Black Elk Speaks Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux by Black Elk / John Gneisenau Neihardt   Paperback 230 pages (December 2000) Bison Bks Corp ISBN: 0803261705 Bookshelf Categories Native American Spirituality Spiritual Biographies

Reviews:

This is a biography instead of a book on Sioux Spirituality	12/7/2000
Reviewer: Two Bears from Tennessee, USA
This book is a biography of the famous Sioux holy man Nick Black Elk. It tells of young Black Elk's powerful vision. This is one of the few books to place the colors in the proper directions. This is not a blanket statement that everything in this book is correct. I noticed two errors. 1. The word Oglala is misspelled throughout the book 2. The photo on page 282. I have seen this photo in other sources, and the indian standing to the left of Nick Black Elk was called by another name. If you want a biography of the famous holy man this is an excelent book. If you want a book on American Indian Spirituality go elsewhere. "The Sacred Pipe" Joseph Epes Brown "Foolscrow: Wisdom and Power" Thomas E. Mails "Native Wisdom" Ed McGaa "Mother Earth Spirituality" Ed McGaa Please contact me if you have questions or comments. Two Bears Wah doh Ogedoda "We give thanks Great Spirit"

Nice historical piece	12/6/2000
Reviewer: Abrams from Schaumburg, IL United States
Not much to add to the other reviews. This is an excellent account of the shameful whiteman's extinction of the most beautiful people to inhabit the earth (I am white :) Did you know that at one time, the American Indians were 1/5 or 20% of the world's population. They lived in virtual peace for 10,000 years, with minor skirmishes, never genocide. There was trade from the tip of South America all the way to Maine. It is the biggest extinction in recorded history. This book is an account of a great leader seeing his people being destroyed. A great book.

One of the Best Books I've Read	11/5/2000
Reviewer: A reader from Chicago, IL
This is the biography of Black Elk, a wichasha wakon (priest) of the Oglala Sioux, as recorded by John Neihardt. This is not some cheesy new age fiction nor is it a dry documentary told from a western view point. This is the actual life story of a holy man and goes into great detail about his visions. From his words we are able to catch a glimpse of Native American religion and spirituality on the Great Plains as it was in the late 1800s/early 1900s. This stands out as one of the greatest works on Native American religion to date. I highly rocemmend that ANYONE read this book

No man is an island	8/16/2000
Reviewer: Arvan from Croatia
Black Elk's poetic self-disclosure, revealed through an ame fraternelle, Indians/Native Americans-intoxicated writer John Neihardt, towers highly over "spiritual" claptrap polluting our age. When I compare this confession to truly good books, like Yogananda's or Sogyal Rinpoche's bestselling presentations of the Advaita or Vajrayana Thanatology, or, even to that great book of wisdom, Jung's autobiography ( Memories, Dreams and Reflections )- they all are dwarfed when put alongside the fierce narrative of starvation, death, suffering, elation, visions, life's grandeur and God's betrayals. Average materialist or fundamentalist ( Christian, Muslim,..) will easily dismiss Black Elk as just another religious hysteric or devil's servant. Various "Native American activists" will use ( and are using it, intermittently ) as a political weapon. They are using it as a sort of codified scripture in "back to roots" religious ceremonies. I don't blame them. But: "Black Elk Speaks" is much, much more. 1. It is relegated to, for us, Europeans ( I am a Croat, therefore a "white European" ), a "spiritual literature" category. Good. Just, as a rendition of a natural man's ( and St. Augustine was a natural man, make no mistake about it ) harrowing struggle between forces & pressures of inner and outer cosmos, between trembling hope, faith and a sense of inescapable fatum- this is unsurpassed work, a worthy companion to Whitman's or Tolstoy's, St. Augustine's or Omar Hayyam's masterpieces. 2. For any non-dogmatic reflective man the Jack Wilson/Wanekia's story and ghost-dance catastrophe at Wounded Knee present an especially painful read; a much stronger expression of God's betrayal than the famed 89.th Psalm. I don't see how usual excuses ( karma, gnostic mythologies, false prophecy, ..) could work convincingly here. 3. At the end: read it. You won't find dull self-centredness that wrecks most of the contemporary prose. Nor pettiness of an alienated vacuous "seeker after ( his ) precious salvation". Here, you are offered banquet for the soul: harsh, harrowing life's realities; revelation of Unity of all beings; physical, moral, and emotional travails; ordinary life as a pattern in earthly-divine tapestry; and, finally, tragedy transmuted into, if not a triumph, then a humble acceptance, a resignation to the eternal life that *cannot* be completely known. "...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."