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Novena to Bad Indians
from Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir (Heyday 2013)
by Deborah A. Miranda
“The only good Indians I ever knew were dead.”
—General Philip Sheridan
Day 1.
Indian outlaws, banditos, renegades, rebels, lazy Indians, sinful Indians, you gamblers who squatted out behind the church instead of assuming the missionary position behind the plow; oh, lusty Indians who tied bones to sheets thrown out of the women’s monjerio, climbed up that swaying skeleton of salvation and made unsanctified love all night; oh,women who tossed down those sheets: hear my prayer.
Day 2.
Hail troublemakers, horse thieves, fornicators, I implore you, polygamists, Deer Dancers, idol worshippers, chasers of loose women, heathens who caroused in the hills, stole wine from the sacristy, graffiti’d Indian designs on the church wall, told Coyote stories instead of practicing catechism, torched mission wheat fields, set fire to tule roofs, ran away, were captured, flogged, put in stocks or irons, ran away again: help me, suffer me, in this hour of loss.
Day 3.
I ask for your grace, you dirty Indians, you stupid Indians who wouldn’t learn Spanish or English, lazy bastards who mumbled “no quiero” when asked to load wagons with tons of stinking skins, who chased the bottle instead of cattle, who were late for Mass, confessed everything and regretted nothing, took the whip thick as a fist, laughing; you who loved soapstone charms, glass beads, eagle feathers but wouldn’t learn proper usage of land or gold: have mercy on my weakness.
Day 4.
Queens of earth, you women who sold yourselves for a tortilla, a handful of beans, the dog’s meat; sons of incorrigible cattle thieves like Juan Nepomuceno, who could no longer find elk or deer or salmon; cabecillas, ringleaders like Hilario, who endured the novenario for throwing a stone at a missionary—twenty-five lashes on nine separate days and then, on nine consecutive Sundays, forty more: oh my martyrs, grant me strength, grant me courage in my desperation.
Day 5.
Oh magnificent Aniceto, who refused to name thieves of money, chocolate, shoes, string, knives from the presidio—thirteen years old, you took a flogging in silence; oh renowned Yozcolo, alcalde from Mission Santa Clara who raided mission stores, freed two hundred women from the monjerio; dear Atanasio, found guilty of stealing from the comisario, shot dead by a firing squad at seventeen years of age, begging for your life as you knelt in the estuary at Monterey: guide me out of the stone walls of this cell.
Day 6.
Accept my praisesong, you women who aborted pregnancies conceived in rape by soldier or priest, attend me, barren Indian woman, stripped and prodded, who refused to let Father Ramon Olbes examine your genitals or test your fertility—you, who bit him, suffered fifty lashes, shackles, imprisonment, a shaven head, were forced to carry a wooden false baby for nine days; blessed Apolinaria, midwife, curandera, dancer, keeper of potent medicines: heal me.
Day 7.
Ever full of faith, Pomponio, who cut off your heel with your own knife to slip out of leg irons; terrible heart of Toypurina, shaman revolutionary who dared raise your gods against Spain’s; blessed Chumash woman who heard the earth goddess Chupa tell you to rebaptize neophytes in the tears of the sun; Licquisamne, most merciless Estanislao, telling the padre, “We are rising in revolt…we have no fear of the soldiers”: make me unrepentant.
Day 8.
Oh valiant Venancio, Julián, Donato, Antonio, Lino, Vicente, Miguel, Andrés, Emiliana, María Tata, who suffocated Father Andrés Quintana at Santa Cruz before he could test his new wire-tipped whip; oh Nazario, personal cook to Fr. Panto at San Diego, who slipped “yerba,” powdered cuchasquelaai, into the padre’s soup after enduring 124 lashes (you said, “I could find no other way to revenge myself”): I beseech your tenderness.
Day 9.
Oh unholy pagans who refused to convert, oh pagans who converted, oh pagans who recanted, oh converts who survived, hear our supplication: make us in your image, grant us your pride. Ancestors, illuminate the dark civilization we endure. Teach us to love untamed, inspire us to break rules, remind us of your brutal wisdom learned so dearly: Even dead Indians are never good enough.
In the Catholic Church, a novena is a nine-day period of private or public prayer to obtain special graces, to implore special favors, or to make special petitions. The novena has always had a sense of urgency and immediacy.
from Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir (Heyday 2013)
by Deborah A. Miranda
“The only good Indians I ever knew were dead.”
—General Philip Sheridan
Day 1.
Indian outlaws, banditos, renegades, rebels, lazy Indians, sinful Indians, you gamblers who squatted out behind the church instead of assuming the missionary position behind the plow; oh, lusty Indians who tied bones to sheets thrown out of the women’s monjerio, climbed up that swaying skeleton of salvation and made unsanctified love all night; oh,women who tossed down those sheets: hear my prayer.
Day 2.
Hail troublemakers, horse thieves, fornicators, I implore you, polygamists, Deer Dancers, idol worshippers, chasers of loose women, heathens who caroused in the hills, stole wine from the sacristy, graffiti’d Indian designs on the church wall, told Coyote stories instead of practicing catechism, torched mission wheat fields, set fire to tule roofs, ran away, were captured, flogged, put in stocks or irons, ran away again: help me, suffer me, in this hour of loss.
Day 3.
I ask for your grace, you dirty Indians, you stupid Indians who wouldn’t learn Spanish or English, lazy bastards who mumbled “no quiero” when asked to load wagons with tons of stinking skins, who chased the bottle instead of cattle, who were late for Mass, confessed everything and regretted nothing, took the whip thick as a fist, laughing; you who loved soapstone charms, glass beads, eagle feathers but wouldn’t learn proper usage of land or gold: have mercy on my weakness.
Day 4.
Queens of earth, you women who sold yourselves for a tortilla, a handful of beans, the dog’s meat; sons of incorrigible cattle thieves like Juan Nepomuceno, who could no longer find elk or deer or salmon; cabecillas, ringleaders like Hilario, who endured the novenario for throwing a stone at a missionary—twenty-five lashes on nine separate days and then, on nine consecutive Sundays, forty more: oh my martyrs, grant me strength, grant me courage in my desperation.
Day 5.
Oh magnificent Aniceto, who refused to name thieves of money, chocolate, shoes, string, knives from the presidio—thirteen years old, you took a flogging in silence; oh renowned Yozcolo, alcalde from Mission Santa Clara who raided mission stores, freed two hundred women from the monjerio; dear Atanasio, found guilty of stealing from the comisario, shot dead by a firing squad at seventeen years of age, begging for your life as you knelt in the estuary at Monterey: guide me out of the stone walls of this cell.
Day 6.
Accept my praisesong, you women who aborted pregnancies conceived in rape by soldier or priest, attend me, barren Indian woman, stripped and prodded, who refused to let Father Ramon Olbes examine your genitals or test your fertility—you, who bit him, suffered fifty lashes, shackles, imprisonment, a shaven head, were forced to carry a wooden false baby for nine days; blessed Apolinaria, midwife, curandera, dancer, keeper of potent medicines: heal me.
Day 7.
Ever full of faith, Pomponio, who cut off your heel with your own knife to slip out of leg irons; terrible heart of Toypurina, shaman revolutionary who dared raise your gods against Spain’s; blessed Chumash woman who heard the earth goddess Chupa tell you to rebaptize neophytes in the tears of the sun; Licquisamne, most merciless Estanislao, telling the padre, “We are rising in revolt…we have no fear of the soldiers”: make me unrepentant.
Day 8.
Oh valiant Venancio, Julián, Donato, Antonio, Lino, Vicente, Miguel, Andrés, Emiliana, María Tata, who suffocated Father Andrés Quintana at Santa Cruz before he could test his new wire-tipped whip; oh Nazario, personal cook to Fr. Panto at San Diego, who slipped “yerba,” powdered cuchasquelaai, into the padre’s soup after enduring 124 lashes (you said, “I could find no other way to revenge myself”): I beseech your tenderness.
Day 9.
Oh unholy pagans who refused to convert, oh pagans who converted, oh pagans who recanted, oh converts who survived, hear our supplication: make us in your image, grant us your pride. Ancestors, illuminate the dark civilization we endure. Teach us to love untamed, inspire us to break rules, remind us of your brutal wisdom learned so dearly: Even dead Indians are never good enough.
In the Catholic Church, a novena is a nine-day period of private or public prayer to obtain special graces, to implore special favors, or to make special petitions. The novena has always had a sense of urgency and immediacy.
