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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eye men darkness
It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
men darkness vision
It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.
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.
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.
native-american circles world
The power of the world always works in circles.
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.
song native-american sky
The song and the drumming were like this: Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.
moving native-american circles
Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.