Black Elk Speaks (35 page)

After studying the transcript of the interviews, it is not clear that any of these images are based on words
Black Elk spoke
; they are Neihardt’s. But Neihardt did not invent them alone, for his narrative flowed from the experience of listening to Black Elk and absorbing, in his own way, what Black Elk had to teach him. So, after my attempt to disentangle their voices, I am led back to Vine Deloria’s conclusion concerning
Black Elk Speaks
: “That it speaks to us with simple and compelling language about an aspect of human experience and
encourages us to emphasize the best that dwells within us is sufficient. Black Elk and John Neihardt would probably nod affirmatively to that statement and continue their conversation. It is good. It is enough” (p. xvii).

The historical Black Elk lived on for two more decades after first meeting John Neihardt. During that time Neihardt visited him for the entire summer of 1934, while he finished writing The Song of the Messiah; for a week in 1944 (during which he recorded a second set of interviews, focused on Lakota history and culture); and for brief periods in 1945 and 1946. During those years that saw the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and World War II, Pine Ridge became progressively less isolated from the rest of the country and the Oglalas became progressively more involved in the world outside the reservation, working as migrant farm laborers, moving to nearby cities for employment, volunteering for the army, or doing war-related work. For at least a decade beginning in 1934, Black Elk returned to the work he had done in his youth with Buffalo Bill and organized an Indian show in the Black Hills, designed to teach tourists about historical Lakota culture. The pageant took place throughout the summers at the Duhamel’s Crystal Caverns attraction near Rapid City and provided the opportunity to live in tepees in the coolness of the Hills and make money as well. Unlike the Wild West shows, which glorified Indian warfare, Black Elk’s pageant—a series of vignettes—focused primarily on traditional sacred rituals, including the Sun Dance
(SG,
63-66).
¹²

Then, in 1947, Joseph Brown sought out Black Elk and took on the task of writing Black Elk’s last book, which Brown characterized as a “history” of the sacred pipe. While Black Elk does speak of the origin of the pipe as the gift of White Buffalo Cow Woman, The Sacred Pipe is devoted to detailed accounts of what Black Elk considered to be the seven fundamental rituals of traditional Lakota religion. Brown experienced the same sense of transcendent mystery in meeting Black Elk as had Neihardt. Apparently, Black Elk was anxious for someone to help him preserve an account of Lakota sacred rituals in writing.
Perhaps this was the “great work” that Black Elk told Neihardt in a letter he wished to accomplish “before we are both laid in the ground”
(SG,
69).

Because his relationship with Black Elk was so meaningful to him, Brown was reluctant to talk about it freely. I clearly recall my sense of puzzlement, overcome by embarrassment, when my questions to him about his work with Black Elk were met with silence. Recently, however, Brown’s daughter, Marina Brown Weatherly, his widow, Elenita Brown, and Michael O. Fitzgerald, who was once Brown’s teaching assistant and is a student of Plains Indian religions, published extracts from a series of letters that Brown wrote while working with Black Elk. They are invaluable for the light they shed on their collaboration. According to Brown, Black Elk was not only engaged in making a record of sacred ceremonies, but was doing so in order to insure that they would continue into the future. He wished to enlist the other old Lakota men in establishing “the Order of the Pipe,” a revitalized Lakota religion. In this, he was encouraged by a Catholic priest, Father Gall, an ordained Trappist monk in Belgium who was clearly ahead of his time in his attitude toward Indian religion. Brown wrote, “Black Elk says that he is sorry that his present action towards reviving Lakota spiritual traditions shall anger the priests [the Jesuits at Holy Rosary Mission], but that their anger is proof of their ignorance; and that in any case Wakan-Tanka is happy; for he knows that it is His Will that Black Elk does this work.”
¹³

Brown’s material supports the hypothesis that after Neihardt’s initial visits, Black Elk came to consider comparatively the fundamental truths of Lakota tradition in relation to those of Catholicism. That this should be so is not surprising. The gradual opening of the reservations to influences from the wider society necessarily cast Indian and white cultures in a different light. What had seemed an unquestionable hierarchical relationship, with Euroamerican civilization eclipsing native cultures, began to appear comparatively. Each had its strengths, in a practical sense, for those who would survive. In middle age, Black Elk had accommodated to the white man’s way. He found it congenial
during his trip with the Wild West shows, and after the failure of the Ghost Dance visions to protect the people at Wounded Knee, there seemed no alternative. He embraced Catholicism enthusiastically, serving as missionary to other reservations and as catechist in his own community. His role in the church provided him with social standing and modest economic reward. But when Neihardt reawakened in him the vivid reality of his visions and the realization that this white man had been led to him to learn about the Lakota path to the other world, the experience did not prompt him to reject the Catholic religion, but to reaffirm his traditional religion. Just as Black Elk regretted his action after the Wounded Knee Battle when he relied solely on his Ghost Dance vision and put aside the visions of his youth, he may have regretted putting aside Lakota belief and relying solely on Catholicism in middle age. None of the three were incompatible; all paths lead to the same transcendent truth.

This conclusion, simple as it is, will not end the debate over Black Elk’s religious life or the interpretation of
Black Elk Speaks
. Proponents of every interpretation of what Black Elk said or meant are passionate in defense of their perspective. I do not consider them all of equal merit, but I do consider the passion of the debate to be a clear reflection of the power that Black Elk, primarily through Neihardt’s portrayal of him in
Black Elk Speaks
, has to inspire readers to think about and even experience a kind of transcendence sorely lacking in our workaday lives. We need from time to time to be shaken out of our certainties and be given glimpses of alternate realities. As the literary Black Elk says, in Neihardt’s words, speaking of when he was a boy, just after experiencing his great vision: “when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me…. It was as I grew older that the meanings came clearer and clearer out of the pictures and the words; and even now I know that more was shown to me than I can tell”
(BES
, 38). Even now, after multiple efforts over many years to analyze Neihardt’s work critically, I return to
Black Elk Speaks
with appreciation and a sense of awe as fresh as that l experienced on my first reading. I trust that other readers, too,
will find that the experience of following the processes of Neihardt’s creativity through the annotations in this edition adds a dimension of understanding and enjoyment to reading this classic book.

I am grateful to John G. Neihardt for his permission to study the transcripts of his interviews with Black Elk, and to Hilda Neihardt Petri for permission to publish them. I wish especially to express my gratitude to Coralie Hughes and Gary Dunham for their encouragement of this annotated edition. I wish to express my thanks to Raymond A. Bucko, S.J., Douglas R. Parks, and Patrick Warren for their assistance, both editorial and substantive. Special thanks goes to David C. Posthumus who contributed to every aspect of this project and who compiled the data for the maps
.

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