The book’s descriptions of his unfolding interpretation of this vision and his experience of the difficult events marking the history of the USA’s relationship with native Americans provides insights into the social norms, religious beliefs and philosophical and psychological understandings of the plains Indian tribes—not to mention a native American’s first-person perspective of the actions of the US during this time.

Black Elk Speaks: The Complete Edition on JSTOR Black Elk Speaks: The Complete Edition on JSTOR

edition: Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, as told through John G. Black Elk grows up fearing that the Wasichus will take over his land, kill his people, and destroy their way of life. For this is the story of a holy man who claimed to receive a vision that foretold the destiny of his people. Then the warrior would give gifts to those who were most needy, and the braver he had been the more he gave away. At the end of the book, Neihart takes Black Elk out to a site of spiritual significance to him, where he enacts a moving prayer of hope that the surviving roots of the sacred tree might yet be nurtured to life.It should be noted that, like many teens, I spent my high school years with my head firmly up my own butt).

Black Elk Speaks - Wikipedia

His people now accept him as a medicine man, and he is 19 years old when he performs his first healing. Harney Peak, the location in the Black Hills where Black Elk received his great vision, was renamed Black Elk Peak in 2016. Black Elk Speaks," the story of the Oglala Lakota visionary and healer Nicholas Black Elk (1863-1950) and his people during momentous twilight years of the nineteenth century, offers readers much more than a precious glimpse of a vanished time. Wilder's illustrated story of a simple family life was a bigger hit during The Great Depression than a complicated story of the relocation and decimation of an entire race of people. Climax: Tensions mount between the Wasichu soldiers and the Sioux as the Ghost Dance movement revitalizes the Indian resistance.He was moved by the kindness of individuals, like families he stayed with and the sincere respect he felt in communicating with Queen Victoria.