Black Elk
Black Elk
Heȟáka Sápa was a famous wičháša wakȟáŋand heyoka of the Oglala Lakotawho lived in the present-day United States, primarily South Dakota. He was a second cousin of the war chief Crazy Horse...
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lying people saws
I looked below and saw my people there, and all were well and happy except one, and he was lying like the dead - and that one was myself.
people vision bison
To use the power of the bison, I had to perform that part of my vision for the people to see.
memories men people
And if the great fear had not come upon me, as it did, and forced me to do my duty, I might have been less good to the people than some man who had never dreamed at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me.
native-american circles people
And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
people vision might
I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.
men thinking people
I think I have told you, but if I have not, you must have understood, that a man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see.
across black eagle feather forehead lightning painted red single wore
I was painted red all over with black lightning on my limbs. I wore a black mask, and across my forehead a single eagle feather hung.
helping sixteen
I was sixteen years old and more, and I had not yet done anything the Grandfathers wanted me to do, but they had been helping me.
bears calf carved eagle earth feathers feeds gave grass hanging mean pipe side sky stem tied twelve
Then she gave something to the chief, and it was a pipe with a bison calf carved on one side to mean the earth that bears and feeds us, and with twelve eagle feathers hanging from the stem to mean the sky and the twelve moons, and these were tied with a grass that never breaks,
uncles lying men
They told me I had been sick twelve days, lying like dead all the while, and that Whirlwind Chaser, who was Standing Bear's uncle and a medicine man, had brought me back to life.
red sticks earth
So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation's hoop I thrust it in the earth.
opportunity unity world
Every place is the center of the world.
horse animal numbers
I looked about me once again, and suddenly the dancing horses without number changed into animals of every kind and into all the fowls that are, and these fled back to the four quarters of the world from whence the horses came, and vanished.
native-american circles shapes
I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.