Visions, prophetic dreams, talking animals, sacred ornaments of wisdom, cloud spirits descending from the sky, and mysterious voices are just some of the mystical experiences in the life of Black Elk, a Sioux warrior and holy man of the Oglala tribe. He, along with some of his old friends, were interviewed over the summer of 1932 by John G Neihardt for his book, Black Elk Speaks.
Niehardt’s purpose was to document the history of Black Elk’s people and to share with the Wasichus (white man) so that they would have a better understanding of his people’s culture. What remains is a gripping tale of struggle and perseverance and the mystical experiences of a warrior and holy man whose Great Vision never materialized.
As told by Neihardt, Black Elk shared an incredible near-death experience he had as a nine-year-old child. He called it his Great Vision. He was terribly sick and unconscious for days when he had the experience, which is understandable considering many sick people have strange dreams. However, what makes the story more interesting is that “other worldly” experiences happened before and after his great vision.
It all started when he was five years old. He was in the woods alone and saw a kingbird on a branch of a tree. The bird talked to him and said, “The clouds all over are one-sided.” He understood this to mean that the clouds were all looking at him. Then the bird said, “Listen! A voice is calling you.” He recalled looking up at the clouds where he saw two male faces holding spears coming down towards him like arrows. They sang a sacred song to him that went like this: “Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling you.” (Neihardt 18-19)
Although years passed without another occurrence, Black Elk often thought about the visions. But he was young and busy. It was at the age of nine that his life changed. One day he entered the teepee to have lunch with a man named Man Hip who enjoyed his company. As Man Hip was talking to him, he heard the voice, which said, “It is time; now they are calling you.” He must have had a peculiar look on his face because Man Hip looked at him in a strange way. He couldn’t explain to the man what he’d heard and seen before.
The next morning he became terribly ill. His legs buckled beneath him mysteriously. He got progressively worse until both legs, arms and his face became extremely swollen. While he laid there in his teepee with his mother and father at his side, he saw the two men from the vision come to the ground outside his teepee. They said, “Hurry! Come! Your Grandfathers are calling you!” (Neihardt 20-21)
The Great Vision
Black Elk describes how a small cloud took him up into a larger cloud above where he saw black horses with lightning manes and white horses with thunder in their nostrils and necklaces of elk’s teeth. They brought him to another cloud that morphed into a holy teepee with a rainbow door.
He meets Six Grandfathers (which includes the two men with spears he’d seen before) who are all sitting in a row inside the teepee. The oldest one invites him in and says, “Your Grandfathers all over the world are having council and they have called you here to teach you.” He realized these were not old men but “Powers of the World.” They each represented the powers of the four quarters of the earth: west, north, east, south, including the sky and earth. (Neihardt 23-25)
The Six Grandfathers (one revealed as being his older self) showed him the center of the earth and all the good things in the ‘sacred hoop’ of the earth. They gave him many gifts for his life including a sacred pipe, a cup of living water, a sacred bow (the power to make live and destroy), a sacred wind, a sacred herb from where the white giant lives (cleansing power and healing), a daybreak star and pipe from the east, a nation’s sacred hoop and the tree that was to bloom in the center (from the south). He was taken to the center of earth to show him goodness and beauty, and the strangeness of the greening earth, the only mother and the spirit shapes of things, as they should be. (Neihardt 26-30)
He saw two roads, one red and the other black. The red one represented the good life, and the black one the troubled life. He returns to the teepee and sees himself sick with his mother and father bending over him. He hears a voice say, “The boy is coming to; you had better give him some water.” Once back to his body, he sat up and felt sad knowing that his parents didn’t know he’d been in the “Other World.” (Neihardt 47)
After the Great Vision
He realized that he was sick and unconscious for 12 days and that Whirlwind Chaser, a medicine man, was responsible for bringing him back from the dead. Although the medicine man got all the recognition from his family and people, he knew the Grandfathers in the rainbow teepee saved him. He was sad about leaving the beautiful place and scared to tell anyone about it. He felt no one would believe him at his age. (Neihardt 48)
When he thought about the vision, he felt a strange power “glowing” throughout his body. He would try to find words to describe it, but they would be lost in his mind. Whirlwind Chaser believed he’d been through something spiritual. He said to his parents, “Your boy there is sitting in a sacred manner. I do not know what it is, but there is something special for him to do, for just as I came in I could see a power like a light all through his body.” (Neihardt 49)
He was quiet, homesick for the place he had been. He had a hard time talking to his grandfather, Refuse-To-Go, and cried when he killed a bird, remembering that the Grandfathers told him he was supposed to be one with them, like a relative. His father said, “Since my boy was sick, he is not the same boy. He has queer ways and he does not like to be at home. I feel sorry about the way he is, poor boy!” (Neihardt 49)
The experience had left him shy, a loner and unable to express what had happened to him.
The Other World
In later years, due to the encroaching Wasichus choking them out of their homeland, his people struggled for space and food and endured many hardships. They often celebrated their life with dance and song. One night, during one of the dances he had another strange experience. He felt as if his legs were a swing beneath him and he then raised upwards from his body. He saw an eagle feather, and that became a spotted eagle dancing. He then described a beautiful, lush and green land with lots of meat to eat, clean air, and a “living light” everywhere. There were “fat and happy horses; and animals of all kinds were scattered all over the green hills, and singing hunters were returning with their meat.” He floats over the teepees and meets two men who want him to go back with the memory of two holy shirts they wore. His spirit fell back into his earth body. The next day, he makes shirts and his people have another dance. He prayed: “Father, Great Spirit, behold me! The nation that I have is in despair. The new earth you promised you have shown me. Let my nation also behold it.” (Neihardt 239-243)
He floated up again and had another vision. He saw six villages over a ridge (which were the 6 Grandfathers from the first great vision). When he touched the ground, twelve men came to him and told him that he would see the father, the two-legged chief. (Neihardt 245)
He was led into the sacred hoop and saw the blooming, holy tree in the middle. He saw a beautiful man next to the tree who shines with light. He didn’t recognize the man as either a Wasichus or Indian. The man said, “My life is such that all earthly beings and growing things belong to me. Your father, the Great Spirit, has said this, you too must say this.” He disappeared like a “light in the wind.” (Neihardt 245)
The twelve men appeared to him and tell him to behold a great sight. He saw six villages before him and beautiful day again where all the people were beautiful and young. Twelve women appeared too, and they told him that he would take back their way of life. One of the twelve men gave him two sticks, one white and the other red. They told him to hurry with the sticks back home. On his way, he saw an angry, raging river where men and women were trying to cross. They asked him for help, but he couldn’t because he was moving away from them. (Neihardt 246)
He fell back into his earthly body again and tried to decipher his vision. He believed the 6 villages were the 6 Grandfathers and the 6th village was the sixth Grandfather, the spirit of Earth. He thought the 12 men and women were for moons of the year. (Neihardt 247)
Spirit Rain
In the 1932 interview, Black Elk looked back at his visions as an old man feeling as if he’d never accomplished helping his people. The beautiful images he’d been shown of his people happy had never materialized. He spoke of how the spirits took him up in a vision and showed him the center of the earth and all the good things in the sacred hoop.
He said he wished to stand on the summit that he was on in his vision and talk to the six grandfathers. Neihardt, including Black Elk’s son Ben, took him to Harney Peak. Before they got there, Black Elk told his son that when he spoke to the Grandfathers and if he still had anything left of his power, they should see a “little rain or a little thunder.” At the time, there had been a drought, and there had been no rain. That day, the sky was clear and blue, and there was no sign of rain.
Once they were at the summit, Black Elk prayed, calling out and reciting to the Great Spirit what the Six Grandfathers had given him in his vision. Afterward, a small rain fell, and thunder was heard. He stood there with tears in his eyes with the rain falling down on him. (Neihardt 271-274)
– Neihardt, John G. (Flaming Rainbow). Black Elk Speaks, Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. University of Nebraska: Bison Books, 1988
