Black Elk Quotes-a gathering.cwk (WP)

7/31/2019 Black Elk Quotes-a gathering.cwk (WP)

1/22

Black Elk, 1863-1950

Black Elk was an Oglala Lakota

(Sioux). A second cousin of CrazyHorse, both his father and grand-father were respected holy-men, atradition Black Elk continued.

Black Elk lived his early life at a timewhen his people were beingtraumatized and killed by theEuropeans who had come to thiscontinent, by their descendants, andby the diseases they and their farmanimals had brought (smallpox,

measles, influenza, tuberculosis,pertusis, malaria.) Native Americansbefore Columbus did not have farmanimals, and so had not developedresistance to their diseases.

Black Elk participated, at the age oftwelve, in the Battle of Little Big Horn(Greasy Grass) of 1876, and was injuredin the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.


2/22

Black Elk had a remarkable spirit,

which is evident in the two books ofhis words, Black Elk Speaks and The

Sacred Pipe. Following is a collection of

quotations from those works.

========O========

Grandfather, Great Spirit, once morebehold me on earth and lean to hear

my feeble voice.

+++++

It is the wish of Wakan-Tanka (The GreatSpirit) that the light enters into thedarkness, that we may see not only withour two eyes, but with the one eye which isof the heart, and with which we see andknow all that is true and good.

---------*---------


3/22

This center which is here, but whichwe know is really everywhere, isWakan-Tanka.

+++O+++

You have noticed that everything as

Indian does is in a circle, and that is

because the Power of the World alwaysworks in circles, and everything tries to

be round....The Sky is round, and I have

heard that the earth is round like a ball,

and so are all the stars. The wind, in its

greatest power, whirls. Birds make theirnest in circles, for theirs is the same

religion as ours....Even the seasons

form a great circle in their changing,

and always come back again to where

they were. The life of a man is a circlefrom childhood to childhood, and so it is

in everything where power moves.


4/22

OWhen we speak of "mitakuye oyasin" (all myrelatives), we know always that the growing andmoving things of the earth, the winged, the

four-legged, and the two legged are all childrenof the earth and they, too, want to live. So wesay mitakuye oyasin.

====!====Grown men can learn from very littlechildren for the hearts of little childrenare pure. Therefore, the Great Spiritmay show to them many things which

older people miss.

^^^^^^^^^My friend, I am going to tell you thestory of my life, as you wish; and if it

were only the story of my life I think Iwould not tell it; for what is one manthat he should make much of hiswinters, even when they bend him like


5/22

a heavy snow?

(((((((...)))))))

I was four years old then, and I thinkit must have been the next summer

that I first heard the voices.

* * * * * * *

They told me I had been sick twelvedays, lying like dead all the while, andthat Whirlwind Chaser , who wasStanding Bear's uncle and a medicineman , had brought me back to life. I knewit was the Grandfathers in the Flaming

Rainbow Tepee who had cured me; but Ifelt afraid to say so. My father gaveWhirlwind Chaser the best horse he hadfor making me well, and many peoplecame to look at me, and there was muchtalk about the great power of Whirlwind

Chaser who had made me well all atonce when I was almost the same asdead.Everybody was glad that I was living; but


6/22

as I lay there thinking about thewonderful place where I had been and allthat I had seen, I was very sad; for itseemed to me that everybody oughtto know about it, but I was afraid totell, because I knew that nobodywould believe me, little as I was, for Iwas only nine years old. Also, as I laythere thinking of my vision, I couldsee it all again and feel the meaningwith a part of me like a strange powerglowing in my body; but when thepart of me that talks would try tomake words for the meaning, it would

be like fog and get away from me.I am sure now that I was then too youngto understand it all, and that I only felt it.It was the pictures I remembered andthe words that went with them; fornothing I have ever seen with my eyes

was so clear and bright as what myvision showed me; and no words thatI have ever heard with my ears werelike the words I heard. I did not have


7/22

to remember these things; they haveremembered themselves all theseyears. It was as I grew older that themeanings came clearer and clearerout of the pictures and the words;and even now I know that more wasshown to me than I can tell. Youremember that my great vision came

to me when I was only nine yearsold, and you have seen that I wasnot much good for anything untilafter I had performed the horsedance near the mouth of the Tongue

River during my eighteenth summer.

[[[*****]]]It is like some fearful thing in a fog, for it was atime when everything seemed troubled and

afraid. I had never seen a Wasichu (white man)then, and did not know what one looked like;but everyone was saying that the Wasichus were

coming and that they were going to take our


8/22

country and rub us all out and that we should all

have to die fighting.

I can remember when the bison were so many

that they could not be counted, but more andmore Wasichus came to kill them until there wereonly heaps of bones scattered where they used

to be. The Wasichus did not kill them to eat; theykilled them for the metal that makes them crazy,and they took only the hides to sell.

I was ten years old that winter, and

that was the first time I ever saw aWasichu (white man). At first Ithought they all looked sick, and Iwas afraid they might just begin tofight us any time, but I got used to

them.Then I was standing on the highestmountain of them all , and round about


9/22

beneath me was the whole hoop of theworld. And while I stood there I sawmore than I can tell and I understoodmore than I saw; for I was seeing in asacred manner the shapes of allthings in the spirit, and the shape ofall shapes as they must live togetherlike one being. And I saw that the

sacred hoop of my people was one ofmany hoops that made one circle, wideas daylight and as starlight, and in thecenter grew one mighty flowering tree toshelter all the children of one mother andone father. And I saw that it was holy.

+++++=======+++++This they tell, and whether it happened soor not I do not know, but if you think aboutit, you can see that it is true.

>>>---


10/22

that said our country would be ours aslong as grass should grow and water

flow.

--->---The first peace, which is the mostimportant, is that which comes from

within the souls of men when they realizetheir relationship, their oneness, with theuniverse and all its powers, and when theyrealize that at the center of the universedwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this centeris really everywhere, it is within each of

us. This is the real peace, and the othersare but reflections of this. The secondpeace is that which is made between twoindividuals, and the third is that which ismade between two nations. But above all

you should understand that there cannever be peace between nations untilthere is first known that true peace which

is within the souls of men.


11/22

------It is in the darkness of their eyes that menget lost.

+++====+++I had a vision with which I might

have saved my people, but I had

not the strength to do it.

>

Documents

Black Elk Quotes-a gathering.cwk (WP)