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Authors: John G. Neihardt

Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Religion, #Philosophy, #Spirituality, #Classics, #Biography, #History

Black Elk Speaks

BOOK: Black Elk Speaks
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BLACK ELK SPEAKS

BLACK ELK SPEAKS

Being
the
Life Story
of a
Holy Man
of the
OGLALA SIOUX

THE PREMIER EDITION

as told through
John G. Neihardt
(Flaming Rainbow)
Annotated by
Raymond J. DeMallie
with illustrations by
Standing Bear

Copyright © 1932, 1959, 1972

by John G. Neihardt
Copyright © 1961,2008
by the John G. Neihardt Trust
Copyright © 2008
State University of New York Press
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

First Excelsior Editions book printing:
2008

Excelsior Editions is an imprint of State University ofNew York Press, Albany
www.sunypress.edu

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Black Elk speaks: being the life story of a holy man of the Oglala Sioux / as told through John G. Neihardt (Flaming Rainbow); annotated by Raymond J. DeMallie with illustrations by Standing Bear.
    p.  cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
978-1-4384-2540-5 (pbk.: alk.paper) 1. Black Elk, 1863-1950. 2. OglalaIndians—Biography. 3. Oglala Indians—Religion. 4. Teton Indians. I. Neihardt, John Gneisenau, 1881-1973. II. DeMallie, Raymond J., 1946-
E99.Q3B482008
978.004’9752440092—dc22
[B]
2008038002

10    9    8    7    6    5    4    3    2    1

What is good in this book
        is given back
to the six grandfathers
        and
to the great men of my people

Black Elk

Contents

      
List of Illustrations

      
Maps

      
Preface to the 1932 Edition

      
Preface to the 1961 Edition

      
Preface to the 1972 Edition

  
1. The Offering of the Pipe

  
2. Early Boyhood

  
3. The Great Vision

  
4. The Bison Hunt

  
5. At the Soldiers’Town

  
6. High Horse’s Courting

  
7. Wasichus in the Hills

  
8. The Fight with Three Stars

  
9. The Rubbing Out of Long Hair

10. Walking the Black Road

11. The Killing of Crazy Horse

12. Grandmother’s Land

13. The Compelling Fear

14. The Horse Dance

15. The Dog Vision

16. Heyoka Ceremony

17. The First Cure

18. The Powers of the Bison and the Elk

19. Across the Big Water

20. The Spirit Journey

21. The Messiah

22. Visions of the Other World

23. Bad Trouble Coming

24. The Butchering at Wounded Knee

25. The End of the Dream

26. Neihardt’s Postscript

      
Appendix 1. Letter from Neihardt to Black Elk, 6 November 1930

      
The Drawings by Black Elk’s Friend, Standing Bear

      
John G. Neihardt and Nicholas Black Elk

      
References

      
Index

Illustrations

Drawings by Standing Bear

1. Title Page of the First Edition

2. An Indian Way of Writing a Name: Black Elk’s Name Sign and Standing Bear’s Name Sign

3. The Battle of the Hundred Slain

4. The Two Spirits Coming for Black Elk

5. Black Elk Leaving to Visit the Six Grandfathers

6. Black Elk before the Six Grandfathers in the Flaming Rainbow Tepee

7. Killing the Drought

8. Black Elk under the Tree of Life

9. Black Elk at the Center of the Earth

10. A Bison Hunt

11. Custer’s Battle: Reno’s Retreat

12. Custer’s Battle: Custer’s Defeat

13. Custer’s Battle: Siege of Reno’s Troops

14. Black Elk Living in Fear of the Thunder Beings

15. In the Horse Dance: The Four Maidens

16. Horse Dance (Chief): West

17. Horse Dance—Chief: North

18. Horse Dance (Chief): East

19. Horse Dance (Chief): South

20. The Dog Vision: Butterflies and Dragonflies

21. The Dog Vision: Killing the Dog

22. Black Elk’s Spirit Journey Home

23. The People in Despair

24. Going to the Other World

25. Black Elk in the Other World

26. The Wanekia under the Holy Tree

27. The Battle of Wounded Knee: Disarming Big Foot’s People

28. The Battle of Wounded Knee: The First Shots

29. Wounded Knee Battle: The Massacre

30. Black Elk Protected by the Sacred Bow

Maps

1. The Lakotas’ World, ca. 1860-90

2. The Greater Black Hills Region, ca. 1880-90

3. Pine Ridge Reservation, ca. 1930

Maps

Preface to the 1932 Edition

The first time I went out to talk to Black Elk about the Ogalala Sioux, I found him sitting alone under a shelter of pine boughs near his log cabin that stands on a barren hill about two miles west of Manderson Post Office.

I had learned that Black Elk was related to the great Chief Crazy Horse and had known him intimately; so, in company with my son and an interpreter, I went to see him, expecting no more than the satisfaction of exchanging a few words with one who had, not once but many times, “seen Shelley plain.” Nor did I feel certain of even so much; for, on the way, my interpreter said that he had taken another writer to Black Elk that morning without success. “I can see that you are a nice-looking woman,” the old man had remarked, “and I can feel that you are good; but I do not want to talk about such things.”

Black Elk paid me no compliments, but he talked all that August afternoon, save for frequent brooding silences when he sat hunched up, with folded elbows on his knees, staring upon the ground with half blind eyes.

It was not of worldly matters that he spoke most, but of things that he deemed holy and of “the darkness of men’s eyes.” Although my acquaintance with the Indian consciousness had been fairly intimate for more than thirty years, the inner world
1
of Black Elk, imperfectly revealed as by flashes that day, was both strange and wonderful to me.

Also, I was deeply impressed by the scope of the man’s life experience. In addition to having lived the common life of his people in the good old times as well as in the tragic and heroic years of their final defeat and degradation, from early youth he had lived in and for a world of higher values
2
than those of food and shelter, and his years had been one long, passionate devotion to those values as he conceived them. As hunter, warrior, practicing holy man, and indubitable seer, he seemed even then to represent the consciousness of the Plains Indian more fully than any other I had ever known; and when I became well acquainted with his inner world, I knew this to be true.
3

BOOK: Black Elk Speaks
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