Word: elk
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...BLACK ELK SPEAKS-John G. Neihardt -Morrow...
Though Moses and the Hebrew prophets cornered the Western market long ago, other races, other men have produced scripture too. Such a one is Black Elk, holy medicine man of the Ogalala Sioux. His life story, told to and superbly set down by Poet Neihardt, has the quality of true scripture. More generic than literature, which reflects individual men's spirits, it reflects whatever divine image there may be in a tribe, a race...
Amerindian Black Elk was born in 1863, in time to see and take part in much of the fighting that drove his race off the free earth into government reservations to decay. Treaty after treaty the Indians drew up with the Wasichus (white men) who took what land they wanted, promised the rest should remain Indian "as long as grass should grow and water flow. You can see that it is not the grass and the water that have forgotten...
During the ensuing years he fought with his tribe against the Wasichus, took his first scalp at Custer's Last Stand. Though Black Elk fought, fled, starved with the rest, always he pondered how to materialize his vision. At 17 he grew sick with fear because he could do nothing. An old medicine man advised him: "You must do your duty and perform this vision for your people upon earth." Together they organized an elaborate ritual dance. All the people acted out Black Elk's vision in detail. After the dance everybody, even the horses, felt better. Black...
...already the Wasichus were crowding the Indians into reservations. "The people were ... so heavy that it seemed they could not be lifted; so dark that they could not be made to see any more." After four years of curing the sick, Black Elk, to learn from the Wasichus some secret that might help his people, joined Buffalo Bill's Indians, went to New York, London and parts of Europe. He discovered no secret, returned to find the tribes aroused by the Messianic teachings of Wovoka, dancing the ghost dance that meant trouble for Wasichus. The butchering of warriors, women...