Black Elk Speaks Essay

Black Elk Speaks, by John Niehardt describes the role the Wasichus (white people) played in the history of Black Elks people. The book is focused on Black Elk's development as a healer and holy man granted by a magical dream showed to him when he was a toddler. The Wasichus greed, played a devastating role in the movement of the Native Americans.

A little background I found on the author, John G. Neihardt, was that when he was little he moved around in the west a lot. While he was travelling in the west, after meeting his wife, he ran into Nicholas Black Elk, the Ogalala holy man, and would bring his visions to the world. The original book was published in 1932, and sold millions all over the world. The idea of the book was to recognize that not all Native Americans are going to kill you, and that it could introduce the idea of dreams with perceptive understandings. Standing Bear was in the room where the writing was taking place as a witness to tell that everything was true. While Neihardt was writing the book him and Black Elk became incredible friends

Black Elk himself can be looked upon as a character within an all-encompassing realm of change. From the time that he was a boy he had been instilled with the fear of the Wasichu , as well as the virtues of the Lakota religion. A short way into the telling of his story, Black Elk shares with Neihardt that at the age of 9, he had a vision. As rudimentary as it sounds, this vision can be attributed with shaping Black Elk’s whole life. Black Elk’s recollection of the vision is impeccable, not a detail goes unremembered. Without much evidence as to what caused Black Elk to fall sick, the book describes swelling and what would be thought of today as hallucinations. Black Elk only finds his vision because he is

Author G.W. Mullins continues his highly successful Walking With Spirits book series with a third volume. Volume three in the series features new stories of the Native Americans with all new original art by award winning artist C.L. Hause. Contained in 220 are some of the best folklore stories originating from the history of the Native American Tribes, as well as, sections containing a Native American Cookbook and contents of the Medicine Bag.

     Greed is a large part of the American culture whether we realize it as a society or not. Many countries around the world view the United States as a selfish country that does what it wants on a global scale, and does not share or allocate its predominate wealth. I am very thankful and proud to be a citizen of this country. Even though I would risk my life to protect our country and its freedom, there are aspects about our civilization that I wish could be different. Black Elk, “a holy man and a warrior of the Lakota Nation Indians,” was a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe during the most horrific period for Native Americans in the Western part of the United States. In excerpts from the novel of his life story

Black Elk begins telling his life story introducing his boyhood as we 'll as his first vision. Black Elk, a Lakota healer, has visions that inspire

The biggest problem Indians and colonists had were the different points of view they had of each other. In the compilation of primary documents written by European colonists and Native Americans (National Humanities Center), we can find several different quotations of the many different positive and negative viewpoints Indians and colonists had of on another. Indians were simply people living on this earth as well as the colonist, obviously due to background and culture, they had their differences but it all comes down to the kind of person you are and what can you provide to humanity.

The White Americans crushed the Native American Culture by destroying them with diseases and war. The policy towards the Native Americans were to control the land, and to separate the Native Americans from helping each other during rough times to fight back against the white Americans. There were many different policies that were enforced to take over the land for government benefits, such as farming, trading, and building railroads. The policies for the Native Americans got stricter, so that white settlers can have Indian Country. Other policies started to come intact when the natives started to fight back to keep the land that the government gave them. The worst thing that the white Americans did was cut off the food supply to kill to starve the Indians.

These two races were very aversion towards each other. The hostility between them would bring many deaths on both sides. Men, women, and children paid the price because of the hatred towards each other.

This chapter’’Wasichus in the Hill’’ protrudes signs of envisioned trouble the people of Soux tribe would encounter. It is also one of the longest chapters of the entire book that unveils the subversion of the Sioux tribe for mineral resources (Gold) by the opposed extremists. Superficially, Black Elk had thought he was set to manifest his vision from the grandfathers of the cloud, when he attained the age of eleven, in the summer 1874. The black elk’s band had camped on sphitton creek in the black hill.

The arrival of Europeans in America greatly disrupted the life of the Natives. The natives had their own culture in America with their own special beliefs. When Europeans arrived they tried to alter the way Native Americans lived their lives to resemble their way of living. The Natives did not respect this because they had previously built a lifestyle in America that they wish not to be transformed. The two cultures had different opinions about government, religion, land, and society. Due to the many differences between the Native and European people, it was unfeasible that there would be no conflicts between them.

With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude. (2)

The book “Lakota Woman,” is an autobiography that depicts Mary Crow Dog and Indians’ Lives. Because I only had a limited knowledge on Indians, the book was full of surprising incidents. Moreover, she starts out her story by describing how her Indian friends died in miserable and unjustifiable ways. After reading first few pages, I was able to tell that Indians were mistreated in the same manners as African-Americans by whites. The only facts that make it look worse are, Indians got their land stolen and prejudice and inequality for them still exists.

The European colonists and the Native Americans of North America had very different views on nearly everything they encountered in their lives. Living in vastly different cultures lead both groups to have two extremely different outlooks on four main topics; religious beliefs, the environment, social relations, and slavery, differences which the colonists used to their advantage when conquering the peoples of the New World.

The people native to this great land were so different - nearly alien - to the immigrants who wanted to inhabit it. The way of life here was foreign. Some people sought to fix "The Indian Problem" by ripping families apart and forcing children to abandon traditional ways - washing the Indian out of them - others sought to eradicate them.