Black Elk Speaks Essay

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.

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.

Nevertheless, it’s not like we couldn’t go back and try to live like they did, I mean they did live here first. Black Elk retells his friends, Watanye’s , story about how hard it is to meet and love a girl. “Probably for a long time I have been feeling sick about a certain girl because I love her so much, but she will not even look at me, and her parents keep a good watch over her.” (Neihardt 52) Watanye’s story is about a boy who really loves a young lady, but isn’t able to get to know her because it is forbidden by the tribe and her father. As it turns out Black Elk was related to many famous Native Americans such as Crazy horse, and he ran from General Custer. As I continue to read I find out that after Crazy Horse is killed the other indians sell out and it turns into a free-for-all. After all that there is a small battle between Black Elk's tribe and the white men, which caused the tribe to do a very seacret ritual that causes the tribe to cut down a tree and use a piece of Rawhide to tie themselves to the tree while the younger kids taunted them all day. Black Elk believes he has done no harm in the battle after he has killed and scalped the white men because he was on his tribe's land and that they were the intruders. When the winter approaches the tribes that have not gone with indian agencies, such as Black Elk’s tribe, is now starving because the whites

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

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.

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.

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.

Conflict, that is what I feel when I read about the Native Americans. I have always lived in the United States, but when I read the accounts of the Native Americans I sometimes wish I had not. I loved growing up in America mostly, but I can only imagine what it must have been like for Native American children. These children had to grow up learning about how their people once lived free and journeyed the land as they pleased, but when other people came to their land they forced them into increasingly smaller reservation and killed and mistreated their people for centuries. It is no surprise some Native Americans are furious with white people and write literature like “Your Day Has Arrived” by Darlene Doll Smith. I do not blame them for being

Native Americans lived an honest spiritual live. When the “white man” came, many of the Native Americans beliefs and ways of life were considered brutal, uncivilized, and just straight fascists. A lot of the Easterners brought foreign diseases with them to the America, many of which, including smallpox, killed off many of the native american due to the new exposure of the disease to their immune system. Native Americans did not invite the Europeans to their native land, the Europeans forced their way onto and into the land. The Native Americans fought in many battles and wars that went on throughout American history.

In the book, Black Elk Speaks written by John G. Neihardt, the story is a translation of Black Elk’s life. Neihardt first met Black Elk in August of 1930 in South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation and Black Elk wanted Neihardt to share his story with the world. Neihardt says in the preface “It was my function to translate the old man’s story, not only in the factual sense-for it was not the facts that mattered most-but rather to recreate in English the mood and manner of the old man’s narrative”, I think it’s interesting because Black Elk told his story like he could have done hundreds of times but this time it was written down. Black Elk Speaks is Black Elk’s journey into becoming a healer, holy man and seeing all those visions and wondering what they mean.

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.

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.

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

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)