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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rain clouds grandfather
You see, I had been riding with the storm clouds, and had come to earth as rain, and it was drought that I had killed with the power that the Six Grandfathers gave me.
rain vision storm
When a vision comes from the thunder beings of the west, it comes with terror like a thunder storm; but when the storm of vision has passed, the world is greenier and happier; for wherever the truth of vision comes upon the world, it is like a rain. The world, you see, is happier after the terror of the storm.
flames color rainbow
And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me.
appeared came clouds fear glad relatives thunder visit
The fear that was on me so long was gone, and when thunder clouds appeared I was always glad to see them, for they came as relatives now to visit me.
knew men saw sixth spirit
Now I knew the sixth Grandfather was about to speak, he who was the Spirit of the Earth, and I saw that he was very old, but more as men are old.
calling voices
Now and then the voices would come back when I was out alone, like someone calling me, but what they wanted me to do I did not know.
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.
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.
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.