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Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary
Winner of the Society of American Historians' Francis Parkman PrizeWinner of the PEN / Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for BiographyBest Biography of 2016, True West magazine Winner of the Western Writers of America 2017 Spur Award, Best Western BiographyFinalist, National Book Critics Circle Award for BiographyLong-listed for the Cundill History PrizeOne of the Best Books of 2016, The Boston GlobeThe epic life story of the Native American holy man who has inspired millions around the worldBlack Elk, the Native American holy man, is known to millions of readers around the world from his 1932 testimonial Black Elk Speaks. Adapted by the poet John G. Neihardt from a series of interviews with Black Elk and other elders at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Black Elk Speaks is one of the most widely read and admired works of American Indian literature. Cryptic and deeply personal, it has been read as a spiritual guide, a philosophical manifesto, and a text to be deconstructed—while the historical Black Elk has faded from view.In this sweeping book, Joe Jackson provides the definitive biographical account of a figure whose dramatic life converged with some of the most momentous events in the history of the American West. Born in an era of rising violence between the Sioux, white settlers, and U.S. government troops, Black Elk killed his first man at the Little Bighorn, witnessed the death of his second cousin Crazy Horse, and traveled to Europe with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Upon his return, he was swept up in the traditionalist Ghost Dance movement and shaken by the Massacre at Wounded Knee. But Black Elk was not a warrior, instead accepting the path of a healer and holy man, motivated by a powerful prophetic vision that he struggled to understand. Although Black Elk embraced Catholicism in his later years, he continued to practice the old ways clandestinely and never refrained from seeking meaning in the visions that both haunted and inspired him.In Black Elk, Jackson has crafted a true American epic, restoring to its subject the richness of his times and gorgeously portraying a life of heroism and tragedy, adaptation and endurance, in an era of permanent crisis on the Great Plains.
830 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 25, 2016
294 people are currently reading
2738 people want to read
About the author
Joe Jackson
8 books13 followersJoe Jackson is the author of seven works of nonfiction and a novel. His nonfiction includes: Leavenworth Train, a finalist for the 2002 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime; Dead Run: The Shocking Story of Dennis Stockton and Life on Death Row in America, with co-author William F. Burke and an introduction by William Styron; A Furnace Afloat: The Wreck of the Hornet and the Harrowing 4,300-mile of its Survivors; A World on Fire: A Heretic, an Aristocrat, and the Race to Discover Oxygen; The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire, one of Time magazine's Top Ten Books of 2008; and Atlantic Fever: Lindbergh, His Competitors, and the Race to Cross the Atlantic, released by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in May 2012. A first novel, How I Left the Great State of Tennessee and Went on to Better Things, was released in March 2004.
His seventh work of nonfiction - Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary - was released by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in October 2016; it chronicles the life of Oglala Lakota holy man Black Elk, best known for his 1932 Black Elk Speaks, written in collaboration with the Nebraska poet-laureate John Neihardt. Jackson's biography received the following honors and awards in 2017: Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography; Best Biography of 2016, True West magazine; Winner of the Western Writers of America 2017 Spur Award, Best Western Biography; Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography; and One of the Best Books of 2016, The Boston Globe.
His seventh work of nonfiction - Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary - was released by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in October 2016; it chronicles the life of Oglala Lakota holy man Black Elk, best known for his 1932 Black Elk Speaks, written in collaboration with the Nebraska poet-laureate John Neihardt. Jackson's biography received the following honors and awards in 2017: Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography; Best Biography of 2016, True West magazine; Winner of the Western Writers of America 2017 Spur Award, Best Western Biography; Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography; and One of the Best Books of 2016, The Boston Globe.
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March 18, 2019
My friend, I am going to tell you the story of my life…and if it were only the story of my life I think I would not tell it; for what is one man that he should make much of his winters, even when they bend him like a heavy snow? So many other men have lived and shall live that story, to be grass upon the hills…This, then, is not the tale of a great hunter or of a great warrior, or of a great traveler, although I have made much meat in my time and fought for my people both as boy and man, and have gone far and seen strange lands and men…But now that I can see it all as from a lonely hilltop, I know it was the story of a mighty vision given to a man too weak to use it; of a holy tree that should have flourished in a people’s heart with flowers and singing birds, and now is withered; and of a people’s dream that died in bloody snow.
- Black Elk, with John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks: The Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
The writer and poet John Neihardt visited the Oglala reservation at Pine Ride in the summer of 1930. He was looking for a “long hair,” an Indian elder who could tell him of the old days. This was important to Neihardt for, like many others, he believed the Indians to be vanishing from the Earth. An elderly chief named Moses Flying Hawk introduced Neihardt to Black Elk, an aged wicasa wakan, a preacher and holy man. It was not clear when Neihardt first drove out to meet him that Black Elk would agree to talk. Yet after a conversation, Black Elk surprised everyone by deciding to speak – to teach – this outsider about his Great Vision.
The collaboration between Black Elk and Neihardt eventually produced Black Elk Speaks. At the time, the book sold poorly and was remaindered. Time proved its worth, however, and today it is a classic.
It has been a very long time since I was introduced to Black Elk Speaks in high school. I remember it mainly for how it made me feel, which was slightly confused. The book is beautiful, yet strange, especially for a teenager. (It should be noted that, like many teens, I spent my high school years with my head firmly up my own butt).
Partially, Black Elks Speaks is the autobiography of an Oglala man who came of age during his people’s last years of freedom. There are parts that are exciting, fascinating, and horrifying. Black Elk’s account of his hot and bloody afternoon at the Little Big Horn is especially memorable. He describes the taking of his first scalp with a memorably gruesome little detail: how his victim, still living, ground his teeth as the knife edge bit.
But other parts are difficult to comprehend. For this is the story of a holy man who claimed to receive a vision that foretold the destiny of his people. The importance of the vision – what it meant; what it required of him – haunted Black Elk his entire life. Even for a person of faith, it’s hard to know what to make of this aspect of the story. (And I frankly don’t know anymore that I’m a person of faith). The history of the world is littered with charlatans and false prophets. Sizeable portions of Black Elks Speaks are cryptic and veiled in mysticism. This is not simply a life’s tale, but a spiritual guide, and a work of prophecy.
Joe Jackson’s Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary attempts a difficult feat: To separate the Black Elk from Black Elk Speaks and to place him back into a historical (and human) context, without deprecating the centrality of his beliefs. That he succeeds is a testament to an enormous amount of research, a knack for stortytelling, and a willingness to accept Black Elk on his own terms.
Black Elk was born in the early 1860s (most sources say 1863), when there were still plenty of buffalo to hunt, and the whites were distracted by a terrible war in the East. The culture of the Plains tribes had already started to change due to contact with white traders, settlers, and soldiers. Still, in Black Elk’s early years, his people still had relative independence. That had all changed by his death in 1950. The roaming patters of Oglala life had been replaced with a reservation that had shrunk dramatically over the years, as treaty after treaty had been unilaterally abrogated. Once lords of the plains, they were relegated to poverty, unemployment, sickness, and alcoholism.
That Black Elk’s life encompassed these changes (at his birth, only birds could fly; at his death, jet planes soared overhead) makes him an excellent protagonist to follow. It makes the experience of this tragedy far more intimate than if we dealt only in generalities. His life, though, is not even close to representative of his people. It is, rather, quite remarkable. Black Elk fought against Custer, was present at Crazy Horse’s death, and tried to save fleeing Lakota at Wounded Knee; he traveled to Europe with Buffalo Bill Cody’s extravaganza, danced for the Queen of England, was questioned by police in connection with the Jack the Ripper slayings, and had a French girlfriend (!); he was a revered Lakota healer, and though he later converted to Catholicism, helped to preserve his people’s system of beliefs. It is no wonder that Black Elk requires 480 pages of text.
Jackson does an excellent job with this material. He is an engaging writer with a keen ability to weave detail and description into his narrative, whether he is depicting the grueling endurance test of the Sun Dance, or remarking upon the muzzle velocity of the U.S. Cavalry’s Springfield carbines. Jackson has a probing intellect, and is always adding amplifying material. (For example, as mentioned above, Black Elk toured Great Britain during the time of Jack the Ripper. This allows Jackson the opportunity for a short, entertaining digression on that infamous serial killer).
Black Elk is the focus, but Jackson does not neglect the events swirling around him. He describes the military campaigns that herded Black Elk’s people onto reservations, and the treaty commissions that made promises, then returned time and again to change the bargain. Jackson is good with secondary characters, be they white or Indian. A crowded cast jostles on this stage. Revered chiefs such as Red Cloud and Sitting Bull. Soldiers such as George Crook and Nelson Miles. Agents such as the steely James McLaughlin and the panicky Dan Royer. This might all get confusing, but Jackson includes a dramatis personae with names and descriptions, ensuring you won’t get befuddled.
Jackson is especially good with literary set-pieces. For instance, he handles the complicated lead-up to Wounded Knee with finesse, parsing all the misunderstandings, mistakes, and personality quirks that led to the tragic massacre. He caps it off with an intense evocation of the slaughter itself, which left hundreds of men, women, and children dead on the frozen ground.
The dramatic arc of Black Elk’s life naturally flattens as he ages. The excitement and adventure that marked his pre-Wounded Knee life is replaced with a dreary existence on Pine Ridge. Through no fault of his own, the final third of Black Elk lacks the momentum of the first two-thirds. Nevertheless, Jackson’s sensitive and reasoned handling of the Black Elk-Neihardt collaboration (I don’t have the space to contour the extent of the controversy surrounding Black Elk Speaks) keeps things moving along at a good pace.
This isn’t a perfect book. Jackson is not a scholar of the American West. He doesn’t make factual errors qua errors, but I sometimes questioned his interpretations, or use of certain sources. His presentation of the Fetterman Fight, for example (where Black Elk’s father received a crippling wound), is outdated and contrary to modern scholarship on the topic.
There is also some shoddy editing. In discussing cold-weather campaigns, Jackson writes that winter raids “had broken the power of the Cheyenne during the attacks at the Washita in November 1868, at Soldier Springs one month later, and at Summit Springs in July 1869.” Now, the weather on the plains is unpredictable, but even so, July usually isn’t counted among the winter months. At another point, Jackson writes that “on February 10, 1890, President William Henry Harrison opened” Lakota land to settlers. This is just sloppiness. Billy Henry Harrison caught the sniffles at his inauguration and died in 1841. His grandson, Benjamin, was actually chief executive in 1890.
These are minor points that go more to show the state of modern publishing (lackadaisical and penurious) than anything else. They do not detract from the book in the least. This is an easy recommendation for those interested in the American West. But even those who are not steeped in post-Civil War westward expansion will find this illuminating and rewarding.
At the conclusion of Black Elk Speaks, Neihardt and Black Elk sat within view of Harney Peak, the tallest point in South Dakota. Black Elk told Neihardt that the spirits had taken him there in his vision, but that he wished to visit it in the flesh before he died. So Neihardt arranged for a party to climb Harney Peak. Upon the summit, Black Elk prayed to the Grandfathers. This is the scene Neihardt chose to conclude Black Elk Speaks:
Harney Peak was named for General William Selby Harney, the American soldier who’d delivered the decisive blow of the First Sioux War in 1855, by demolishing the camp of Little Thunder’s Brule at Blue Water Creek, near present-day Ash Hollow, Nebraska. On August 11, 2016, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names removed Harney’s name from the prominence.
The mountain now shares the name of the man who once stood on its summit and prayed for the life of his people.
- Black Elk, with John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks: The Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
The writer and poet John Neihardt visited the Oglala reservation at Pine Ride in the summer of 1930. He was looking for a “long hair,” an Indian elder who could tell him of the old days. This was important to Neihardt for, like many others, he believed the Indians to be vanishing from the Earth. An elderly chief named Moses Flying Hawk introduced Neihardt to Black Elk, an aged wicasa wakan, a preacher and holy man. It was not clear when Neihardt first drove out to meet him that Black Elk would agree to talk. Yet after a conversation, Black Elk surprised everyone by deciding to speak – to teach – this outsider about his Great Vision.
The collaboration between Black Elk and Neihardt eventually produced Black Elk Speaks. At the time, the book sold poorly and was remaindered. Time proved its worth, however, and today it is a classic.
It has been a very long time since I was introduced to Black Elk Speaks in high school. I remember it mainly for how it made me feel, which was slightly confused. The book is beautiful, yet strange, especially for a teenager. (It should be noted that, like many teens, I spent my high school years with my head firmly up my own butt).
Partially, Black Elks Speaks is the autobiography of an Oglala man who came of age during his people’s last years of freedom. There are parts that are exciting, fascinating, and horrifying. Black Elk’s account of his hot and bloody afternoon at the Little Big Horn is especially memorable. He describes the taking of his first scalp with a memorably gruesome little detail: how his victim, still living, ground his teeth as the knife edge bit.
But other parts are difficult to comprehend. For this is the story of a holy man who claimed to receive a vision that foretold the destiny of his people. The importance of the vision – what it meant; what it required of him – haunted Black Elk his entire life. Even for a person of faith, it’s hard to know what to make of this aspect of the story. (And I frankly don’t know anymore that I’m a person of faith). The history of the world is littered with charlatans and false prophets. Sizeable portions of Black Elks Speaks are cryptic and veiled in mysticism. This is not simply a life’s tale, but a spiritual guide, and a work of prophecy.
Joe Jackson’s Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary attempts a difficult feat: To separate the Black Elk from Black Elk Speaks and to place him back into a historical (and human) context, without deprecating the centrality of his beliefs. That he succeeds is a testament to an enormous amount of research, a knack for stortytelling, and a willingness to accept Black Elk on his own terms.
Black Elk was born in the early 1860s (most sources say 1863), when there were still plenty of buffalo to hunt, and the whites were distracted by a terrible war in the East. The culture of the Plains tribes had already started to change due to contact with white traders, settlers, and soldiers. Still, in Black Elk’s early years, his people still had relative independence. That had all changed by his death in 1950. The roaming patters of Oglala life had been replaced with a reservation that had shrunk dramatically over the years, as treaty after treaty had been unilaterally abrogated. Once lords of the plains, they were relegated to poverty, unemployment, sickness, and alcoholism.
That Black Elk’s life encompassed these changes (at his birth, only birds could fly; at his death, jet planes soared overhead) makes him an excellent protagonist to follow. It makes the experience of this tragedy far more intimate than if we dealt only in generalities. His life, though, is not even close to representative of his people. It is, rather, quite remarkable. Black Elk fought against Custer, was present at Crazy Horse’s death, and tried to save fleeing Lakota at Wounded Knee; he traveled to Europe with Buffalo Bill Cody’s extravaganza, danced for the Queen of England, was questioned by police in connection with the Jack the Ripper slayings, and had a French girlfriend (!); he was a revered Lakota healer, and though he later converted to Catholicism, helped to preserve his people’s system of beliefs. It is no wonder that Black Elk requires 480 pages of text.
Jackson does an excellent job with this material. He is an engaging writer with a keen ability to weave detail and description into his narrative, whether he is depicting the grueling endurance test of the Sun Dance, or remarking upon the muzzle velocity of the U.S. Cavalry’s Springfield carbines. Jackson has a probing intellect, and is always adding amplifying material. (For example, as mentioned above, Black Elk toured Great Britain during the time of Jack the Ripper. This allows Jackson the opportunity for a short, entertaining digression on that infamous serial killer).
Black Elk is the focus, but Jackson does not neglect the events swirling around him. He describes the military campaigns that herded Black Elk’s people onto reservations, and the treaty commissions that made promises, then returned time and again to change the bargain. Jackson is good with secondary characters, be they white or Indian. A crowded cast jostles on this stage. Revered chiefs such as Red Cloud and Sitting Bull. Soldiers such as George Crook and Nelson Miles. Agents such as the steely James McLaughlin and the panicky Dan Royer. This might all get confusing, but Jackson includes a dramatis personae with names and descriptions, ensuring you won’t get befuddled.
Jackson is especially good with literary set-pieces. For instance, he handles the complicated lead-up to Wounded Knee with finesse, parsing all the misunderstandings, mistakes, and personality quirks that led to the tragic massacre. He caps it off with an intense evocation of the slaughter itself, which left hundreds of men, women, and children dead on the frozen ground.
The dramatic arc of Black Elk’s life naturally flattens as he ages. The excitement and adventure that marked his pre-Wounded Knee life is replaced with a dreary existence on Pine Ridge. Through no fault of his own, the final third of Black Elk lacks the momentum of the first two-thirds. Nevertheless, Jackson’s sensitive and reasoned handling of the Black Elk-Neihardt collaboration (I don’t have the space to contour the extent of the controversy surrounding Black Elk Speaks) keeps things moving along at a good pace.
This isn’t a perfect book. Jackson is not a scholar of the American West. He doesn’t make factual errors qua errors, but I sometimes questioned his interpretations, or use of certain sources. His presentation of the Fetterman Fight, for example (where Black Elk’s father received a crippling wound), is outdated and contrary to modern scholarship on the topic.
There is also some shoddy editing. In discussing cold-weather campaigns, Jackson writes that winter raids “had broken the power of the Cheyenne during the attacks at the Washita in November 1868, at Soldier Springs one month later, and at Summit Springs in July 1869.” Now, the weather on the plains is unpredictable, but even so, July usually isn’t counted among the winter months. At another point, Jackson writes that “on February 10, 1890, President William Henry Harrison opened” Lakota land to settlers. This is just sloppiness. Billy Henry Harrison caught the sniffles at his inauguration and died in 1841. His grandson, Benjamin, was actually chief executive in 1890.
These are minor points that go more to show the state of modern publishing (lackadaisical and penurious) than anything else. They do not detract from the book in the least. This is an easy recommendation for those interested in the American West. But even those who are not steeped in post-Civil War westward expansion will find this illuminating and rewarding.
At the conclusion of Black Elk Speaks, Neihardt and Black Elk sat within view of Harney Peak, the tallest point in South Dakota. Black Elk told Neihardt that the spirits had taken him there in his vision, but that he wished to visit it in the flesh before he died. So Neihardt arranged for a party to climb Harney Peak. Upon the summit, Black Elk prayed to the Grandfathers. This is the scene Neihardt chose to conclude Black Elk Speaks:
We who listened [to Black Elk’s prayer] now noted that thin clouds had gathered about us. A scant chill rain began to fall and there was low, muttering thunder without lightning. With tears running down his cheeks, the old man raised his voice to a high thin wail, and chanted: “In sorrow I am sending a feeble voice, O Six Powers of the World. Hear me in my sorrow, for I may never call again. O make my people live!”
For some minutes the old man stood silent, with face uplifted, weeping in the drizzling rain.
In a little while the sky was clear again.
Harney Peak was named for General William Selby Harney, the American soldier who’d delivered the decisive blow of the First Sioux War in 1855, by demolishing the camp of Little Thunder’s Brule at Blue Water Creek, near present-day Ash Hollow, Nebraska. On August 11, 2016, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names removed Harney’s name from the prominence.
The mountain now shares the name of the man who once stood on its summit and prayed for the life of his people.
November 5, 2020
This will be a difficult book to review as it is a multi-faceted work. At first glance it is a biography of a Sioux medicine man or holy man named Black Elk. It is also a history of the Sioux people during the last half of the 19th century and after the end of formal warfare with the whites and the tribe's confinement on reservations. It is also an introduction into Sioux culture and especially into their spirituality and mysticism. All of this comes to us in the words of Black Elk as he lived through and witnessed many of the major historical events involving the Sioux and was a highly regarded tribal holy man. What makes this book unusual is that most of this information was first published in a book written by John Neihardt in 1930 following a series of interviews Neihardt had with Black Elk. So in addition to all these other facets this book is about the writing of Neihardt's book.
To begin with, while I rate this book at 3 stars which means to me that it was a good book and worth reading, I can't say that I enjoyed the read. In great part I found the book rather tedious and that was because of its focus on tribal religion and spirituality. Now I understand that this aspect was what made Neihardt's book, "Black Elk Speaks" so ground breaking when it was finally brought back into public attention in the '60's. However, if this book, and maybe Neihardt's as well, had used what Black Elk had told them to outline the foundations of tribal spiritualism and its rituals and tenets I could have found that interesting. For instance it is stated that the Sioux god is environmental and exists in the present while the white man's god exists in the future and promises great things in another life. The Indian god exists in the present world and is found in the wind, the earth, the plants, and all the animals and everything that happens is the result of his actions and intention. There are no coincidences in the Indian's existence in this world everything is the result of their god's action and needs to be observed and interpreted in order to divine the meaning. This I found interesting. However, what we are treated to is the spiritual life of one specific Sioux indian, Black Elk and we learn about the spiritual aspect of Sioux culture through his life and experiences. By doing this we learn more about this man than we do about his culture and I was bothered by this. My concern was that in the process of learning about the man we can't overlook normal human traits. Black Elk was born into a family of line of medicine men and was presumed by his family to carry on the family tradition so he was taught by his elders the things he would need to know as a medicine man. Black Elk, like most young men, was ambitious and wished to be admired and esteemed by his tribe. The normal way for a boy to acquire such esteem was by becoming an accomplished warrior. Unfortunately, Black Elk was not very big or athletic and therefore less than talented in those skills needed to be a good warrior. If he was to become an honored member of the tribe he needed another route and spirituality and his family tradition seemed the logical choice. So the details about his visions and dreams became, for me, suspect and the story of his life seems to fall in and out of this spirituality and even seems to become opportunistic. For this reason I would have preferred a general discussion of the religious aspects of the Sioux culture and not so much about how this culture was used in the life of a specific person.
Now what I did like about this book was that part of the Sioux history that I have not read before, their life once confined to reservations. While the book did deal with the tribe's history before the end of hostilities and included the incidents of Sand Creek, Fetterman's Ambush, Little Big Horn, and Wounded Knee, this history has been treated with greater depth and detail in other works. This earlier history, however, did set the stage for the tragedy of reservation life and the degradation of the Sioux culture. This part of Indian history can easily provoke discussion and debate and this part of the book is what really saved it for me. I can understand the harsh treatment of Indians in the 19th century when memories of the hostilities were still fresh and the participants still alive but the treatment persisted into the 20th century with no real improvement. The very idea of the need for change doesn't even seem to exist until after Neihardt's book is published and read by a few people in positions to affect change. Another sad part of our history with Native Americans.
The last hundred pages of the book continue the history of reservation life but also illustrates the process of creating "Black Elk Speaks". This part of the book is about the writing of Neihardt's book and what was involved and how that book was received and when and by whom. It also discusses the controversies that the book caused for Black Elk, his family, the author, and the religious personalities on the reservation. It was in this part of the book that the endearing message of Black Elk's visions are made more understandable and how they could and would affect his people. It is possible that as a young man Black Elk may have been the impressionable victim of spiritual suggestion or maybe he was just imaginative. It is also possible that what he reported to Neihardt was all true though Neihardt's mystical sympathies hardly made him an objective reporter. Nevertheless, the visions of Black Elk were published and they eventually started something of an Indian religious renaissance following WWII. So while I can't say this book was one of my favorites it was worth reading and maybe others will enjoy it more than I did.
To begin with, while I rate this book at 3 stars which means to me that it was a good book and worth reading, I can't say that I enjoyed the read. In great part I found the book rather tedious and that was because of its focus on tribal religion and spirituality. Now I understand that this aspect was what made Neihardt's book, "Black Elk Speaks" so ground breaking when it was finally brought back into public attention in the '60's. However, if this book, and maybe Neihardt's as well, had used what Black Elk had told them to outline the foundations of tribal spiritualism and its rituals and tenets I could have found that interesting. For instance it is stated that the Sioux god is environmental and exists in the present while the white man's god exists in the future and promises great things in another life. The Indian god exists in the present world and is found in the wind, the earth, the plants, and all the animals and everything that happens is the result of his actions and intention. There are no coincidences in the Indian's existence in this world everything is the result of their god's action and needs to be observed and interpreted in order to divine the meaning. This I found interesting. However, what we are treated to is the spiritual life of one specific Sioux indian, Black Elk and we learn about the spiritual aspect of Sioux culture through his life and experiences. By doing this we learn more about this man than we do about his culture and I was bothered by this. My concern was that in the process of learning about the man we can't overlook normal human traits. Black Elk was born into a family of line of medicine men and was presumed by his family to carry on the family tradition so he was taught by his elders the things he would need to know as a medicine man. Black Elk, like most young men, was ambitious and wished to be admired and esteemed by his tribe. The normal way for a boy to acquire such esteem was by becoming an accomplished warrior. Unfortunately, Black Elk was not very big or athletic and therefore less than talented in those skills needed to be a good warrior. If he was to become an honored member of the tribe he needed another route and spirituality and his family tradition seemed the logical choice. So the details about his visions and dreams became, for me, suspect and the story of his life seems to fall in and out of this spirituality and even seems to become opportunistic. For this reason I would have preferred a general discussion of the religious aspects of the Sioux culture and not so much about how this culture was used in the life of a specific person.
Now what I did like about this book was that part of the Sioux history that I have not read before, their life once confined to reservations. While the book did deal with the tribe's history before the end of hostilities and included the incidents of Sand Creek, Fetterman's Ambush, Little Big Horn, and Wounded Knee, this history has been treated with greater depth and detail in other works. This earlier history, however, did set the stage for the tragedy of reservation life and the degradation of the Sioux culture. This part of Indian history can easily provoke discussion and debate and this part of the book is what really saved it for me. I can understand the harsh treatment of Indians in the 19th century when memories of the hostilities were still fresh and the participants still alive but the treatment persisted into the 20th century with no real improvement. The very idea of the need for change doesn't even seem to exist until after Neihardt's book is published and read by a few people in positions to affect change. Another sad part of our history with Native Americans.
The last hundred pages of the book continue the history of reservation life but also illustrates the process of creating "Black Elk Speaks". This part of the book is about the writing of Neihardt's book and what was involved and how that book was received and when and by whom. It also discusses the controversies that the book caused for Black Elk, his family, the author, and the religious personalities on the reservation. It was in this part of the book that the endearing message of Black Elk's visions are made more understandable and how they could and would affect his people. It is possible that as a young man Black Elk may have been the impressionable victim of spiritual suggestion or maybe he was just imaginative. It is also possible that what he reported to Neihardt was all true though Neihardt's mystical sympathies hardly made him an objective reporter. Nevertheless, the visions of Black Elk were published and they eventually started something of an Indian religious renaissance following WWII. So while I can't say this book was one of my favorites it was worth reading and maybe others will enjoy it more than I did.
October 28, 2016
A VERY thorough biography of Black Elk! Here's my review:
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2...
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2...
March 15, 2019
Black Elk Speaks had a huge influence on the way I understand and interact with the world. In fact, when I think about it, it's probably among half a dozen of the books that have had the most profound impact on my life.
Not coincidentally, perhaps, the book also appears to have had a direct and profound influence on many novels I’ve loved: James Welch’s Fool’s Crow and The Heartsong of Charging Elk; Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, and my own novel, Will Poole’s Island .
I must admit that I picked up this biography with trepidation. I remember reading the autobiography of another figure I revere, Bob Dylan, and it was interesting, but a little disappointing in that it diminished the man slightly in my mind. Dylan is an artist, a genius, but he’s also just a man. It reminded me of the truth that a body of art or wisdom is usually greater than the human vessel that produced it. Which makes sense, because artists and wise humans are merely channeling something bigger than themselves—a message from the collective unconscious, or from the muse or the gods of nature if you prefer, or the nature of mind or whatever you wish to call it.
But I didn’t have the same reaction to this book, which I enjoyed immensely. Black Elk is not a typical subject for a biography. He was a holy man for one thing, not a warrior or a politician or an artist or a writer. He was also, in his own opinion, someone whose primary mission in life—to reveal his great vision in the hopes that it would save his people—was an abject failure.
Still, he’s a fascinating subject, and this biography, in my view, does him justice as a flawed man of immense strength and passion who lived through some of the most heart-wrenching and momentous years of American history. I’m tempted to call him a great American, but that would be reductive. He was a great human, and he belongs not only to America but to the whole world.
Reading this book has allowed me to relive the incredible story of this holy man; the same story that’s laid out in Black Elk Speaks but in more detail, and extending into the future to cover the rest of his long life. It has recalled for me the incredible sadness of the decline of the Sioux and Plains indigenous culture, and it has reawakened my hope that Black Elk’s vision might in some measure restore or resurrect the wisdom of that culture and its attendant system of beliefs, which we as a species need now more than ever.
I hope and pray that Black Elk will continue to be discovered by other humans who may not yet know of him. If that is to be the case, then the great visionary and spiritual teacher will have completed his life’s mission after all. And I think this enjoyable and highly illuminating biography will help, especially if it encourages people to read or re-read the book that details the great vision itself. Highly recommended.
Not coincidentally, perhaps, the book also appears to have had a direct and profound influence on many novels I’ve loved: James Welch’s Fool’s Crow and The Heartsong of Charging Elk; Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, and my own novel, Will Poole’s Island .
I must admit that I picked up this biography with trepidation. I remember reading the autobiography of another figure I revere, Bob Dylan, and it was interesting, but a little disappointing in that it diminished the man slightly in my mind. Dylan is an artist, a genius, but he’s also just a man. It reminded me of the truth that a body of art or wisdom is usually greater than the human vessel that produced it. Which makes sense, because artists and wise humans are merely channeling something bigger than themselves—a message from the collective unconscious, or from the muse or the gods of nature if you prefer, or the nature of mind or whatever you wish to call it.
But I didn’t have the same reaction to this book, which I enjoyed immensely. Black Elk is not a typical subject for a biography. He was a holy man for one thing, not a warrior or a politician or an artist or a writer. He was also, in his own opinion, someone whose primary mission in life—to reveal his great vision in the hopes that it would save his people—was an abject failure.
Still, he’s a fascinating subject, and this biography, in my view, does him justice as a flawed man of immense strength and passion who lived through some of the most heart-wrenching and momentous years of American history. I’m tempted to call him a great American, but that would be reductive. He was a great human, and he belongs not only to America but to the whole world.
Reading this book has allowed me to relive the incredible story of this holy man; the same story that’s laid out in Black Elk Speaks but in more detail, and extending into the future to cover the rest of his long life. It has recalled for me the incredible sadness of the decline of the Sioux and Plains indigenous culture, and it has reawakened my hope that Black Elk’s vision might in some measure restore or resurrect the wisdom of that culture and its attendant system of beliefs, which we as a species need now more than ever.
I hope and pray that Black Elk will continue to be discovered by other humans who may not yet know of him. If that is to be the case, then the great visionary and spiritual teacher will have completed his life’s mission after all. And I think this enjoyable and highly illuminating biography will help, especially if it encourages people to read or re-read the book that details the great vision itself. Highly recommended.
February 6, 2020
Black Elk was a fascinating person, in that he was many people at different times and to different people, but this biography really creates a throughline of who he was at his core. Kind, generous, intensely spiritual, and devoted to preserving his people.
Jackson does an impressive job, I think, of balancing these many competing versions of the man. He also does much to dispel what I think are harmful stereotypes on both sides of the many conflicts. He creates Black Elk in all his complexity. A man who was devoted to his people and preserving their dignity, but who was also a member of the Wild West Shows that toured the US and Europe. Was Black Elk duped or was he simply doing the job or maybe even trying to do something a bit larger? The same question arises with the writing and publishing of Black Elk Speaks.
Jackson shows Black Elk as a willing participant in both ventures, though he also doesn't try to assume motivations. But the idea that Black Elk was constantly duped by white counterparts takes a lot of agency away from Black Elk, and also paints him as a naive savage who could not interpret the motivations of americans.
Jackson also sets Black Elk's great vision at the center of his life. It is the image that recurs and resonates through his life, both as a holy man to his people and as a catechist for the catholic priests. It seems that this is how Black Elk interpreted his own life, and why he saw so much failure in his own life. For his great vision was one of salvation, and he grew old with his people in the worst conditions imaginable and their enemies imposing brutal conditions upon them.
So, yes, this was a great biography, or at least it was the kind of biography that I prefer. One that tries to capture the complexity of the subject. Black Elk may have been a holy man, but he was also much more than that. Sometimes a clumsy fool, sometimes a lover, sometimes a man just desperately needing money to survive. But always he was a spiritual leader, even if he seemed to be both a devoted catholic and a traditional shaman practicing his original religion in secret and out loud.
Definitely recommended to anyone interested in the war against the Sioux or in the life of native peoples before and after US control.
Jackson does an impressive job, I think, of balancing these many competing versions of the man. He also does much to dispel what I think are harmful stereotypes on both sides of the many conflicts. He creates Black Elk in all his complexity. A man who was devoted to his people and preserving their dignity, but who was also a member of the Wild West Shows that toured the US and Europe. Was Black Elk duped or was he simply doing the job or maybe even trying to do something a bit larger? The same question arises with the writing and publishing of Black Elk Speaks.
Jackson shows Black Elk as a willing participant in both ventures, though he also doesn't try to assume motivations. But the idea that Black Elk was constantly duped by white counterparts takes a lot of agency away from Black Elk, and also paints him as a naive savage who could not interpret the motivations of americans.
Jackson also sets Black Elk's great vision at the center of his life. It is the image that recurs and resonates through his life, both as a holy man to his people and as a catechist for the catholic priests. It seems that this is how Black Elk interpreted his own life, and why he saw so much failure in his own life. For his great vision was one of salvation, and he grew old with his people in the worst conditions imaginable and their enemies imposing brutal conditions upon them.
So, yes, this was a great biography, or at least it was the kind of biography that I prefer. One that tries to capture the complexity of the subject. Black Elk may have been a holy man, but he was also much more than that. Sometimes a clumsy fool, sometimes a lover, sometimes a man just desperately needing money to survive. But always he was a spiritual leader, even if he seemed to be both a devoted catholic and a traditional shaman practicing his original religion in secret and out loud.
Definitely recommended to anyone interested in the war against the Sioux or in the life of native peoples before and after US control.
July 19, 2017
Like many people, I have been fascinated with the Oglala mystic Black Elk since I was given a copy of John Neihardt’s recording of Black Elk’s story in Black Elk Speaks. Well, some of the story as it turns out. I have since found out that Black Elk became a Roman Catholic catechist and traveled as a missionary to many native American groups for many years. Over the years, there has been some debate over Black Elk’s “true” religious vision. Was he a devotee of his peoples’ traditional religion? Was he a Catholic Christian? Was he both?
Joe Jackson’s book does a highly convincing job of exploring the available evidence and presenting it to the reader. In the process, he tells the fascinating story of Black Elk with much depth and insight.
The most compelling aspect of Black elk’s story is his religiosity. At the age of nine, he received a great vision that dominated the rest of his life. Although parts of the vision were shared to a few elders over the years, it was not until George Neihardt came along that Black Elk felt led to share to vision to him and, though him, to the whole world. Much of the imagery was out of the Oglala tradition, but the vision also specifically mandated seeking a broader religious union with all people, including the waisichus (white people) who such a detrimental effect on his life.
Black Elk himself was involved in two of the archetypal events in white-Native American conflicts. He was twelve at the Battle of Little Big Horn (Custard’s Last Stand) and he shot his first enemy in battle. Unfortunately, this battle (never mind that the U.S. government has taking back land deeded in the last treaty) spoiled the party celebrating the centennial of the Declaration of Independence and lust for revenge was rampant among white people. They got it at the Battle of Wounded Knee, where Black Elk charged U.S. soldiers unarmed and was badly wounded by gunfire. The psychological wounds of this battle haunted Black Elk to the grave.
The impetus of the Great Vision to be a bridge between such enemy peoples probably goes a long way to explaining three major events in Black Elk’s life.
The first such event was his joining the Wild West show of Buffalo Bill (William Cody.) He told Joseph Neihardt that he did it to try and understand white people. He and his family also needed the money. Black Elk became one of the lead dancers and, when the show was taken to England. Black Elk received a personal greeting from Grandmother England (Queen Victoria herself!) Black Elk’s sojourn across the ocean was greatly prolonged when he missed the return boat. Before returning home, he had an interesting relationship with a family in Paris, particularly with a headstrong daughter. It is possible that a few descendants of Black Elk walk about in Europe to this day.
The second major event was Black Elk’s conversion to Catholicism and his becoming a leading catechist. The motives for this move are hard to find, even for Jackson’s great historical detective work. Neihardt was accused of suppressing Black Elk’s Catholicism, but Jackson produces documentation that Neihardt tried to find out about this aspect about Black Elk’s life but Black Elk wasn’t talking about that. Jackson’s best guess is that the reaching out of a sympathetic Jesuit at a hard time for Black Elk may have been a factor. My suspicion is that he saw this conversion as a way of fulfilling the Great Vision’s mandate to be a bridge to all people.
The third event was deciding to tell Joseph Neihardt about his Great Vision so that it would be manifest to all people. Although it took a couple decades for the book to catch on, it has done so and this vision is available to all willing to read about it. Unfortunately, many of the Catholic missionaries construed Black Elk’s confiding in Neihardt a betrayal of the Faith. Jackson shows that Black Elk was a practicing Catholic to the end. I believe he had concluded that the vision needed to be told to all people who would help use it as a bridge between different peoples. He could hardly do his part to build such a bridge without telling of the vision and of traditional Native American rituals that formed one end of the bridge.
Anyone interested in Native American culture and religion and history will find this book of great interest and edification.
Joe Jackson’s book does a highly convincing job of exploring the available evidence and presenting it to the reader. In the process, he tells the fascinating story of Black Elk with much depth and insight.
The most compelling aspect of Black elk’s story is his religiosity. At the age of nine, he received a great vision that dominated the rest of his life. Although parts of the vision were shared to a few elders over the years, it was not until George Neihardt came along that Black Elk felt led to share to vision to him and, though him, to the whole world. Much of the imagery was out of the Oglala tradition, but the vision also specifically mandated seeking a broader religious union with all people, including the waisichus (white people) who such a detrimental effect on his life.
Black Elk himself was involved in two of the archetypal events in white-Native American conflicts. He was twelve at the Battle of Little Big Horn (Custard’s Last Stand) and he shot his first enemy in battle. Unfortunately, this battle (never mind that the U.S. government has taking back land deeded in the last treaty) spoiled the party celebrating the centennial of the Declaration of Independence and lust for revenge was rampant among white people. They got it at the Battle of Wounded Knee, where Black Elk charged U.S. soldiers unarmed and was badly wounded by gunfire. The psychological wounds of this battle haunted Black Elk to the grave.
The impetus of the Great Vision to be a bridge between such enemy peoples probably goes a long way to explaining three major events in Black Elk’s life.
The first such event was his joining the Wild West show of Buffalo Bill (William Cody.) He told Joseph Neihardt that he did it to try and understand white people. He and his family also needed the money. Black Elk became one of the lead dancers and, when the show was taken to England. Black Elk received a personal greeting from Grandmother England (Queen Victoria herself!) Black Elk’s sojourn across the ocean was greatly prolonged when he missed the return boat. Before returning home, he had an interesting relationship with a family in Paris, particularly with a headstrong daughter. It is possible that a few descendants of Black Elk walk about in Europe to this day.
The second major event was Black Elk’s conversion to Catholicism and his becoming a leading catechist. The motives for this move are hard to find, even for Jackson’s great historical detective work. Neihardt was accused of suppressing Black Elk’s Catholicism, but Jackson produces documentation that Neihardt tried to find out about this aspect about Black Elk’s life but Black Elk wasn’t talking about that. Jackson’s best guess is that the reaching out of a sympathetic Jesuit at a hard time for Black Elk may have been a factor. My suspicion is that he saw this conversion as a way of fulfilling the Great Vision’s mandate to be a bridge to all people.
The third event was deciding to tell Joseph Neihardt about his Great Vision so that it would be manifest to all people. Although it took a couple decades for the book to catch on, it has done so and this vision is available to all willing to read about it. Unfortunately, many of the Catholic missionaries construed Black Elk’s confiding in Neihardt a betrayal of the Faith. Jackson shows that Black Elk was a practicing Catholic to the end. I believe he had concluded that the vision needed to be told to all people who would help use it as a bridge between different peoples. He could hardly do his part to build such a bridge without telling of the vision and of traditional Native American rituals that formed one end of the bridge.
Anyone interested in Native American culture and religion and history will find this book of great interest and edification.
August 25, 2017
"God is sending those lights to shine on that beautiful man."
Jackson wonderfully ends his chapter on Black Elk's death with these words from one of the people who saw lights in the sky that night. It's one of many put-down-the-book-and-take-that-in moments.
When I read Black Elk Speaks ages ago in college, my appreciation was dimmed by the rumor that the Neihardt had reshaped the story to reflect his own romanticized notion of a Vanishing American. Jackson's clear-eyed, massive mining of sources and interviewing of key players cogently counters that objection. It's one of many ways his work restores Black Elk Speaks to its rightful, powerful status as an authentic account. This monumental biography offers a nuanced and moving account of a human being struggling against the near-annihilation of his culture.
Jackson wonderfully ends his chapter on Black Elk's death with these words from one of the people who saw lights in the sky that night. It's one of many put-down-the-book-and-take-that-in moments.
When I read Black Elk Speaks ages ago in college, my appreciation was dimmed by the rumor that the Neihardt had reshaped the story to reflect his own romanticized notion of a Vanishing American. Jackson's clear-eyed, massive mining of sources and interviewing of key players cogently counters that objection. It's one of many ways his work restores Black Elk Speaks to its rightful, powerful status as an authentic account. This monumental biography offers a nuanced and moving account of a human being struggling against the near-annihilation of his culture.
August 25, 2017
An excellent biography that covers the extraordinary life of Heȟáka Sápa, Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux whose life spanned many of the pivotal moments in American History and Native American History. Heȟáka Sápa was born in 1863 near the Black Hills and died near there in 1950.
The author did a thorough job in researching this book and there was plenty of material to pull from. I think some of the chapters such as those covering the Battle at Little Bighorn and Massacre at Wounded Knee have been written better by others but the writing was still good. I think the latter 1/2 of the book was fresh. The author also wrote an excellent epilogue that summarized some of the challenges facing Pine Ridge in modern times.
I think if the author had removed some of the nearly 500 pages of content while emphasizing the most historic and biographical moments of Heȟáka Sápa's life then this might have been a five star book. Dee Brown and Stephen Ambrose wrote about Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse during this period in fewer pages with more effect in large part because of the emphasis on the historical significance.
Here is a timeline of some of the remarkable moments
Heȟáka Sápa was born in the midst of the Civil War and the Indian Wars.
As a teenager, he fought the U.S. 7th Cavalary in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Following the batte, he and his family fled to Canada with Sitting Bull.
He and his family returned the next year to South Dakota and Pine Ridge.
He became a healer and spiritual man.
He joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in Europe.
He later witnessed the Wounded Knee Massacre and escaped without injury.
He converted to Catholicism at the turn of the century.
His story and image were preserved and advanced when the Western poet John Neihardt wrote about him in the 1940s.
His son Ben Black Elk, discussed later in the book, became a well known figure at Mt Rushmore in his own right.
Well worth the read.
The author did a thorough job in researching this book and there was plenty of material to pull from. I think some of the chapters such as those covering the Battle at Little Bighorn and Massacre at Wounded Knee have been written better by others but the writing was still good. I think the latter 1/2 of the book was fresh. The author also wrote an excellent epilogue that summarized some of the challenges facing Pine Ridge in modern times.
I think if the author had removed some of the nearly 500 pages of content while emphasizing the most historic and biographical moments of Heȟáka Sápa's life then this might have been a five star book. Dee Brown and Stephen Ambrose wrote about Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse during this period in fewer pages with more effect in large part because of the emphasis on the historical significance.
Here is a timeline of some of the remarkable moments
Heȟáka Sápa was born in the midst of the Civil War and the Indian Wars.
As a teenager, he fought the U.S. 7th Cavalary in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Following the batte, he and his family fled to Canada with Sitting Bull.
He and his family returned the next year to South Dakota and Pine Ridge.
He became a healer and spiritual man.
He joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in Europe.
He later witnessed the Wounded Knee Massacre and escaped without injury.
He converted to Catholicism at the turn of the century.
His story and image were preserved and advanced when the Western poet John Neihardt wrote about him in the 1940s.
His son Ben Black Elk, discussed later in the book, became a well known figure at Mt Rushmore in his own right.
Well worth the read.
October 3, 2020
The book ends about 2/3 of the way through, and the rest is just reference material and timeline stuff. No spoilers here, I am glad I read the book and I feel “smarter“ about some stuff that I did before, but I will not deny that it was a challenge. It is not a book that you can just pick up and read easily, I don’t think. It’s educational and it’s good to have read it… But it is not super engaging.
January 17, 2025
Now I have to read Black Elk Speaks. I found this historical work to be interesting and educational about the treatment of the Native American’s in the South Dakota region. There is a lot of factual information to wade through and that was okay for me. I want to understand more of what happened and other than the mention of Custer in high school history much of this was not covered. I think its worth a read if you are interested in the other side of historical events.
March 5, 2025
Incredible. Not only covers the life of Black Elk but other important people such as Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, Neihardt, and others who influenced him. I learned so much
July 28, 2021
Black Elk, The Life of an American Visionary
Joe Jackson, 2016
During the period 1850 to 1900, a great clash of cultures and civilizations occurred on the high western plains of the United States. One culture was that of the plains Indians, a culture of nomadic, hunter gathers. It was a culture imbued with a mythology that believed the natural world was undergirded by a world in which all creatures including humans and inanimate objects were representations, impowered and interconnected to and by an underlying spiritual world. The other culture, that of white Europeans was a culture that believed that the natural world was separate from the human world, a world meant to be under the dominion and domination of human beings, a world to be extracted from and exploited by humans for the creation of wealth. The denouement of this conflict of cultures was in the end never in doubt but it resulted in one of the more shameful and tragic episodes of American history.
In 1930, the Nebraska poet laureate, John Neihardt, made a detour to the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in southwestern South Dakota. Pine Ridge was the home to the Oglala Lakota tribe of the Teton Sioux, the tribe that had as members, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, some of the iconic names in western Indian history. There Neihardt found an old Indian with the name of Black Elk, relative of Sitting Bull, known as both a seer and spiritual medicine man. Over a period of weeks, the old man told an incredible story of the period of this great clash of cultures. Black Elk in fact had participated as a teenager in the battle of Little Bighorn where Custer’s 7th cavalry was annihilated. He also was there at the battle of Wounded Knee, which really was not a battle, but a racial genocide promulgated by the largest force the US Army had assembled since the civil war. Black Elk later went on to perform with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show throughout the country as well as in Europe. Neihardt in 1932 published the stories Black Elk told him in the book “Black Elk Speaks”. This book draws on Neihardt’s earlier book but also adds historical context from other sources and in essence is the story of Black Elk’s life as it relates to his time and place in history.
You have probably seen Hollywood depictions of the Battle of Little Bighorn in movies such as “Little Bigman”, who in fact was an historical figure, although not as depicted in the film. Historical accounts of the battle have always been told by the army survivors of the battle. The account Black Elk tells is one from the perspective of the Sioux and is probably the best detailed depiction I’ve read. However, the overwhelming impression one gets from reading this book is the desperation of the Indian people on the losing end of this war not only for land but also for the preservation of their culture in the face of a determined effort to obliterate it. The story is of the unrelenting settler pressure to renegotiate treaties such as the 1851 treaty of Fort Laramie which granted Indian domain over much of the area that now constitutes Wyoming and Montana. As the pressure increased, the treaty was renegotiated again and again, more and more territory was handed over for white settler development and in the end what was left of the treaty was not enforced. As the tribes became essentially confined to reservations, land the settlers did not want, they fell back on spiritual mysticism, embodied in a trance like dance called the Ghost dance which became wildly popular in the late 1880’s. The mission of the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the time was to remake Indians as farmers and convert Indians to the Christian faith. Indian boarding mission schools were set up to culturally assimilate Indian children. The effort to stamp out Indian culture and the Ghost dance, exacerbated by total US government bureaucratic and military incompetence resulted in the tragic confrontation which is known as “Wounded Knee”. Black Elk was there, participated in the violence of the confrontation and relates the effect of this final defeat on the Indian psyche. “He knew that the Ghost Dance had been at heart a last-ditch effort to remain Lakota. For that they had been slaughtered. If they could not act Indian, they were not Indian. If they were not Indian, what were they.” In 1864 the Lakota had asked, what is the white? Is he like us? In 1892, commissioner of Indian Affairs, Thomas Morgan, asked the same question of the Indians. Everyone knew what the Indian had been in the past – brave, free, self-sufficient, unapologetic in his beliefs, ruthless in battle: in essence the self-image adopted by the Americans themselves. An Indian, said Morgan, was someone who owed allegiance first to his tribe and secondarily, if at all, to the United States. If anything, Morgan defined the Indian by what he had and what whites wanted: his land. How much was an Indian worth? It was a question that only could be answered by race and blood”.
As the white settlers occupied the former Indian lands, Indians such as the Lakota Sioux must have looked on in horror at the destruction unleashed; huge herds of Buffalo numbering close to 30 million obliterated and wiped out, forests razed, their former ancestral homeland and hunting grounds replaced by mines, farms and cities. It seems ironic that over 130 years after the subjugation of the native Americans, the conquest of the west and the cumulation of “Manifest Destiny” that we must now confront the physical consequences of our civilization’s cultural assumptions; that we are separate and unconnected from the natural world, that we can extract unlimited resources and dominate the natural world without consequence to ourselves. Can we extract some of the wisdom from native American cultures, a wisdom that Black Elk would relate to us; that the earth is our mother, that we, the human race, are intimately and spiritually connected to the natural world around us, that the preservation of that world is directly related to our future survival.
On October 1, 1925, Black Elk stood at the top of Mount Rushmore for the official dedication of the four presidential sculptures on the national monument. “A few hundred people watched as a lone Indian in headdress and buckskins was photographed at the top, his arms spread in benediction” On July 23, 1962, Black Elks son, Ben Black Elk, stood on top of Mount Rushmore in the same place his father had stood 36 years before. “He climbed atop Mount Rushmore, as his father had before him. He wore his traditional buckskin suit, his long hair pulled back in braids, a single eagle feather stuck near the crown. He was being shot for the first commercially broadcast satellite image via Telstar I; his face would beam from Rushmore to a satellite, orbiting from 592 to 3,687 miles up, then bounce back down to the BBC ground station at Goonhilly Downs in southwest England. He’d be the first person to appear in the first live TV broadcast transmitted from America to Europe, a space age echo of his own father’s European journey, and he carefully considered his words. He’d chosen a greeting from the Lakota, Mitakuye oyasin, a common prayer of the interconnectedness of all people, all life, all things”.
Great historical recounting of an epic time in American history: JACK
Joe Jackson, 2016
During the period 1850 to 1900, a great clash of cultures and civilizations occurred on the high western plains of the United States. One culture was that of the plains Indians, a culture of nomadic, hunter gathers. It was a culture imbued with a mythology that believed the natural world was undergirded by a world in which all creatures including humans and inanimate objects were representations, impowered and interconnected to and by an underlying spiritual world. The other culture, that of white Europeans was a culture that believed that the natural world was separate from the human world, a world meant to be under the dominion and domination of human beings, a world to be extracted from and exploited by humans for the creation of wealth. The denouement of this conflict of cultures was in the end never in doubt but it resulted in one of the more shameful and tragic episodes of American history.
In 1930, the Nebraska poet laureate, John Neihardt, made a detour to the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in southwestern South Dakota. Pine Ridge was the home to the Oglala Lakota tribe of the Teton Sioux, the tribe that had as members, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, some of the iconic names in western Indian history. There Neihardt found an old Indian with the name of Black Elk, relative of Sitting Bull, known as both a seer and spiritual medicine man. Over a period of weeks, the old man told an incredible story of the period of this great clash of cultures. Black Elk in fact had participated as a teenager in the battle of Little Bighorn where Custer’s 7th cavalry was annihilated. He also was there at the battle of Wounded Knee, which really was not a battle, but a racial genocide promulgated by the largest force the US Army had assembled since the civil war. Black Elk later went on to perform with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show throughout the country as well as in Europe. Neihardt in 1932 published the stories Black Elk told him in the book “Black Elk Speaks”. This book draws on Neihardt’s earlier book but also adds historical context from other sources and in essence is the story of Black Elk’s life as it relates to his time and place in history.
You have probably seen Hollywood depictions of the Battle of Little Bighorn in movies such as “Little Bigman”, who in fact was an historical figure, although not as depicted in the film. Historical accounts of the battle have always been told by the army survivors of the battle. The account Black Elk tells is one from the perspective of the Sioux and is probably the best detailed depiction I’ve read. However, the overwhelming impression one gets from reading this book is the desperation of the Indian people on the losing end of this war not only for land but also for the preservation of their culture in the face of a determined effort to obliterate it. The story is of the unrelenting settler pressure to renegotiate treaties such as the 1851 treaty of Fort Laramie which granted Indian domain over much of the area that now constitutes Wyoming and Montana. As the pressure increased, the treaty was renegotiated again and again, more and more territory was handed over for white settler development and in the end what was left of the treaty was not enforced. As the tribes became essentially confined to reservations, land the settlers did not want, they fell back on spiritual mysticism, embodied in a trance like dance called the Ghost dance which became wildly popular in the late 1880’s. The mission of the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the time was to remake Indians as farmers and convert Indians to the Christian faith. Indian boarding mission schools were set up to culturally assimilate Indian children. The effort to stamp out Indian culture and the Ghost dance, exacerbated by total US government bureaucratic and military incompetence resulted in the tragic confrontation which is known as “Wounded Knee”. Black Elk was there, participated in the violence of the confrontation and relates the effect of this final defeat on the Indian psyche. “He knew that the Ghost Dance had been at heart a last-ditch effort to remain Lakota. For that they had been slaughtered. If they could not act Indian, they were not Indian. If they were not Indian, what were they.” In 1864 the Lakota had asked, what is the white? Is he like us? In 1892, commissioner of Indian Affairs, Thomas Morgan, asked the same question of the Indians. Everyone knew what the Indian had been in the past – brave, free, self-sufficient, unapologetic in his beliefs, ruthless in battle: in essence the self-image adopted by the Americans themselves. An Indian, said Morgan, was someone who owed allegiance first to his tribe and secondarily, if at all, to the United States. If anything, Morgan defined the Indian by what he had and what whites wanted: his land. How much was an Indian worth? It was a question that only could be answered by race and blood”.
As the white settlers occupied the former Indian lands, Indians such as the Lakota Sioux must have looked on in horror at the destruction unleashed; huge herds of Buffalo numbering close to 30 million obliterated and wiped out, forests razed, their former ancestral homeland and hunting grounds replaced by mines, farms and cities. It seems ironic that over 130 years after the subjugation of the native Americans, the conquest of the west and the cumulation of “Manifest Destiny” that we must now confront the physical consequences of our civilization’s cultural assumptions; that we are separate and unconnected from the natural world, that we can extract unlimited resources and dominate the natural world without consequence to ourselves. Can we extract some of the wisdom from native American cultures, a wisdom that Black Elk would relate to us; that the earth is our mother, that we, the human race, are intimately and spiritually connected to the natural world around us, that the preservation of that world is directly related to our future survival.
On October 1, 1925, Black Elk stood at the top of Mount Rushmore for the official dedication of the four presidential sculptures on the national monument. “A few hundred people watched as a lone Indian in headdress and buckskins was photographed at the top, his arms spread in benediction” On July 23, 1962, Black Elks son, Ben Black Elk, stood on top of Mount Rushmore in the same place his father had stood 36 years before. “He climbed atop Mount Rushmore, as his father had before him. He wore his traditional buckskin suit, his long hair pulled back in braids, a single eagle feather stuck near the crown. He was being shot for the first commercially broadcast satellite image via Telstar I; his face would beam from Rushmore to a satellite, orbiting from 592 to 3,687 miles up, then bounce back down to the BBC ground station at Goonhilly Downs in southwest England. He’d be the first person to appear in the first live TV broadcast transmitted from America to Europe, a space age echo of his own father’s European journey, and he carefully considered his words. He’d chosen a greeting from the Lakota, Mitakuye oyasin, a common prayer of the interconnectedness of all people, all life, all things”.
Great historical recounting of an epic time in American history: JACK
November 3, 2018
I have spent a lot of time reading and researching Native American culture and mythology, and I have learned about their vakues, the ways they were mistreated by the American government, and have even heard about the Ghost Dances and the importance of the shamans, but there were a lot of holes in my knowledge that I was never able to fill until I read this book. I had come across the name of Black Elk before, but never really knew who he was as his name did not have the power that Crazy Horse or Sitting Bull held. But those two were leaders and warriors, and no book ever told the tales of the spiritual leaders that these communities had. Black Elk's story was that missing piece that I was always looking for. Even though this book relies heavily on the Black Elk Speaks book that inspired Carl Jjng, it also tells a lot of the details about this important figure in the Lakota nation. Even though, towards the end of the book I wanted to read that more famous narrative, I still enjoyed this man's life story and learning about what it meant to be a shaman and what the significance of the Ghost Dance really was.
January 10, 2018
This book is a detailed biography of the Oglala Lakota Holy Man Black Elk. He gained fame as the subject of John G. Neihardt's book "Black Elk Speaks" which was originally published in 1931 but did not gain traction until the 1960's when it became one of the cornerstones of the "New Age" movement. Black Elk lived an amazing life spanning the free-roaming days of the buffalo hunts to eventual subjugation by the US Government and reservation life.
This is not an easy read. Black Elk's life was not an easy one and he was tormented by watching the decline of his people and being frustrated by his perceived inability to help. There are many examples of cruelty, deceit, racism, and religious persecution promoted by our own government.
There are uplifting segments as well. Some of the fundamental differences between mainstream and native approaches to spirituality and family are simply and succinctly explained. It is a long book (nearly 500 pages) but the exposure to this time in our nation's history is worth the effort.
This is not an easy read. Black Elk's life was not an easy one and he was tormented by watching the decline of his people and being frustrated by his perceived inability to help. There are many examples of cruelty, deceit, racism, and religious persecution promoted by our own government.
There are uplifting segments as well. Some of the fundamental differences between mainstream and native approaches to spirituality and family are simply and succinctly explained. It is a long book (nearly 500 pages) but the exposure to this time in our nation's history is worth the effort.
December 6, 2020
This was such an interesting read. The author provide the historical setting for all the major events occurring in Black Elk’s life. His vision for his people was the one major thread throughout his entire life. He saw so much of the tragic history of his Oglala Lakota people, was a cousin to Crazy Horse and was with him at the Battle of the Little Bighorn; he saw his people continually lose their land to broken promises by the whites; he travelled to Europe with Buffalo Bill and performed in his Wild West show in Europe for a few years; he returned to the US and his people, continually trying to encourage them to value the old Indian ways. The book was so well-researched and well-written. It left me with such a feeling of sadness for how poorly the indigenous people were treated.
September 18, 2020
This book filled me with sadness for what was lost by the First Americans in their encounter with white Americans. But it also filled me with hope. The children of Black Elk and his contemporaries are finding their way in the future by recognizing who they were in the past. I pray they find much of what was lost by politics, greed and cultural misunderstandings.
Anyone wondering why any minority protests their treatment at the hands white Christians could learn something from reading this book.
Just finished reading it. And, I’m still teary eyed thinking of the things this man witnessed and endured.
Thank you Joe Jackson for an engaging, fair treatment of your subject. May have to add this to my permanent collection.
Now on to “Black Elk Speaks”.
Anyone wondering why any minority protests their treatment at the hands white Christians could learn something from reading this book.
Just finished reading it. And, I’m still teary eyed thinking of the things this man witnessed and endured.
Thank you Joe Jackson for an engaging, fair treatment of your subject. May have to add this to my permanent collection.
Now on to “Black Elk Speaks”.
March 22, 2017
What a great book about a fascinating American
March 30, 2022
a well crafted history focusing on an extraordinary man. thinking about all he endured and how many different worlds he traversed is truly inspiring.
February 3, 2017
Extremely well-written and fully researched biography of Black Elk, Lakota holy man, healer and leader, author (with John G. Neihardt) of Black Elk Speaks. Black Elk's life spanned the time period from the Battle of Little Bighorn, through the Wild West Shows of Buffalo Bill, the Ghost Dance movement, the Massacre at Wounded Knee, and the loss of the Native American's spiritual identity through their removal to the reservations, loss of their children to "white" schools, and the destruction of their culture. Black Elk's vision and prophecies defined his life and his life's work; he believed that if he could unlock his vision's meaning and implement it, he could save his people by restoring the sacred hoop, and the sacred pipe given to them by White Buffalo Calf Woman. He died before this came to pass, but not before he passed on the vision and the hope to Neihardt, a poet who turned Black Elk's spoken words into the literary masterpiece, Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. Both books are worth reading, and deserve 5 stars each.
February 23, 2017
Way too much historical detail offered in this book to dig through word by word. Skimmed the last third of the book and then called it DONE. I'll donate the book to the library. Maybe others will benefit more from the book than I did.
July 5, 2020
"We are still here."
An essential biography—so so good.
An essential biography—so so good.
April 7, 2019
"Out here [on the Piney Ridge Reservation], where just surviving to adulthood is a gamble, Black Elk provided a 'presence' or a 'state of mind' instead of certain knowledge" to those who admire and look to min for a sense of identity in connection to Indian culture.
"Black Elk: The Story of an American Visionary" is how John Neihardt's book "Black Elk Speaks" came to be in 1924, and its influence today. A thoughtful look at influences on Black Elk, a medicine man of the Lakota tribe, Joe Jackson's book describes over 100 years of events from multiple points of view in such a way that has piqued my interest in native affairs more than ever before. I must learn more of the First Americans.
Hearing Black Elk's view is so helpful because he was born in the old ways, fought in the battles of Little Big Horn against Custer, and in the battle of Wounded Knee. He saw the demise of his land, culture, and people. "My children have to live in this world," he said of his conversion to Christianity, and so he lived out his calling as a medicine man in a way that the new culture could accept but would still bring his people to the understanding of what the Great Spirit showed him in his vision at age 9. When Black Elk visited Mount Rushmore for the first time, he cried, "We are still here!" Considering the strength of onslaught against them, Native American culture does persist despite it all.
It's a sad tale. There were a few helpful and kind people mentioned, like John Neihardt, but the good discovered is minuscule compared to the near total destruction.
Of the book's influence, "My grandfather made it okay for us to be Indians," said Betty Black Elk, "If one of the girls [on the 1950s residential schools] spoke a Lakota word, [the teachers] made us all run the length of the football field. It was awful. Now [in 1961] after those books, they want you to be Indian. but it's too late. The language is dying. Nobody speaks it anymore....There is a lot of lingering resentment towards whites, the Catholic Church, the tribal council, and the federal government, but not against Black Elk.
Names from Sioux:
- The Winnebago and Omaha were tribes in Nebraska
- The Sioux have three groups: Lakota, Dakota, Nakota
- The Teton Lakota now live in North and South Dakota
The weight of Neihardt's contribution is felt much more strongly now, many years after its publication even though it was originally scoffed at and discredited by missionaries. Carl Jung, the psychologist, was fascinated by it and said that Black Elk's experience underlined that all religions stem from a basic archetype. Black Elk even met with Hergé, the author of the comic book, Tintin.
The encouragement I gleaned from this tale of the horrific genocide against the First Americans is manifold. A poet's most influential work was his biographical contribution. Neihardt's lyrical writing and ability to connect with a person and people group so different from his own enabled him to preserve a culture and a man in a way nobody else had until that point. The initial reaction to that book was vitriolic. The 1924 release didn't even sell all of the original copies. Neihardt's poetry was helpful as all art has worth, but the development of the artist enabled him to do something beyond himself, preserving generations to come.
"Black Elk: The Story of an American Visionary" is how John Neihardt's book "Black Elk Speaks" came to be in 1924, and its influence today. A thoughtful look at influences on Black Elk, a medicine man of the Lakota tribe, Joe Jackson's book describes over 100 years of events from multiple points of view in such a way that has piqued my interest in native affairs more than ever before. I must learn more of the First Americans.
Hearing Black Elk's view is so helpful because he was born in the old ways, fought in the battles of Little Big Horn against Custer, and in the battle of Wounded Knee. He saw the demise of his land, culture, and people. "My children have to live in this world," he said of his conversion to Christianity, and so he lived out his calling as a medicine man in a way that the new culture could accept but would still bring his people to the understanding of what the Great Spirit showed him in his vision at age 9. When Black Elk visited Mount Rushmore for the first time, he cried, "We are still here!" Considering the strength of onslaught against them, Native American culture does persist despite it all.
It's a sad tale. There were a few helpful and kind people mentioned, like John Neihardt, but the good discovered is minuscule compared to the near total destruction.
Of the book's influence, "My grandfather made it okay for us to be Indians," said Betty Black Elk, "If one of the girls [on the 1950s residential schools] spoke a Lakota word, [the teachers] made us all run the length of the football field. It was awful. Now [in 1961] after those books, they want you to be Indian. but it's too late. The language is dying. Nobody speaks it anymore....There is a lot of lingering resentment towards whites, the Catholic Church, the tribal council, and the federal government, but not against Black Elk.
Names from Sioux:
- The Winnebago and Omaha were tribes in Nebraska
- The Sioux have three groups: Lakota, Dakota, Nakota
- The Teton Lakota now live in North and South Dakota
The weight of Neihardt's contribution is felt much more strongly now, many years after its publication even though it was originally scoffed at and discredited by missionaries. Carl Jung, the psychologist, was fascinated by it and said that Black Elk's experience underlined that all religions stem from a basic archetype. Black Elk even met with Hergé, the author of the comic book, Tintin.
The encouragement I gleaned from this tale of the horrific genocide against the First Americans is manifold. A poet's most influential work was his biographical contribution. Neihardt's lyrical writing and ability to connect with a person and people group so different from his own enabled him to preserve a culture and a man in a way nobody else had until that point. The initial reaction to that book was vitriolic. The 1924 release didn't even sell all of the original copies. Neihardt's poetry was helpful as all art has worth, but the development of the artist enabled him to do something beyond himself, preserving generations to come.
June 13, 2017
This book awoke in me the tragic life of the American Indian in the time of white racial expansion and the desire to blend power with conversion. Black Elk remarkably was at so many epic moments of American life and he was gifted with visions that not only helped him to cope with this tragedy, but also brought him great pain. He was also a catholic and converted a great many Sioux to the Christian faith. But he was unusual as he felt there was a a parallel between Christianity and the Sioux traditional religion. He synthesized the elements of both, and felt he was the transmitter of a message that was so important to not only his people, but to America and it's soul.
Black Elk started his journey in the great plains states and was at the battle of Custer's last stand at Little Big Horn. The tribes were celebrating their Sun Dance when American troops arrived in the wilderness to shepherd them back to the newly formed reservations. Through the years of resistance to the American might, they continued in their native ways until the white man reduced the buffalo herds to such a point that they became dependent. They eventually were resettled onto the reservations and through conversion where told their old religious beliefs where satanic and that they had to give up everything that set them apart as a people.
Black Elk signed up and traveled with Wild Bill Cody (Buffalo Bill) and eventually went to Europe as part of the troupe. He danced before Queen Victoria and fell in love with a dame in Paris and had a child with her. He eventually made his way back home and found himself to be the leading medicine man of his tribe as well as a Catholic catechist who worked with the black robes to bring Christ to his people. The black robes had an apparent mistrust for Black Elk as he continued his Sioux practices and it became evident as he related his story to authors who sought him out.
He eventually transmitted much of the Sioux religion to John Niehardt and later to Joseph Epes Brown. Those are still the primary sources of Black Elk's beliefs, but this new book written by Joe Jackson fills in the timeline of events in the great Sioux west. It is a remarkable book and for Americans it is an essential book of our continent coming of age, for better or worse. This is a story of a great holy man, a tribe of peoples and a new young nation forming it's own historical belief system. I highly recommend it.
Black Elk started his journey in the great plains states and was at the battle of Custer's last stand at Little Big Horn. The tribes were celebrating their Sun Dance when American troops arrived in the wilderness to shepherd them back to the newly formed reservations. Through the years of resistance to the American might, they continued in their native ways until the white man reduced the buffalo herds to such a point that they became dependent. They eventually were resettled onto the reservations and through conversion where told their old religious beliefs where satanic and that they had to give up everything that set them apart as a people.
Black Elk signed up and traveled with Wild Bill Cody (Buffalo Bill) and eventually went to Europe as part of the troupe. He danced before Queen Victoria and fell in love with a dame in Paris and had a child with her. He eventually made his way back home and found himself to be the leading medicine man of his tribe as well as a Catholic catechist who worked with the black robes to bring Christ to his people. The black robes had an apparent mistrust for Black Elk as he continued his Sioux practices and it became evident as he related his story to authors who sought him out.
He eventually transmitted much of the Sioux religion to John Niehardt and later to Joseph Epes Brown. Those are still the primary sources of Black Elk's beliefs, but this new book written by Joe Jackson fills in the timeline of events in the great Sioux west. It is a remarkable book and for Americans it is an essential book of our continent coming of age, for better or worse. This is a story of a great holy man, a tribe of peoples and a new young nation forming it's own historical belief system. I highly recommend it.
March 11, 2017
The biography of the Sioux elder born in the Powder River country in Wyoming, Hehaka Sapa, or Black Elk (1863-1950). Black Elk had been there during key moments in the history of the Indian Wars. He was a confidant of Crazy Horse, a leader of the Sun Dance, a warrior at the remarkable victory at the Little Bighorn and the tragedy at Wounded Knee and, in between, a performer in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show.
Black Elk was motivated by a powerful prophetic vision that he struggled to understand. In his later years, he embraced Catholicism but continued to practice the old way clandestinely while seeking the meaning in his visions.
He was the author of the most famous Native American book ever written, "Black Elk Speaks," told through the celebrated poet John G. Neihardt.
There is a lot of historical merit in "Black Elk The Life of an American Visionary" by Joe Jackson but it would have been better as two books, or maybe even three. It's more people's biography than just the Lakota spiritual leader Black Elk. At times it seems it is more about a parallel biography of John Neihardt and the book "Black Elk Speaks." A book that grew from a memoir of modest sales to a kind of Bible of the New Age movement. I found "Black Elk The Life of an American Visionary" best when describing the history of the American West in the era of rising violence between the Sioux, white settlers, and the US Army. Less enjoyable was the depressing portion of the book about Black Elk's later life. He lived long enough to see tribal identity was a thing of the past. He witnessed the signs of cultural rejection where the young men spurned "Indian" identity, dressing like cowboys and the only braided hair he saw was on girls, women, and old men.
Black Elk was motivated by a powerful prophetic vision that he struggled to understand. In his later years, he embraced Catholicism but continued to practice the old way clandestinely while seeking the meaning in his visions.
He was the author of the most famous Native American book ever written, "Black Elk Speaks," told through the celebrated poet John G. Neihardt.
There is a lot of historical merit in "Black Elk The Life of an American Visionary" by Joe Jackson but it would have been better as two books, or maybe even three. It's more people's biography than just the Lakota spiritual leader Black Elk. At times it seems it is more about a parallel biography of John Neihardt and the book "Black Elk Speaks." A book that grew from a memoir of modest sales to a kind of Bible of the New Age movement. I found "Black Elk The Life of an American Visionary" best when describing the history of the American West in the era of rising violence between the Sioux, white settlers, and the US Army. Less enjoyable was the depressing portion of the book about Black Elk's later life. He lived long enough to see tribal identity was a thing of the past. He witnessed the signs of cultural rejection where the young men spurned "Indian" identity, dressing like cowboys and the only braided hair he saw was on girls, women, and old men.
April 10, 2020
This is really 2 reviews. The first is that due to the length of this book, my short attention span, and how long it took me to complete - my rating is actually 3 stars.
Why did I write 5 stars? I appreciate the importance of a book like Black Elk Speaks. His life is incredible, saddening, heroic and magical. The way he traveled, the events of history he was a part of, the lives be touched. Wow.
This should be required reading for all. The way Indians were treated is overlooked and frankly, we should all pause to understand how our lives were influenced in some way by the broken promises of our ancestors. It's disgusting, disappointing, disrespectful. The way Indians were abused, the disease the settlers spread, and how Indians still pay 150 years later with poverty, alcoholism, and perhaps worst of all, the loss of their identity. Damn.
Not a spoiler, but Black Elk does die (he was born in the 1860's, so this shouldn't be a shock) However, the book moves beyond his death so we can see how his grandkids and great grandkids carry his legacy today.
The timeline at the end is excellent. Really helps put things in perspective as an easy reference point.
Even though I give it 3 stars, this should be read and discussed. Black Elk and so many like him are a vital part of American history.
Why did I write 5 stars? I appreciate the importance of a book like Black Elk Speaks. His life is incredible, saddening, heroic and magical. The way he traveled, the events of history he was a part of, the lives be touched. Wow.
This should be required reading for all. The way Indians were treated is overlooked and frankly, we should all pause to understand how our lives were influenced in some way by the broken promises of our ancestors. It's disgusting, disappointing, disrespectful. The way Indians were abused, the disease the settlers spread, and how Indians still pay 150 years later with poverty, alcoholism, and perhaps worst of all, the loss of their identity. Damn.
Not a spoiler, but Black Elk does die (he was born in the 1860's, so this shouldn't be a shock) However, the book moves beyond his death so we can see how his grandkids and great grandkids carry his legacy today.
The timeline at the end is excellent. Really helps put things in perspective as an easy reference point.
Even though I give it 3 stars, this should be read and discussed. Black Elk and so many like him are a vital part of American history.
December 22, 2023
(Audible Book) As a young man, Black Elk was so impressed by a dream about his future that it controlled and determined who he was and how and why he made choices in the direction of his life.
By this dream he measured what he had done in his life to that point and asked himself if he had done enough or could he do more. Always thinking, searching and questioning, I was so impressed by him and his story. We all have dreams, but we forget them or are too lazy to follow them (because it is too hard), but not with Black Elk!
Black Elk absolutely NEEDED to fulfill his calling on this earth! He had to do what he had to do! He was always struggling with and measuring against this dream and this dreams prediction of future events yet to be fulfilled. He was continually asking himself, “how much more can I do for my people, for my family and ultimately for myself”, so not to disappoint his destiny.
I loved the person Black Elk was who was true to his word and strong in character. An inspirational story of how we need to remember our dreams and be true to them.
I also loved the LONG history covered during Black Elk’s life! SO many changes in American history and Black Elk was smack dab in the middle of it and his life was rich and interesting!
4.5 stars rounded up to 5.
~Marty 🚴
By this dream he measured what he had done in his life to that point and asked himself if he had done enough or could he do more. Always thinking, searching and questioning, I was so impressed by him and his story. We all have dreams, but we forget them or are too lazy to follow them (because it is too hard), but not with Black Elk!
Black Elk absolutely NEEDED to fulfill his calling on this earth! He had to do what he had to do! He was always struggling with and measuring against this dream and this dreams prediction of future events yet to be fulfilled. He was continually asking himself, “how much more can I do for my people, for my family and ultimately for myself”, so not to disappoint his destiny.
I loved the person Black Elk was who was true to his word and strong in character. An inspirational story of how we need to remember our dreams and be true to them.
I also loved the LONG history covered during Black Elk’s life! SO many changes in American history and Black Elk was smack dab in the middle of it and his life was rich and interesting!
4.5 stars rounded up to 5.
~Marty 🚴
July 4, 2019
Fantastic bio of Black Elk. Unlike with Neihardt's "Black Elk Speaks," Jackson includes everything about Black Elk's decades of work as a Catholic catechesist as well as what might be considered more "secular" portions of his life, such as his time in Europe with Buffalo Bill and a second Wild West show.
Jackson goes into a lot of detail about Black Elk's walking between two religious worlds, along with how this paralleled religious splits in his own family, attacks from some of the Black Robe Jesuits — but not all — and perhaps more quiet attacks on the other side from some Lakota traditionalists.
At the same time, Jackson discusses in detail the issue of whether these were actually two separate religious worlds to Black Elk.
Another great part of the book is his discussion of how, already at the time of Wounded Knee, Black Elk was questioning how, earlier that year, he had fused his old Great Vision with Wovoka's Ghost Dance and how, even before the massacre, he was starting to repent of that move, which was done in part under some pressure from some older traditionalist Lakota who were ardent Ghost Dancers.
Simply a great book.
Jackson goes into a lot of detail about Black Elk's walking between two religious worlds, along with how this paralleled religious splits in his own family, attacks from some of the Black Robe Jesuits — but not all — and perhaps more quiet attacks on the other side from some Lakota traditionalists.
At the same time, Jackson discusses in detail the issue of whether these were actually two separate religious worlds to Black Elk.
Another great part of the book is his discussion of how, already at the time of Wounded Knee, Black Elk was questioning how, earlier that year, he had fused his old Great Vision with Wovoka's Ghost Dance and how, even before the massacre, he was starting to repent of that move, which was done in part under some pressure from some older traditionalist Lakota who were ardent Ghost Dancers.
Simply a great book.
November 23, 2022
I read 'Black Elk Speaks' back in college in the late '7os and impressed me, but it felt like part of the then waning hippy movement. 'Star Wars' was much more impressive to me then.
Ironically, 'Star Wars' would lead me to Joseph Campbell and comfort with the idea that there is a great deal encoded in our genes that invisibly effects our behavior.
I have not taken the time to map Campbell's ideas on myth to the life or Black Elk, but I supect it would be a very interesting activity.
Reading Jo Jackson's book, I can't help but love Black Elk. He struggles with the most important problems of life valiently and always with great humility.
I have never been good at writing, and have been deeply frustrated that I can not express dreams and thoughts that come to me. I suspect many people suffer this way too. This book, and Black Elk are a wonderful source of hope and inspiration to me, the inelequent.
It is also a source of hope that people may recognize that great ideas are very hard to express, and may come to use through many imperfect attempts, all beautiful.
I loved this book. I hope many other people read it.
Ironically, 'Star Wars' would lead me to Joseph Campbell and comfort with the idea that there is a great deal encoded in our genes that invisibly effects our behavior.
I have not taken the time to map Campbell's ideas on myth to the life or Black Elk, but I supect it would be a very interesting activity.
Reading Jo Jackson's book, I can't help but love Black Elk. He struggles with the most important problems of life valiently and always with great humility.
I have never been good at writing, and have been deeply frustrated that I can not express dreams and thoughts that come to me. I suspect many people suffer this way too. This book, and Black Elk are a wonderful source of hope and inspiration to me, the inelequent.
It is also a source of hope that people may recognize that great ideas are very hard to express, and may come to use through many imperfect attempts, all beautiful.
I loved this book. I hope many other people read it.
September 5, 2017
Joe Jackson’s careful research goes a long way to substantiate the authenticity of Black Elk’s story as told to and written by John G. Neihardt in Black Elk Speaks (1932). Before that publication Black Elk, unlike his cousin Crazy Horse was not well known. Jackson traces Black Elk’s development as healer, holy man, visionary and emissary for his people (even today) as well as his time with Buffalo Bill in Europe. I found myself wanting to know Black Elk.
Also, through Black Elk’s experience, Jackson gives us a detailed tribal history, including the Battle of Little Bighorn and the Ghost Dance movement of 1890 and subsequent massacre at Wounded Knee. Would that we could somehow overcome the tragedy of cultural displacement, injustice and devastation of the Lakota and American Indians in general. Would that leaders of today would recognize this history and honor native American lands and heritage.
Also, through Black Elk’s experience, Jackson gives us a detailed tribal history, including the Battle of Little Bighorn and the Ghost Dance movement of 1890 and subsequent massacre at Wounded Knee. Would that we could somehow overcome the tragedy of cultural displacement, injustice and devastation of the Lakota and American Indians in general. Would that leaders of today would recognize this history and honor native American lands and heritage.
August 16, 2022
What a sad, sad book. I can't help but think what a horrible time to have been alive as a Native to witness your entire world collapse in front of your own eyes. Clash of cultures was and is inevitable in human civilization but there are lessons to be learned from the losing side. This book achieves that.
It's the story of a man who was born in a free land, saw his land taken by force and most horribly, saw his culture all but completely obliterated. He was both a Native medicine man and a Catholic, albeit the latter most likely as a means of survival for both himself and his people. His life spans the time of the Native "victory" at Little Big Horn, European tours with Wild Bill, WWII and his meetings with Neihardt and his eventual death.
Black Elk is a long read and meanders at points. However, the message is a powerful one and encourages the reader to hear it out to the end.
In closing, the final words of the book give this story a fitting ending. "We are still here".
It's the story of a man who was born in a free land, saw his land taken by force and most horribly, saw his culture all but completely obliterated. He was both a Native medicine man and a Catholic, albeit the latter most likely as a means of survival for both himself and his people. His life spans the time of the Native "victory" at Little Big Horn, European tours with Wild Bill, WWII and his meetings with Neihardt and his eventual death.
Black Elk is a long read and meanders at points. However, the message is a powerful one and encourages the reader to hear it out to the end.
In closing, the final words of the book give this story a fitting ending. "We are still here".
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