Black Elk Speaks is 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. Black Elk's searing visions of the unity of humanity and Earth, conveyed by John G. Neihardt, cross multiple genres. 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...

The Fetterman Fight ranks among the most crushing defeats suffered by the U.S. Army in the nineteenth-century West. On December 21, 1866 -- during Red Cloud's War (1866-1868) -- a well-organized force of 1,500 to 2,000 Oglala Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors annihilated a detachment of seventy-nine infantry and cavalry soldiers, among them Captain William Judd Fetterman, and two civilian contractors. With no survivors on the U.S. side,...

Told from a Native American point of view, Black Elk's Vision provides a unique perspective on American history. From recounting the visions Black Elk had as a young boy, to his involvement in the battles of Little Big Horn and Wounded Knee, as well as his journeys to New York City and Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, this biographical account of Black Elk an Oglala Lakota medicine man who lived from 1863 to 1950 follows him from childhood...

"In Black Elk, Lakota Visionary, Harry Oldmeadow draws on recently discovered sources and in-depth research to provide a major re-assessment of Black Elk's life and work. The author explores Black Elk's mystical visions, his controversial engagement with Catholicism, and his previously unrecognized attempts to preserve and revive ancestral Sioux beliefs and practices. Oldmeadow's lively and highly readable account also examines the controversies that...

"Black Elk has an important place in Native American history and United States history, having been a big part of the Battle of Wounded Knee. A medicine man of the Oglala Sioux with great talents as a healer, Black Elk is a fascinating figure for young readers to learn about. In this volume, his life and importance are discussed in age-appropriate detail. Historical context in the main text and fact boxes supplements social studies classroom learning...

I was at my grandfather's house, and he was sitting down, getting his pipe ready early in the morning, and here was Father Sialm knocking on the door. They opened the door, and he came in, and he saw my grandfather with the pipe. Father Sialm grabbed the pipe and said, "This is the work of the devil!" And he took it and threw it out the door on the ground. My grandfather didn't say a word. He got up and took the priest's prayer book and threw it out...