive you for your words. I will not forgive your ancestors for the crimes they heaped upon us like hot coals in the mouths of our children just a few generations ago. I will not ask your God to forgive my People. I don’t seek your approval.