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Black Elk Speaks - College Essays

Black Elk Speaks


The book was written in the early 1930's by author John
G. Neihardt, after interviewing the medicine man named Black Elk. Neihardt was
already a published writer, and prior to this particular narrative he was at
work publishing a collection of poems titled Cycle of the West. Although he was
initially seeking infor-mation about a peculiar Native American religious
movement that occurred at the end of the 19th century for the conclusion his
poetry collection, Neihardt was instead gifted with the story of Black Elk's
life. Black Elk's words would explain much about the nature of wisdom as well
as the lives of the Sioux and other tribes of that period.
The priest or holy man calling ...

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of being a wichasha wakon or holy man like his predecessors. Black
Elk's childhood vision stayed with him throughout his life, and it offered him
aid and wisdom whenever he sought it. It is from the strength of this vision,
and the wisdom in his heart that Black Elk eventually realized his place as a
leader and wise man in the Ogalala band of the Sioux.
The wisdom possessed by Black Elk is immediately present in his
recollections of various lessons learned by himself and by others. These stories
ran the whole gambit of life experiences from the most innocent acts of a boy in
love, to the hard les-sons learned from the treachery of the whites. Through
these stories a greater insight can be gained into the ways of the Sioux, as
well as lessons into the nature of all men. Most important in these lessons on
the nature of man was wisdom, and in all of Black Elk's recollections somewhere
a deeper wisdom can be found.
The story of High Horse's Courting stands out as a perfect ...

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guarding
the Crow horses, and each made off with a small herd for himself.
Returning to the tribe with his new herd, High Horse immediately rode up
to the girl's family teepee. When shown the herd of horses that High Horse
offered the girl's father acquiesced and allowed him to have his daughter, but
not solely because of the amount of horses High Horse had offered. Instead the
father revealed that the true price High Horse paid was in his showing that he
was a man in obtaining the horses in such a skillful manner, and thus able to
take care of his only daughter.
Thus the lessons of life are displayed to the listener of the story.
High Horse gets the girl through persistence and brave ...

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"Black Elk Speaks." Essayworld.com. May 20, 2008. Accessed March 28, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Black-Elk-Speaks/83946.
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PAPER DETAILS
Added: 5/20/2008 12:20:18 PM
Category: Book Reports
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 1311
Pages: 5

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