While Black Elk's conversion was certainly sincere, the decision was also pragmatic. Shortly thereafter Black Elk became an important figure in the local parish, working as a catechist. Black Elk's patient recovered, but the priest died shortly thereafter in a riding accident.ĭespite this experience, in 1904, following the death of his wife, Black Elk sought out the teachings of the Catholic Church. During one healing ceremony on the Pine Ridge Reservation, a priest broke into the ceremony, destroying his sacred objects and accusing Black Elk of doing the work of Satan. After Wounded Knee and the end of the Ghost Dance, Black Elk turned his back on white culture, pursuing his work as a traditional Lakota holy man. He gained new inspiration through the similarities between the dance and his own vision: dancers surrounded a sacred pole seeking promises of renewal. It was also during this time that Black Elk was introduced to the Ghost Dance. From 1889 to about 1904 Black Elk gained much respect among his people as a curer, spiritual counselor, and ceremonial leader. Shortly after his return Black Elk married Katie War Bonnet, and they soon had children. He subsequently joined another western show and toured France, Germany, and Italy, finally returning to South Dakota in 1889. He appeared in New York and then in England in 1887 –1888 for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, whom he apparently met. It was in part his mission to find a means to help his people that led Black Elk to join Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in 1886. Then he confided it to the holy man Black Road, who instructed Black Elk in the spring of 1881 to enact part of his visionary experience, the Great Horse Dance, so that the people might share in the power of his vision. Shaken by his experience, Black Elk could not bring himself to reveal the vision until he reached the age of seventeen. This first of many vision experiences was of terrifying Thunder Beings, the powers of the West whoever received their power was obliged to become a heyoka, or sacred clown. He was also present at the tragic massacre at Wounded Knee (1890), which nearly ended the revivalistic Ghost Dance movement.Īgainst that background of traumatic historical events, Black Elk at the age of nine received the first of a long series of sacred visionary experiences that set him upon a lifelong quest to find the means by which his people could mend "the broken hoop" of their lives, could find their sacred center, where "the flowering tree" of their traditions could bloom again. He remembered the murder at Fort Robinson of his relative, the great warrior and spiritual leader Crazy Horse, and recalled the years when his people sought refuge with Sitting Bull's band in Canada. At thirteen Black Elk was present at General George Custer's defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. During this time his people hunted west of the Black Hills (Pa Sapa in Lakota) until 1877, when they were forced to move east to their present reservation at Pine Ridge in South Dakota. Of the Big Road band of Lakota, Black Elk was born in December 1863 on the Little Powder River in present-day Wyoming. This work, The Sacred Pipe (1953), further stimulated interest in the man and his message, which became, especially during the 1960s, meaningful symbols for a generation seeking alternate values. A second book, on the seven rites of the Lakota, was dictated at Black Elk's request to Joseph Epes Brown. Neihardt that caught the imagination of a much wider public. Although Nicholas Black Elk was well known by his own people as a holy person (wicasa wakan), it was the poetic interpretation given to his life in Black Elk Speaks (1932) by John G. Few American Indian spiritual leaders have gained greater national and indeed international recognition than this Oglala Lakota. BLACK ELK (1863 –1950) was a Lakota spiritual leader known in Lakota as Hehaka Sapa.
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