Black Elk Speaks

1695 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Native americans indigenous religions around the world

Black Elk Speaks

Black Elk Speaks is a novel based on the memories of Black Elk that he shared with a poet John Neihardt. Black Elk was an Oglala Sioux religious leader that had become a medicine man when he had had a vision in his teen age. Black Elk had already catholicized when he met Neihardt and was a catechist in reservations. He told Neihardt the story of his life so that it got eternalized and the future generations had the possibility to get to know the history of the Sioux.

The novel gives us a good idea about the traditions, beliefs and way of life of the Lakota Indians as well as about the hardships that occurred for them when they had to defend their lands from the Wasichus as they called the white men. And what is more, the story describes in details the fights between Lakota and Wasichus for the land. The reason the white men wanted to occupy the Lakota lands was that they had found gold there. The Indians called gold the yellow metal and considered it inapplicable for anything. According to the novel there was the archenemy of the Lakotas whom they called Pahuska. Actually, his name was George Armstrong Custer. He and his army fought the Lakota Indians and were defeated by them after devastating battles.

Black Elk remembers himself being a boy and remembers how he started having visions. At the very beginning they were queer and he couldn't understand them. But as he tells in his memories, many of his tribesmen had visions about various things and their visions helped them realize the reality, cure other people and even made them strong and invulnerable in the battle. For example, his cousin and the Lakota chief Crazy Horse got the vision and received the power and as a result he became a

chief. He got the name of Crazy Horse because in his vision his horse was dancing in a weird way. His ability was to inspire people that were going to fight and also to be invincible in the battles. He had never been hurt in any battle.

The hard times for Lakota Indians started when Pahuska led his people to the sacred land of the Oglala Sioux called Black Hills to capture it and mine gold there. The Indians were ready to protect their lands and to fight the soldiers. The Indians knew that they had to be together and protect themselves.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Neidhardt In Black Elk Speaks

    912 Words  | 2 Pages

    Neidhardt in Black Elk Speaks offers an introspective narrative of the spiritual atmosphere surround the Sioux’s spiritual legacy. In doing so, the author promotes the validation and worthiness of spirituality in the so-called modern society. It is his intent to use the prayer as a vehicle to transmit the message that transcends the mere formulation of an apologetic thesis. Hence, Neidhardt seeks to penetrate the reader’s soul by presenting with a healing body of text, which he structures following two main themes: spiritual leadership and everyday human struggle against the corruption of the mind by the limitation to see beyond one’s physical strength.

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Book 'Clearing The Plains'

    1229 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is an honest recount of events that lead to a downfall in the indigenous community where they lost an unreal amount of power. It is without questions that Daschuk makes his points heard, while being clear and concise and his arguments are valid. I learned an incredible amount about the Indigenous society from reading this book and although Daschuk does not touch on it, I feel if young people read this it would help with the racism in today’s society because they would be further educated on what it is indigenous people had to go

    Read More

  • Battle Analysis of the Battle of Little Bighorn

    2009 Words  | 5 Pages

    Political. As an esteemed war hero during the Civil War, Custer was an icon who carried the support of the American people. With the people’s support our government could shift the nation’s progress westward for expansion. Custer had confined the Indians to the Black Hills reservation, and they had made it their home, then he discovered gold in the region. The government immediately wanted the land back in exchange...

    Read More

  • Disciplined Hearts by Theresa O'Nell

    1268 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is not out of line to expect Native Americans to live like their ancestors, and I agree with the way that O'Nell made the government look like the wrongdoers. She talks like "indians" are just part of stories or like they have not kept up with the times. This book points out many of the problems for native americans by bringing out problems in identity, culture, and depression dealing with the Flathead Tribe in Montana. The book is divided into three parts to accomplish this. Part 1 is about the American government's policies that were put on the reservations and how it affected the culture of the Flathead Tribe attached to that reservation. This is the base for is to come in the next two parts, which talk about how lonliness an pity tie into the identity and depression.

    Read More

  • Black Elk Speaks

    1075 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to Black Elk, his people should follow the "good red road". In his vision, he could see a beautiful land where many, many people were camping in a great circle. They were happy and had plenty. Their drying racks were full of meat and the air was clean and beautiful with a living light everywhere. Around the circle were fat and happy horses. Animals of all kinds were scattered over the hills and hunters were returning with their meat. The flowering tree was in the center of the circle, all green and full of flowers (pg. 186).

    Read More

  • The Whiskey Rebellion by William Hogeland

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    The book starts out with a chapter called “Over the Mountains”, which in my opinion for this chapter the author wanted the reader to understand what it was like to live on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains. This is where he brings out one of the main characters in this book, which is Henry Brackenridge. Mr. Brackenridge is a cultivated man in Pittsburgh. He was wealthy and he was there to ratify the Constitution. He was a Realist. He was a college friend of James Madison at College of New Jersey. He was also in George Washington’s post as a chaplain for the Revolutionary War. He believed that Indians needed to be assimilated into the American culture. “… ever to be converted into civilized ways, their legal rights were to be protected” (Hogeland 19). He will become one of the leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion.

    Read More

  • Essay On Chickasaw

    1630 Words  | 4 Pages

    Several Native Americans from the Cherokee tribe had feared that the whites would encroach upon their settlements in the near future so they moved west of the Mississippi many years before the Indian Removal Act was put into place. This good foresight and early movement allowed for them to pick the time that they wanted to leave and they allowed themselves the leisure of moving at their own pace and stopping when they wanted which cut down on casualties extremely and this also allowed them to allocate the appropriate amount of supplies for the trip before attempting to make it prematurely and causing catastrophe to hit. They established a government and worked out a peaceful way of life with the nearby surroundings and allowed themselves to blend into the area that they desired rather than an area that was designated for them. There was always a large tension building between the whites and Cherokee which had reached its climax after the discovery of gold in Georgia. This drove a frenzy that many people wanted in on to make out with a good sum of money as gold was in high demand and worth a lot at the time. When the gold was found it started a miniature gold rush and pulled in whites and

    Read More

  • Black Elk Speaks

    1275 Words  | 3 Pages

    The ways in which the author could strengthen the book, in my opinion, is instead all the descriptive, to me meaningless points as how they were coloring themselves, the author should have put a little bit more facts in there to make it more documentary. Anyhow, overall the book has strength in letting the reader understand the history from both sides, whites and Indians. Many people have different views on the persecution of Native Americans, some think that it was all Indians’ fault and that they caused their own suffering, which I think is absolutely ridiculous, because they were not the ones who invaded. And Native Americans had every right to stand up for the land that was theirs.

    Read More

  • Taking a Look at the Sioux Uprising

    824 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Sioux and other Native Americans have always been treated poorly by some people. They had to deal with the same racism that the African Americans were dealing with in the South. No one was fighting a war for the Sioux though. The truth is white supremacy runs amuck everywhere and wreaks havoc on society. Racism separated the Sioux from the settlers, but the tipping point was something else entirely. The US made a binding contract, a promise, to pay the Sioux a certain amount of Go...

    Read More

  • "Custer Died For Your Sins" Analysis

    907 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although the work is 40 years old, “Custer Died for Your Sins” is still relevant and valuable in explaining the history and problems that Indians face in the United States. Deloria’s book reveals the White view of Indians as false compared to the reality of how Indians are in real life. The forceful intrusion of the U.S. Government and Christian missionaries have had the most oppressing and damaging affect on Indians. There is hope in Delorias words though. He believes that as more tribes become more politically active and capable, they will be able to become more economically independent for future generations. He feels much hope in the 1960’s generation of college age Indians returning to take ownership of their tribes problems and build a better future for their children.

    Read More

  • Lakota Woman

    1161 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lakota Woman Essay In Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog argues that in the 1970’s, the American Indian Movement used protests and militancy to improve their visibility in mainstream Anglo American society in an effort to secure sovereignty for all "full blood" American Indians in spite of generational gender, power, and financial conflicts on the reservations. When reading this book, one can see that this is indeed the case. The struggles these people underwent in their daily lives on the reservation eventually became too much, and the American Indian Movement was born. AIM, as we will see through several examples, made their case known to the people of the United States, and militancy ultimately became necessary in order to do so.

    Read More

  • Battle Of The Little Big Horn

    815 Words  | 2 Pages

    The journey of exploration to the western territories brought the white man many great things, but they did face some opposition. The US government made plans to explore the Black Hills, after hearing of the gold it contained. This was not an easy task. The Sioux, with strong force, were not giving up their sacred land easily. The only way to gain the territory of the Black Hills was to wage war against the Sioux. The Battle of the Little Big Horn was one battle that the US will never forget. General George Custer led an army of men to take out the Sioux, one of the battalions was completely wiped out including Custer. The Sioux were very strong, but US had a lot more power and technology. Why did we get massacred? This question has been a mystery to many people throughout the years. Sergeant Windolph, of Benteen’s cavalry, and John F. Finerty, from General Crooks cavalry, bring us some personal accounts and memories of this tragedy.

    Read More

  • i Heard The Owl Call My Name And the Black Robe: The Indians

    368 Words  | 1 Pages

    Although the Indians in I Heard The Owl Call My Name, and in The Black

    Read More

  • What Buddhism and Sioux Tradition Tell Us about Meditation and Having a Vision

    771 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sometimes having a vision is like having a daydream. In Black Elk Speaks, he sometimes has a yonder vision that pops up like a dream.

    Read More

  • Young Goodman Brown

    958 Words  | 2 Pages

    Goodman Brown learns many things about himself when he takes that journey into the woods, among many if his faith.

    Read More

More about Black Elk Speaks

Open Document