Black Elk
Oglala Lakota wičháša wakȟáŋ (holy man), Heyoka, second cousin of Crazy Horse, and witness to the central tragedies of nineteenth-century Plains Indian history — the Battle of the Little Bighorn (which he witnessed at age twelve), the imprisonment of Sitting Bull, the Ghost Dance movement, and the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. Born around 1863 on the Little Powder River, Black Elk received as a child the great vision that became the spiritual core of his life and that John G. Neihardt rendered into the 1932 book Black Elk Speaks — one of the foundational texts of the global engagement with indigenous spirituality, in print continuously for nearly a century and recognized today as among the great religious autobiographies of any tradition. The Sacred Pipe, written with Joseph Epes Brown in 1953, gives Black Elk's account of the seven sacred rites of the Lakota. He also became, late in life, a Catholic catechist named Nicholas Black Elk, holding both traditions without contradiction. He died on Pine Ridge Reservation in 1950.
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Quotes by Black Elk
108 quotes“And through this vision I can help my people.”
“The heart is a sanctuary at the center of which there is a little space, wherein the Great Spirit dwells.”
“This is the Eye. This is the Eye of Wakan-Tanka by which He sees all things.”
“And through which we see Him.”
“If the heart is not pure, Wakan-Tanka cannot be seen.”
“And if it remains impure, the Great Spirit will leave us.”
“You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle.”
“And that is because the Power of the World always works in circles.”
“And everything tries to be round.”
“In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation.”
“And so long as the hoop was unbroken, the people flourished.”
“The flowering tree was the living center of the hoop.”
“And the circle of the four quarters nourished it.”
“The east gave peace and light. The south gave warmth.”
“The west gave rain. The north, with its cold and mighty wind, gave strength and endurance.”
“This knowledge came to us from the outer world with our religion.”
“Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.”
“The sky is round, and the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars.”
“I am blind and do not see the things of this world; but when the Light comes from Above, it enlightens my heart.”
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