The author's postscript relating the ceremony on Harney Peak does little to buoy hope. There the old man prayed that the sacred tree might bloom again and the people find their way back to the sacred...
Despite such secular acclaim, the book put Black Elk in an awkward position in relation to the Catholic Church. His reputation on the reservation was built as a Catholic catechist, not as a native rel...
I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch...
Thus the six grandfathers were the six directions. Black Elk became the sixth grandfather, the spirit of the below direction, the earth, the place where mankind lives, the source of human life. By bec...
Untold numbers of readers of Black Elk Speaks and When the Tree Flowered have wished to understand more fully the relationship between Neihardt and Black Elk and the role that Neihardt played as Black...
Intended to include the prayer on Harney Peak in the book. Although the old man was embarrassed in front of the priests who had been his confessors and advisors for many years, he never denied the sin...