Black Elk Book Report

Black Elk speaks is a biographical book written by John G, Neihardt. In this book Neihardt talks to a man names Black Elk about his life and his tribe, the Lakotas. Before Black Elk could tell his story he offers the sacred pipe and tells the story of how it was given to his people. The story goes on and Black Elk talks about how he was sick and had a vision while he was sick. In his vision he saw many things like 12 horses that transformed into other animals, singing birds and six grandfathers. The Grandfathers told showed him sacred songs and dances to help his people. After being cured of his sickness by Whirlwind Chaser, a medicine man in his village, Black Elk had weird feelings towards his vision and told no one about what he saw. Many battles were fought against the Lakotas and the Wasichu soldiers. Back Elks cousin was Crazy

I like who Black Elk explained how they fought the Wasichu buy riding their horses around the Wasichu carts and slowly moving the circle closer. Then they would hang on the outside of their horses and shot under the horse’s head at the Wasichu. The toughest battle to read was the one about Wounded Knee and how it was started by a accidental shooting when Yellow Bird would not let go of his gun. During the reading I could relate to the stories being told, like the one of high horse. I could relate to these stories because, when I was growing up my grandma and mother would tell me stories to teach me lessons and also to explain how things worked in a simpler way. As I got older I found out these storied they told me were not real and just life lessons. I think this was a great book for this course because it shows a different culture and their religious beliefs. It also showed how they were treated and eventually ran off of their land by other people. This was an amazing book to read and I would highly recommend this book to anyone for any