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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understanding
The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
death real understanding
It is good to have a reminder of death before us, for it helps us to understand the impermanence of life on this earth, and this understanding may aid us in preparing for our own death. He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything; then he knows that world which is real.
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.
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.
eye men darkness
It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
white clouds mountain
Now suddenly there was nothing but a world of cloud, and we three were there alone in the middle of a great white plain with snowy hills and mountains staring at us; and it was very still; but there were whispers.
people vision bison
To use the power of the bison, I had to perform that part of my vision for the people to see.