Black Elk Speaks
Authors: John G. Neihardt
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Religion, #Philosophy, #Spirituality, #Classics, #Biography, #History
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
9. The Rubbing Out of Long Hair
11. The Killing of Crazy Horse
18. The Powers of the Bison and the Elk
22. Visions of the Other World
24. The Butchering at Wounded Knee
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
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
8. Black Elk under the Tree of Life
9. Black Elk at the Center of the Earth
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
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
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
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
