Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Speaks by John G. Neihardt John Neihardt’s : Summary & Review. The book Black Elk Speaks was written in the early 1930’s by author John G. Neihardt, after interviewing the medicine man named Black Elk. Neihardt was already a published writer, and prior to this particular narrative, he was at work publishing a collection of poems titled Cycle of the West. Although he was initially seeking information about a peculiar Native American religious movement that occurred at the end of the 19th century for the conclusion of his poetry collection, Neihardt was instead gifted with the story of Black Elk’s life. Black Elk’s words would explain much about the nature of wisdom as well as the lives of the Sioux and other tribes of that period. The priest or holy man calling himself Black Elk was born in the December of 1863, to a family in the Ogalala band of the Sioux. Black Elk’s family was well known, and he counted the famed as a friend and cousin. Black Elk’s family was likewise acknowledged as a family of wise men, with both his father and grandfather themselves being holy men bearing the name Black Elk. The youngest Black Elk soon experienced a vision as a young boy, a vision of the wisdom inherent in the earth that would direct him toward his true calling of being a wichasha wakon or holy man like his predecessors. Black Elk’s childhood vision stayed with him throughout his life, and it offered him aid and wisdom whenever he sought it. It is from the strength of this vision, and the wisdom in his heart that Black Elk eventually realized his place as a leader and wise man in the Ogalala band of the Sioux. The wisdom possessed by Black Elk is immediately present in his recollections of various lessons learned by himself and by others. These stories ran the whole gambit of life experiences from the most innocent acts of a boy in love, to the hard lessons learned from the treachery of the whites. Through these stories, greater insight can be gained into the ways of the Sioux, as well as lessons into the nature of all men. Most important in these lessons on the nature of man was wisdom, and in all of Black Elk’s recollections somewhere a deeper wisdom can be found. The story of High Horse’s Courting stands out as a perfect example of one of Black Elk’s narratives. Typically, Black Elk’s narratives try to bestow a lesson (or lessons) that the listener can learn from, just as the subject of the story sometimes does. High Horse’s Courting begins when a youth named High Horse falls madly in love with a girl of his tribe. High Horse neither possessed the respect nor the wealth to obtain this girl from her parents, so he had to resort to stealth and trickery to gain any access to her at all. Eventually, High Horse did made contact with the girl and learned of her similar feelings for him, but also learned that she wished to be earned from her father like a lady and not to be stolen away dishonorably. The disclosure by the girl only acted to frustrate High Horse more, and he eventually had to turn to his cousin Red Deer for help. To help his cousin, Red Deer advised High Horse on two separate occasions to sneak into the girl’s teepee and make off with her, both attempts ended as comical failures. Finally, in a fit of disgust and embarrassment, High Horse proclaimed that he was going on the warpath since he could not have the girl. Red Deer, still wanting to help his friend and cousin, decided to follow. High Horse and Red Deer fell upon a Crow encampment that night. The two youths killed the sentry guarding the Crow horses, and each made off with a small herd for himself. Returning to the tribe with his new herd, High Horse immediately rode up to the girl’s family teepee. When shown the herd of horses that High Horse offered the girl’s father acquiesced and allowed him to have his daughter, but not solely because of the amount of horses High Horse had offered. Instead the father revealed that the true price High Horse paid was in his showing that he was a man in obtaining the horses in such a skillful manner, and thus able to take care of his only daughter. Thus the lessons of life are displayed to the listener of the story. High Horse gets the girl through persistence and brave acts, Red Deer shows the rewards of loyalty by following his cousin on the warpath and coming out a wealthy man, and the girl’s father caps it all with his display of guile in selecting a suitable husband for his daughter. This is how the wisdom of Black Elk comes through in the narrative, as a simple but relative story possessing many nuggets of observant truths. The period in American history in which Black Elk lived witnessed the massive movement of whites into the Sioux territory seeking land and gold. Much of the narrative in Black Elk Speaks describes the tribesmen’s actions and fears concerning the encroachment onto their lands. This underlying dread of what is to come is pervasive in the text. From his birth to his old age, Black Elk lived through the entire westward expansion of whites into the land of his ancestors; therefore he possessed a unique perspective on slowly going from a state of total freedom to one of dependence and servitude. The loss of the wisdom gained by his people was a concept that mortified Black Elk. Wisdom was paramount to Black Elk’s whole existence since his vision as a child. This wisdom that he relied on so fully predicted the coming of the whites, and it helped him to advise during the struggles that eventually followed. Though his life seemed full of loss and destruction, Black Elk always found meaning in the people and things around him, and his strongest trait seemed to be his ability to see the truth or joy in life when there was not much to be happy about or believe in. Therefore, after seeing his people’s culture all but destroyed, Black Elk realized that the wisdom of his vision must not die. Black Elk felt that the telling of his story was “. . . incumbent upon him. His chief purpose was to ‘save his Great Vision for men (preface – xix).'” This is why he decided to tell his tale to Mr. Neihardt, because it is not just his story, it is the wisdom of his people and of his vision. The lessons gained in Black Elk Speaks are some that are as relevant today as they were almost two-hundred years ago. The lessons on bravery and wisdom would benefit a child today just as in previous times. Even more poignant is the correlation between the wise posture of the Ogalala towards the land and its peoples, contrasted with the scheming, greedy advancements of the Americans. The Ogalala and the tribes alongside them walked these same lands for possibly thousands of years before the introduction of the white man. In all that time the land stayed fertile, and the people lived like content children under the sun. In little over a hundred years since, the white man has prospered here at the expense of the land. Possibly, Black Elk was acting out a prophecy when he suggested that he needed to tell his story, for he knew what the white men would eventually mean to the health of the land. Black Elk knew that only when the white man acknowledged what he had done to the land and her people, would wisdom ever shine on his nation as it did on the Sioux. Black Elk Speaks. A timeless and inspiring autobiographical account of the great religious and historical vision of an American Indian healer, Black Elk Speaks has become a revered spiritual classic for all peoples everywhere. Black Elk (1863-1950) was a Lakota Sioux Indian with a privileged insight into the great changes taking place among his people in their native land. His vision occurred during the period just before the Little Big Horn massacre. His words were transcribed at the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1930 by John G. Neihardt, a writer and critic with an intense and compassionate interest in American Indian culture and religion. Black Elk specifically designated Neihardt to record his words. These words convey Native American history from the 'inside.' They are as well a religious testament to the enduring spirit of America's native people. Black Elk Speaks: The Complete Edition. Black Elk Speaks , the story of the Oglala Lakota visionary and healer Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950) and his people during momentous twilight years of the nineteenth century, offers readers much more than a precious glimpse of a vanished time. Black Elk’s searing visions of the unity of humanity and Earth, conveyed by John G. Neihardt, have made this book a classic that crosses multiple genres. Whether appreciated as the poignant tale of a Lakota life, as a history of a Native nation, or as an enduring spiritual testament, Black Elk Speaks is unforgettable. Black Elk met the distinguished poet, writer, and critic John G. Neihardt in 1930 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and asked Neihardt to share his story with the world. Neihardt understood and conveyed Black Elk’s experiences in this powerful and inspirational message for all humankind. This complete edition features a new introduction by historian Philip J. Deloria and annotations of Black Elk’s story by renowned Lakota scholar Raymond J. DeMallie. Three essays by John G. Neihardt provide background on this landmark work along with pieces by Vine Deloria Jr., Raymond J. DeMallie, Alexis Petri, and Lori Utecht. Maps, original illustrations by Standing Bear, and a set of appendixes rounds out the edition. John G. Neihardt. John G. Neihardt was a poet and author famous for his writings on spirituality, Native Americans, and the American West. He is best known for his collection of epic poems, A Cycle of the West , and his nonfiction account of the life of a Sioux medicine man, Black Elk Speaks . John Greenleaf Neihardt was born in Sharpsburg, Illinois, on January 8, 1881, to Nicholas and Alice Culler Neihardt. For a short while, he lived with his mother and his sisters on his grandparents’ farm in northwest Kansas. John’s memories of the plains, such as living in a sod house, collecting buffalo chips for fuel, and his family’s stubborn optimism despite many difficulties, greatly influenced his writings. In 1887, the family moved to Kansas City. John attended Irving Elementary. His father shared his love of poetry and reading with John, and took him on weekly adventures around Kansas City. Seeing soldiers training in an army encampment and looking down on the Missouri River during a massive flood created vivid memories that he revisited later. Although Nicholas left the family when John was just ten, John’s writings often drew upon themes he associated with memories of his father, such as adventure, exploration, battle, and reverence of nature. The Neihardt family then moved to Wayne, Nebraska. In the fall of 1892, John got sick with a high fever and had a vision that he was flying at incredible speed over the surface of the earth. He sensed the interconnectedness of the universe and believed that he was led on by another spirit, whom he came to call his “Ghostly Brother.” This experience inspired Neihardt to become a poet. He started writing, and eventually changed his middle name to Gneisenau, a family name, because he did not want to be associated with another poet who had a similar name. John was so academically gifted that he entered Nebraska Normal College at age twelve and graduated at age seventeen. After publishing poems and short stories in small papers and magazines, John wrote a long poem based on Hindu religious philosophy. After a disastrous trip in 1898 to find a publisher in Kansas City, in which he resorted to begging for food, the book was finally published as The Divine Enchantment in 1900. That same year Neihardt got a job with a merchant who traded with the Omaha Indians at a reservation near Bancroft, Nebraska. He wrote popular short stories based on his experiences there, publishing them in a book, The Lonesome Trail , in 1907. He soon started developing a national reputation as a writer and poet. Also in 1907, he published A Bundle of Myrrh , which dealt mostly with the concept of romance. After reading it, Mona Martinsen, a student of the famous French sculptor Auguste Rodin, began writing to Neihardt. Mona and John were married in 1908, shortly after meeting for the first time. They had four children and stayed together until Mona’s death fifty years later. In 1908, Neihardt rafted two thousand miles down the Missouri River from Fort Benton, Montana, to Sioux City, Iowa, chronicling his experience in a series of popular articles for Outing magazine. The articles were republished as The River and I in 1910. He served as the literary editor for the Minneapolis Journal from 1912 until moving to Branson, Missouri, in 1920. In 1921, the Nebraska legislature named him poet laureate of their state. From 1926 to 1938, Neihardt served as the literary editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch . He wrote constantly, publishing more than twenty books over the next several decades. I have come to look upon the Missouri as more than a river. To me, it is an epic. And it gave me my first big boy dreams. It was my ocean. I remember well the first time I looked upon my turbulent friend, who has since become as a brother to me. It was from a bluff at Kansas City. I know I must have been a very little boy, for the terror I felt made me reach up to the saving forefinger of my father, lest this insane devil-thing before me should suddenly develop an unreasoning hunger for little boys. –Excerpt, The River and I by John G. Neihardt. In 1912, John began writing a series of five epic poems based on the history of the American West. They were published together in the highly praised A Cycle of the West in 1949. In that same year, Neihardt was named poet-in-residence and lecturer of English at the , where he remained until his retirement in 1965. He lived on a farm, called Skyrim, just north of Columbia until his late eighties, when he returned to Nebraska. While doing research for A Cycle of the West , Neihardt conducted a series of interviews with Black Elk, an Oglala Lakota Sioux medicine man who had survived the Battle of Little Big Horn and the Wounded Knee Massacre. Neihardt turned these interviews into the book Black Elk Speaks in 1932. Black Elk’s descriptions of a grand vision he had as a youth, the history and changing lifestyle of his people, and his belief in the spiritual unity of everything on earth caught on in Europe in the 1950s. The book was popular with the American counterculture in the 1960s (some even referred to it as “the Bible of the hippies”), and became a national phenomenon after Neihardt appeared on television as a guest of The Dick Cavett Show in 1971. Although it is controversial because of possible errors in translation and claims of inaccuracies stemming from the personal and cultural biases of both Neihardt and Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks is still viewed as an important text by Native American scholars, historians, and students of American religious culture. Black Elk Speaks. Black Elk Speaks , the story of the Oglala Lakota visionary and healer Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950) and his people during momentous twilight years of the nineteenth century, offers readers much more than a precious glimpse of a vanished time. Black Elk’s searing visions of the unity of humanity and Earth, conveyed by John G. Neihardt, have made this book a classic that crosses multiple genres. Whether appreciated as the poignant tale of a Lakota life, as a history of a Native nation, or as an enduring spiritual testament, Black Elk Speaks is unforgettable. Black Elk met the distinguished poet, writer, and critic John G. Neihardt in 1930 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and asked Neihardt to share his story with the world. Neihardt understood and conveyed Black Elk’s experiences in this powerful and inspirational message for all humankind. This complete edition features a new introduction by historian Philip J. Deloria and annotations of Black Elk’s story by renowned Lakota scholar Raymond J. DeMallie. Three essays by John G. Neihardt provide background on this landmark work along with pieces by Vine Deloria Jr., Raymond J. DeMallie, Alexis Petri, and Lori Utecht. Maps, original illustrations by Standing Bear, and a set of appendixes rounds out the edition. Author Bio. John G. Neihardt (1881–1973) is the author of several classics, including A Cycle of the West and Eagle Voice Remembers , both available in Bison Books editions. He was named Nebraska’s first poet laureate and foremost poet of the nation by the National Poetry Center in 1936. Praise. “ Black Elk Speaks is an extraordinarily human document—and beyond that the record of a profoundly spiritual journey, the pilgrimage of a people toward their historical fulfillment and culmination, toward the accomplishment of a worthy destiny.”—N. Scott Momaday. “An American classic.”— Western Historical Quarterly. “If any great religious classic has emerged in [the twentieth] century or on this continent, it must certainly be judged in the company of Black Elk Speaks .”—from Vine Deloria Jr.’s foreword.