VII generation prophecy

© Michela Benaglia - Emanuela ColomboThe 3.8 billion dollars oil pipeline will transfer oil through the North and South Dakota and Iowa up to Illinois (Black Snake). It poses a threat to the waters of the River Missouri, which is sacred to the Tribes and beneath which it will flow.

The prophecy says: “After 7 generations in close contact with the white people, the time will come when Indian men and women will see the trees die, the animals be born deformed and a big monster in the shape of a black snake slither out of the bowels of the earth and transform the rivers in tides of fire.”

The prophecy says: “After 7 generations in close contact with the white people, whose behavior has caused all this, the Indians will rise up at last and, together again in tribes, they will ask the white oppressors to be heard and that the earth is respected and protected as the Great Spirit teaches.”

The 3.8 billion dollars oil pipeline will transfer oil through the North and South Dakota and Iowa up to Illinois (Black Snake). It poses a threat to the waters of the River Missouri, which is sacred to the Tribes and beneath which it will flow. In August 2016 the Indians, from all tribes, gathered in prayer for a non-violent protest against the white man’s insolence that has thus been ignoring the no-passing zone of the oil pipeline on the lands managed by the Indians. Unity seems restored and with it the strength of overcoming the worsening of the social framework caused by years of arrogance and abuse from the white man at the expense of the native American Indians.

At present in the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, the majority of the population lives below the poverty line, the unemployment rate is at 63%, only one child in five completes the studies and the abuse of alcohol and drugs is very widespread. The suicide rate is higher than in any other American community and depression has become chronic. One Indian woman in three claims to have been raped throughout her life.

The chairman and tribal representative of Standing Rock Reservation, Mr. Dave Archambault II, wonders if his fellow Indians will ever be able to use the self-awareness acquired during the “NoDAPL manifestations” to help themselves, their children and their population to go beyond the decline of the social and economic framework in which they are finding themselves now or if, on the contrary, they won’t make it thus resulting in their sinking into apathy and neglect as prior to the manifestations.