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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summer thinking years
I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
thinking ifs happened
Whether it happened so or not I do not know; but if you think about it you can see that it is true.
winter men thinking
My friend, I am going to tell you the story of my life, as you wish; 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?
thinking glowing fog
Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me.
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.
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.