Summary
No doubt other "wakan" sacred men and women received visions to help their people as well, but Black Elk's story is the only one so well publicized. John G. Neihart, an American poet, immortalized the medicine man in the flawed "Black Elk Speaks" and he became a cultural icon.
Black Elk, in Neihart's book, said he "shook all over with fear" because he recognized the grandfathers were "the powers of the world" or powers of the six directions. He was blessed with thunder being medicine and given a special "four-rayed" herb with blue, white, red and yellow blossoms that could help his people be healthy. In the course of his vision he saw his Lakota people "thin, their faces sharp, for they were starving", but he later saw them dancing in a "sacred hoop" around one mighty flowering tree.Until he was 23 Black Elk cured the sick, but by 1886 he was depressed by the decimation of the buffalo and his nation's hoop falling apart. In an attempt to understand white ways, he traveled "across the big water" to England with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. There he danced and sang one day for Queen Victoria, whom he described as "little, but fat" and for whom he professed a great fondness.See the full content of this document
Extract
[ Footprints ] Black Elk
At the age of nine, the spirits entrusted Black Elk with no less a task than saving his Lakota nation.
No doubt other "wakan" sacred men and women received visions to help their people as well, but Black Elk's story is the only one so well publicized. John G. Neihart, a...See the full content of this document
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