"Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking."
-Black Elk
Black Elk (Dec., 1863-Aug. 19, 1950), was an eyewitness to some of the most important events in the history of the American West. He was born probably near the Little Powder River, modern-day Wyoming, and became a highly revered holy man of the Oglala Lakota. Black Elk was also the second cousin of Crazy Horse, who became a household name after the defeat of Custer at Little Big Horn, and knew him well, spending much time with the renowned warrior in childhood. Black Elk never learned to speak English, so his son Ben Black Elk, who was present during the talks with the editor, and others translated his father's words into English, including another Lakota named Flying Hawk.
The story of the book is almost as colorful as the content. The first book of Black Elk's spoken memoir was published in 1932 by John Niehardt (1881-1973), an American writer and Illinois native who was something of an amateur ethnographer with a longstanding fascination with alternative spiritual and religious traditions. He published his first work, "The Divine Enchantment," about Hindu mysticism, at age nineteen. Niehardt later served as a professor of poetry at the University of Nebraska and a literary editor in St. Louis, Missouri.
In 1901, Niehardt moved to Bancroft, Nebraska, near the Omaha Reservation, then to Branson, Missouri, in 1920. His most famous work, "Black Elk Speaks," was born of his efforts to interview an Oglala holy man who could inform his research regarding the Ghost Dance movement. This widely misunderstood practice was incorporated into multiple Native American belief systems of the late nineteenth century, and originated with a Paiute spiritual leader, circa 1890, with the intent of reuniting the living with the spirits of the dead to seek their assistance in ending westward expansion and to bring peace, unity and prosperity to native peoples.
In the summer of 1930, Niehardt sought and received permission fro the BIA to go to the Pine Ridge Reservation, one of the most famous Lakota reservations still in the present day. He and his two daughters met with Black Elk and some of his companions, several of whom had taken part in the Battle of the Little Big Horn, where George A. Custer and his troops were killed. Black Elk was also a survivor of the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre. His oral narrative recounts his early life and youth living on traditional Lakota lands in the last decades prior to what amounted to an almost total loss of their culture and language. That is a recurrent theme in the book, in fact: that the tribe's sacred hoop was and remains scattered and broken. And the account includes not just Black Elk's memories: his friend Fire Thunder and other old friends and companions also made contributions to the narrative, recounting firsthand recollections of multiple encounters and battles, including the Fetterman incident where numerous white settlers were killed, after a convergence of many tribes, including Lakota allies Cheyenne and Arapaho, who gathered on the banks of the river to help them fight.
The account opens with Black Elk's memory of being told as a boy that the Wasichu, the white settlers, described as a people without number, were coming to wipe them out and take their land, and that "we should all have to die fighting." The reason was an all-too-familiar one: the whites had discovered in the sacred Black Hills "the yellow metal that they worship and that makes them crazy," in 1874, kicking off yet another "gold rush" which displaced native people who had inhabited the land for untold generations. In his early account, Black Elk spoke of the belief that all living things are members of one family, referring to two-leggeds and four-leggeds who "lived together like relatives." All that changed when the Wasichu arrived, according to his elders: "there was plenty for them and us until the Wasichu came and made islands for us and other islands for the four-leggeds, the islands ever becoming smaller... around them surges the gnawing flood of the Wasichu; and it is dirty with lies and greed."
Also early in the account, Black Elk recounted the event where he received a vision at age nine while critically ill and in a coma for a reported twelve days. This vision haunted him all his life, and his description of it allows outsiders a window into some of the spiritual beliefs of the Lakota. He remained throughout his life a philosophical figure deeply grieved by the injustice he experienced all around him, remarking on one occasion, "I could not understand this and thought much about it. How could men get fat by being bad, and starve by being good? I thought and thought about my vision, and it made me very sad; for I wondered maybe it was only a queer dream after all." He was frequently beset by self-doubt and great despair, which also persisted throughout his life.
Make of it what you will, but Black Elk's childhood vision, which stated that "all over the universe I could hear the winds at war like wild beasts fighting," is eerily prescient of the unmitigated catastrophe that was the first half of the 20th century. The author Niehardt then noted, "at this point Black Elk remarked: 'I think we are near that place now, and I am afraid something very bad is going to happen all over the world.' He cannot read and knows nothing of world affairs." Recorded in 1930: was this a reference to the Great Depression, which did shortly consume the whole world... or something even more sinister, which would occur a decade later, and indeed did involve a conflagration of the entire world, including "starving camps"?
Black Elk goes on: "Then when the people were getting ready to begin the fourth ascent, the Voice spoke like someone weeping, and it said, 'Look there upon your nation.' And when I looked down, the people were all changed back to human and they were thin, their faces sharp, for they were starving. Their ponies were only hide and bones, and the holy tree was gone. And as I looked and wept, I saw that there stood on the north side of the starving camp a sacred man ... It was dark and terrible about me, for all the winds of the world were fighting. It was like rapid gunfire and like whirling smoke, and like women and children wailing and like horses screaming all over the world."
Some have argued that a lifetime of closeness to nature imparts a unique type of knowledge, almost reminiscent of genetic knowledge or instinct. Some even argue that through meditation, connection with terrestrial energies can be discerned in dreams and visions. Black Elk also reported regarding his vision that long before coming of the whites, a medicine man dreamed of the animals perishing and returning to the earth, and a spider's web woven around the Lakota people. This spiritual leader also reportedly told him that "you shall live in square gray houses and beside them you shall starve."
This account could almost be called prophetic, not unlike the book of Revelation, in the Christian tradition. Not only did it come to pass in Black Elk's day, when his people were essentially confined to an open-air prison camp in the square gray houses as described, it brings to mind modern-day trailers and the corrugated metal houses and buildings of the Pine River reservation - a description of things that the elder saw but could not yet comprehend. Black Elk reports that he shortly thereafter returned to Mother Earth - it was said that the sorrow killed him.
Black Elk's life was a fascinating, if tragic one. In his 20s, he traveled "across the big water" on a steamship to Europe, touring first with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, and, then, upon someone becoming separated from the group, with another traveling show which went to Paris and other parts of Western Europe. Black Elk even met Queen Victoria on occasion, and reports that she was a likeable lady who treated them well, even hosting them at her residence. He spent three years abroad, hoping to learn about the ways of the Wasichu, in order to help his people, but it seems that all he gained was an unquenchable longing for home and family. Curiously, he continued to have visions, even once in Paris, where his hosts believed that he was dying and began preparations for his burial, as he was apparently comatose for three days.
The book concludes with the episode of the Wounded Knee tragedy, when Black Elk was in his late 20s. He reported that he was having repeated intuitions that something bad was going to happen: Later in his 20s is involvement with the Ghost Dance movement. As such, he had tried to live peacefully, almost as a pacifist as a Ghost Dancer, but admittedly wanted and intended to take revenge after what he had seen. As he was staying in the area, he and others heard shooting nearby on that fateful day in December, and rushed to see what was happening. They arrived to see the entire village massacred. Black Elk himself reported to have been wounded by a gunshot across the abdomen after the attack when he and his companions were trying to retreat, and displayed the lengthy scar to Niehardt during the interview. Black Elk also reports that he rescued a baby, as did another companion he was with, who had lost their parents, and were subsequently adopted by the tribe, but that trauma seemingly never left him, after seeing women and children slaughtered by soldiers while running for their lives.
I would have very much liked to have known of his firsthand account of his life after this event, and about his later life: marriage and children, where he lived and what he did, and whether he continued his visions. It appears that he became a practicing Catholic, and is buried in Saint Agnes Catholic Cemetery in South Dakota, along with several of his other relatives, so it likewise appears that he continued his spiritual journey throughout his life, also. Black Elk ended his earthly course in 1950, but, largely due to this unique account, his visions and experiences will continue to inspire and move generations of readers.
Notwithstanding its great influence and popularity, the book is not without controversy. Perhaps the most significant issue is that of translation: the book itself was written by Neihardt, a non-Native, and must be viewed through that lens of bias. Black Elk's words were translated by others, sometimes informally, which presents a unique challenge in terms of accuracy. As such, many Lakota people do not consider his statements to represent traditional beliefs and have disputed the book's accuracy as truly reflective of Lakota spiritual practices. In fact, another scholar, an Indiana university professor, published his own book in response, "The Sixth Grandfather," a reference to statements in "Black Elk Speaks," regarding the vision, and argued that Niehardt's account is not historically accurate and probably does not represent the true views or statements of Black Elk himself, owing largely to unfamiliarity with native traditions and linguistic challenges.
For me, that's the missing dimension (and an explanation of the four rather than five-star rating). I would like to have seen the author's discussion of some of these vital issues, or at least an acknowledgement of them. For example: how did he attempt to retain the narrators' original messages, while skillfully translating ideas and concepts into English for an unfamiliar audience? In all honesty, I doubt Niehardt even considered it at length. I would also have been interested in the author's discussion of his own perspectives (and biases), as he had conducted previous research of other religious and spiritual traditions, so it's important to discuss, or at least acknowledge, how his own experiences may have shaped the form of his narrative here. Perhaps, considering the time period and the author's lack of formal training and education, that's asking too much of someone largely untrained in anthropology or ethnography... but it remains a starkly missing dimension in an otherwise excellent work.
Notwithstanding the limitations, "Black Elk Speaks" has become one of the most famous works of early Native American ethnography. In full acknowledgements of its limitations and shortcomings, it offers a unique perspective of a single person who witnessed and participated in some of the most significant events of the latter part of the nineteenth century, which tragically saw the near demise of most indigenous Native American languages, cultures and traditions. It's the small details which really stand out for me: even the manner in which the Lakota kept track of time: years were apparently not numbered, but were based on events. Black Elk mentions, for example, "the winter when the four crows were killed" (1863).
Months were similarly named for phenomena associated with them: The Moon of the Popping Trees (Dec.), clearly a reference to the sound of branches breaking under the weight of the snow; October was the Moon of the Changing Season; August was known as the Moon When the Cherries Turn Black; May was the Moon When the Ponies Shed; and November was known as the Moon of the Falling Leaves, for obvious reason. Even these scant details render this unique autobiography a work of priceless anthropological significance, as it at least attempts to render into English a glimpse into a vanished world, and a sadly vanished culture, whose traditional way of life has all but disappeared. These remnants, imperfect through they may be, are at least a first-generation account and, before widespread use of audio or video recordings, was the only way to see through their eyes, of what was coming and what occurred in this critical but tragic period of American history.
It is also vital to remember: as with the tragic account of Anne Frank - hers, and Black Elk's constitute only ONE person's individual story... one of untold millions, who shared the same fate.
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