Black Elk Speaks (52 page)

10
. That the ritual dancing of the elk impersonators represents the power of men encircling and protecting the power of women is Neihardt’s interpretation; there is no correlate in the transcript. Elk dreamers were believed to have power to charm women (Wissler, “Oglala Societies,” 87–88)
.

11
. This paragraph is Neihardt’s summary
.

1
. This paragraph was added by Neihardt. The last survivors of the northern buffalo herds were killed off in 1881. For a readable history of the extermination of the buffalo, see Sandoz, The Buffalo Hunters
.

2
. The characterization of the people as “dark” is apparently Neihardt’s
.

3
. The last three sentences of this paragraph are Neihardt’s
.

4
. Healed (waphíyapi)
.

5
. The last sentence of this paragraph is Neihardt’s
.

6
. The Lakotas called both George Armstrong Custer and William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) by the same name,
. There is a large literature on Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. See, for example, Sell and Weybright, Buffalo Bill and the Wild West; Russell, The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill; and Warren, Buffalo Bill’s America. Standing Bear, My People, the Sioux, 245-69, presents a good account of his experiences traveling
with
the
show
.

7
. In this and the preceding paragraph, Neihardt added the references to the vision. In the interview transcript, Black Elk does not make a specific connection between his vision and the desire to see the world of the white men. See Sixth Grandfather, 245. This sentence (”I know now that was foolish . . .”) is Neihardt’s addition
.

8
. Black Elk contracted with the show for two years, during which he was to receive twenty-five dollars per month, plus all expenses for travel, food, clothing, medical care, and incidentals. When Black Elk joined the show, Buffalo Bill had not yet made arrangements for a European tour. See
Sixth Grandfather,
7-8
.

9
. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West opened in Madison Square Garden on November 24,1886, and closed on February 22,1887. See Yost, Buffalo Bill: His Family, Friends, Fame, Failures, and Fortunes, 170-82; Sell and Weybright, Buffalo Bill and the Wild West, 155–56.

10
. In the transcript, Black Elk mentions the Pawnees, but not the Omahas (Sixth Grand-father, 246).

11
.
The Lakota word for electricity is
lightning,’ hence “the power of thunder.”

12
. The characterization of white people in this paragraph (”I could see that the
Wasichus
did not care for each other . . .”) is Neihardt’s. In fact, in a letter written in Lakota in 1889, after he returned to Pine Ridge, Black Elk expressed admiration for the white people’s practice of the Christian value of charity. See
Sixth Grandfather, 9–10.

13
. The New York City penitentiary, on Black-well’s Island, in the East River.

14
. The Buffalo Bill show, including 133 Indians (Lakotas, Cheyennes, Arapahos, Kiowas, and Pawnees), left New York on the steam ship State of Nebraska on March 31,1887, bound for England (”Buffalo Bill’s Good-Bye,” New York Times, April 1, 1887). See Gallop, Buffalo Bill’s British Wild West, 40–41.

15
. Buffalo Bill’s troop arrived at Gravesend on April 16, 1887; the next day they sailed up the Thames to London and then took a train to Earl’s Court, where the show’s head quarters and exhibition arena where still under construction. The show was part of the American Exposition that mas organized as part of the celebration of the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria’s reign. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West opened officially on May 9 and closed on October 31 (Russell, The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill, 327-29; Yost, Buffalo Bill, 186-203; Sell and Weybright, Buffalo Bill and the Wild West, 159-76; Gallop, Buffalo Bill’s British Wild West, 54-129).

16
. The private command performance for Queen Victoria at Earl’s Court was held on May 11,1887. See Russell, The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill, 330; Sell and Wey-bright, Buffalo Bill and the Wild West, 169-71; Gallop, Buffalo Bill’s British Wild West, 95–102.

17
. In the transcript, Black Elk gives the Queen’s age as seventy-five (Sixth Grandfather, 249); Neihardt corrected it.

18
. On June 21,1887, Buffalo Bill’s performers were assigned seats in one of the grand stands constructed for the spectacular parade of European royalty celebrating Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. See Gallop, Buffalo Bill’s British Wild West, 112.

1
. After closing in London, the show moved first to Birmingham, where it ran from November 6 to November 26, then on to Manchester, where it opened on December 17 and closed on April 30,1888. See Russell, The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill, 204–8; Gallop, Buffalo Bill’s British Wild West, 133–50.

2
. Following a final performance in Hull on May 5, Buffalo Bill sailed for New York on May 6,1888. See Russell, The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill, 204–8; Gallop, Buffalo Bill’s British Wild West, 150–52.

3
. Captain Mexican Joe Shelly organized arival Wild West Show to compete with Buffalo Bill. He apparently sailed from Balti-moreinjuly 1887. See Sixth Grandfather, 252n.10.

4
. Mexican Joe’s show apparently visited Naples, where Black Elk learned about Pompeii.

5
. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West opened in Paris at the Exposition Universelle on May 10,1889 (Yost
, Buffalo Bill,
221; Russell
, The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill,
350
).

6
. In the transcript, Black Elk merely says, “This was in the year of the treaty (1889)” (Sixth Grandfather, 254). The 1889 agreement reduced the Great Sioux Reservation by about half (eleven million acres) and created five smaller reservations out of the remainder. To the north, above the Cheyenne River, were Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Reservations; to the south, below the White River, were Pine Ridge, Rosebud, and Lower Brule Reservations. See Olson
, Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem,
312–19; Hyde, A
Sioux Chronicle,
198–228
.

1
. The three introductory paragraphs are Neihardt’s. After the Sioux signed the 1889 agreement, the commissioner of Indian affairs reduced their beef rations by half. See Ostler
, The Plains Sioux and U. S. Colonialism,
237-38; Olson
, Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem,
320; Hyde
, A Sioux Chronicle,
230–31
.

2
. This paragraph is also Neihardt’s. Conditions at Pine Ridge had worsened considerably during the years of Black Elk’s European travels. See Olson
, Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem,
320-21; Mooney
, The Ghost-Dance Religion,
826–42
.

3
. Neihardt provided the identification of the Messiah as a Paiute and the information that news of him came through the Shoshones and Arapahos. See Andersson, The Lakota Ghost Dance, for an insightful summary of the Ghost Dance from the Lakota point of view), as well as analyses from other perspectives, including those of Indian agents, settlers journalists, the military, missionaries, and the U. S. Congress
.

4
. George Sword, an Oglala and a judge of the Court of Indian Offenses at Pine Ridge, wrote that this delegation comprised Good Thunder and four or five others. See Mooney
, The Ghost-Dance Religion,
797,819
.

5
. Located forty miles northwest of the Paiute Reservation at Walker Lake. See Mooney
, The Ghost-Dance Religion,
767
.

6
. Waníkhiya ‘savior.’ This is the only name that Black Elk uses for the Messiah in the transcript
.

7
. Black Elk was apparently a clerk in the store at Manderson. See
Sixth Grandfather,
257
.

8
. For discussion of this delegation, see
Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion,
820–22
.

9
. Neihardt apparently provided the story of the hat; it does not appear in the transcript
.

10
. Mrs. Z. A. Parker, a reservation school teacher, wrote an excellent eye witness description of a Ghost Dance on White Clay Creek in October 1890. See Mooney, “The Ghost-Dance Religion,” 916–17
.

11
. The phrase “the Powers of the Universe that are one Power” is Neihardt’s
.

1
. The transcript has, “I dressed up in the sacred clothes,”  which seems to imply that Ghost Dance shirts were already in use (
Sixth Grandfather,
259)
.

2
. Good Thunder was a brother of Black Elk’s father; it was customary among the Lakotas for a man to marry his deceased brother’s widow
.

3
. The transcript gives a final line for this song: “Father has said this,” referring to the Wanekia. This is one of the well-known Lakota Ghost Dance songs. The text, as written in Lakota by Lizzie Black Fox, a Lakota woman, was published in George Sword’s “The Story of the Ghost Dance,”34
.

4
. The transcript reads: “To be said in the other world to some one coming there from here” (
Sixth Grandfather,
260). Thus it is the spirits who were singing the song to the people who came there in their Ghost Dance visions
.

5
. In 1882 the Secretary of the Interior condemned the practice of American Indian religions and directed the commissioner of Indian affairs to put an end to the Sun Dance and other public religious ceremonies and dances, to prohibit giveaways (the distribution of material goods after a relative’s death), to suppress the activities of medicine men, and to out law polygamy. In response, the Office of Indian Affairs established courts of Indian offenses on each reservation to enforce these prohibitions. See the report of Secretary of the Interior Henry M. Teller in Prucha
, Documents of United States Indian Policy,
160–62
.

6
. This vision had special resonance for Neihardt since he, at the age of eleven, had experienced a similar dream in which he flew through the air, arms out stretched. See
Sixth Grandfather,
42
.

7
. In the transcript, Black Elk explicitly states, “So I started the ghost shirt”
(Sixth Grandfather,
262). However, he earlier stated (p.259) that he dressed in sacred clothes to participate in the dance, and in describing the vision he says that the two men who spoke to him “were dressed with ghost shirts like l was dressed” (p. 261). Mrs. Parker observed that the Ghost Dance shirts and dresses were new in October 1890 and she was told that they had originated in a vision experienced by the wife of Returns from Scout (Mooney
, The Ghost-Dance Religion,
916). It seems likely that several of the Ghost Dancers brought back from their visions specific designs for the sacred regalia used in the ceremonies
.

8
.
It is unclear to which vision Black Elk is referring. The transcript reads, “I got a stick to resemble the one l had seen in my vision… I wanted all the people to know the facts of this vision” (
Sixth Grandfather,
2 fa). This makes it seem that Black Elk saw a sacred stick, painted red with the Messiah’s sacred paint, in his first Ghost Dance vision, but Neihardt seems to have assumed that the reference was to Black Elk’s great vision
.

9
. The transcript has “difficulty,” not “despair” (Sixth Grandfather, 187).

10
.
In the transcript, Black Elk comments: “He did not resemble Christ. He looked like an Indian but I was not sure of it”
(Sixth Grandfather, 263).

11
. This is Neihardt’s expression. The transcript reads: “As I looked at him, his body began to transform. His body changed into all colors and it mas very beautiful. All around him there was light. Then he disappeared all at once. It seemed as though there were mounds in the palms of his hands.” Later, he commented: “It seems to me on thinking it over that I have seen the son of the Great Spirit himself’ (
Sixth Grandfather,
263,266)
.