Black Elk Speaks

by

John G. Neihardt

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Chapter 1 Quotes

It is the story of all life that is holy and good to tell, and of us two-leggeds sharing in it with the four-leggeds and the wings of the air and of green things; for these are children of one mother and their father is one Spirit.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker), John Neihardt
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:

But now that I see it all as from a lonely hilltop, I know it was the story of a mighty vision given to a man too weak to use it; of a holy tree that should have flourished in a people’s heart with flowers and singing birds, and now is withered; and of a people’s dream that died in bloody snow.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Nation’s Hoop and the Blooming Tree
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

Once we were happy in our own country and we were seldom hungry, for then the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds lived together like relatives, and there was plenty for them and for us. But the Wasichus came, and they have made little islands for us and other little islands for the four-leggeds, and always these islands are becoming smaller, for around them surges the gnawing flood of the Wasichu; and it is dirty with lies and greed.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker)
Related Symbols: Yellow Metal / Gold
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:

Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker), Black Elk’s father, Drinks Water
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation’s hoop I thrust it in the earth. As it touched the earth it leaped mightily in my hand and was a waga chun, the rustling tree, very tall and full of leafy branches and of all birds singing. And beneath it all the animals were mingling with the people like relatives and making happy cries. The women raised their tremolo of joy, and the men shouted all together: “Here we shall raise our children and be as little chickens under the mother sheo’s wing.”

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker), The Six Grandfathers
Related Symbols: The Nation’s Hoop and the Blooming Tree
Page Number: 21
Explanation and Analysis:

Then I was sitting up; and I was sad because my mother and my father didn’t seem to know I had been so far away.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker), Black Elk’s father, White Cow Sees / Black Elk’s mother
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

The next morning all the swelling had left my face and legs and arms, and I felt well as ever; but everything around me seemed strange and as though it were far away. I remember that for twelve days after that I wanted to be alone, and it seemed I did not belong to my people. They were almost like strangers. I would be out alone away from the village and the other boys, and I would look around to the four quarters, thinking of my vision and wishing I could get back there again. I would go home to eat, but I could not make myself eat much; and my father and mother thought that I was sick yet; but I was not. I was only homesick for the place where I had been.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker), Black Elk’s father, White Cow Sees / Black Elk’s mother
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

Our people knew there was yellow metal in little chunks up there; but they did not bother with it, because it was not good for anything.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker)
Related Symbols: Yellow Metal / Gold
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:

He was a queer man. Maybe he was always part way into that world of his vision. He was a very great man, and I think if the Wasichus had not murdered him down there, maybe we should still have the Black Hills and be happy. They could not have killed him in battle. They had to lie to him and murder him.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker), Crazy Horse
Page Number: 54
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

But only crazy or very foolish men would sell their Mother Earth. Sometimes I think it might have been better if we had stayed together and made them kill us all.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker), Crazy Horse, Red Cloud
Page Number: 83
Explanation and Analysis:

How could men get fat by being bad, and starve by being good? I thought and thought about my vision, and it made me very sad; for I wondered if maybe it was only a queer dream after all.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker), Crazy Horse, Spotted Tail
Page Number: 86
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

It does not matter where his body lies, for it is grass; but where his spirit is, it will be good to be.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker), Crazy Horse
Page Number: 90
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

I was fifteen years old that winter, and I thought of my vision and wondered when my duty was to come; for the Grandfathers had shown me my people walking on the black road and how the nation’s hoop would be broken and the flowering tree be withered, before I should bring the hoop together with the power that was given me, and make the holy tree to flower in the center and find the red road again. Part of this had happened already, and I wondered when my power would grow, so that the rest might be as I had seen it in my vision.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker), Crazy Horse, The Six Grandfathers
Related Symbols: The Nation’s Hoop and the Blooming Tree
Page Number: 91
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

I could not get along with my people now, and I would take my horse and go far out from camp alone and compare everything on earth and in the sky with my vision. Crows would see me and shout to each other as though they were making fun of me: “Behold him! Behold him!”

When the frosts began I was glad, because there would not be any more thunder storms for a long while, and I was more and more afraid of them all the time, for always there would be the voices crying “Oo oohey! It is time! It is time!”

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker)
Related Symbols: Thunder
Page Number: 99
Explanation and Analysis:

“Nephew, I know now what the trouble is! You must do your duty and perform this vision for your people upon earth. You must have the horse dance first for the people to see. Then the fear will leave you; but if you do not do this, something very bad will happen to you.”

Related Characters: Black Road (speaker), Black Elk
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

I looked about me and could see that what we then were doing was like a shadow cast upon the earth from yonder vision in the heavens, so bright it was and clear. I knew the real was yonder and the darkened dream of it was here.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker), The Six Grandfathers
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:

The fear that was on me so long was gone, and when thunder clouds appeared I was always glad to see them, for they came as relatives now to visit me. Everything seemed good and beautiful now, and kind. Before this, the medicine men would not talk to me, but now they would come to me to talk about my vision. From that time on, I always got up very early to see the rising of the daybreak star. People knew that I did this, and many would get up to see it with me, and when it came we said: “Behold the star of understanding!”

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker)
Related Symbols: Thunder
Page Number: 109
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

And now when I look about me upon my people in despair, I feel like crying and I wish and wish my vision could have been given to a man more worthy. I wonder why it came to me, a pitiful old man who can do nothing. Men and women and children I have cured of sickness with the power the vision gave me; but my nation I could not help.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker)
Page Number: 112
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

But in the heyoka ceremony, everything is backwards, and it is planned that the people shall be made to feel jolly and happy first, so that it may be easier for the power to come to them. You may have noticed that the truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping. When people are already in despair, maybe the laughing face is better for them; and when they feel too good and are too sure of being safe, maybe the weeping face is better for them to see. And so I think that is what the heyoka ceremony is for.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Nation’s Hoop and the Blooming Tree
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

It is from understanding that power comes; and the power in the ceremony was in understanding what it meant; for nothing can live well except in a manner that is suited to the way the sacred Power of the World lives and moves.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker), The Six Grandfathers
Related Symbols: The Nation’s Hoop and the Blooming Tree
Page Number: 129
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

I can remember when the bison were so many that they could not be counted, but more and more Wasichus came to kill them until there were only heaps and heaps of bones scattered where they used to be. The Wasichus did not kill them to eat; they killed them for the metal that makes them crazy, and they took only the hides to sell. Sometimes they did not even take the hides to sell. Sometimes they did not even take the hides, only the tongues; […] they just killed and killed because they liked to do that. When we hunted bison, we killed only what we needed. And when there was nothing left but heaps of bones, the Wasichus came and gathered up even the bones and sold them.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker)
Related Symbols: Yellow Metal / Gold
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

I was in the air, with outstretched arms, and floating fast. There was a fearful dark river that I had to go over, and I was afraid. It rushed and roared and was full of angry foam. Then I looked down and saw many men and women who were trying to cross the dark and fearful river, but they could not. Weeping, they looked up to me and cried: “Help us!” But I could not stop gliding, for it was as though a great wind were under me.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker), Wovoka (“The Wanekia”)
Page Number: 154
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

I did not depend upon the great vision as I should have done; I depended upon the two sticks that I had seen in the lesser vision. It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those shadows men get lost.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker), The Six Grandfathers
Related Symbols: The Nation’s Hoop and the Blooming Tree
Page Number: 157
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

The snow drifted deep in the crooked gulch, and it was one long grave of butchered women and children and babies, who had never done any harm and were only trying to run away.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker)
Page Number: 164
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth,—you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.

Related Characters: Black Elk (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Nation’s Hoop and the Blooming Tree
Page Number: 169
Explanation and Analysis:
No matches.