 Video Archives
Portrait Gallery
Classroom
Cable Affiliates
Home
 Buy works online |
|
 |
|
 |
|
Born: December 1863 - Little Powder River, Wyoming
Died: August 17, 1950
| Excerpt from Black Elk Speaks |
|
 was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices. It was a happy summer and nothing was afraid, because in the Moon When the Ponies Shed (May) word came from the Wasichus [the White Men] that there would be peace and that they would not use the road any more and that all the soldiers would go away. The soldiers did go away and their towns were torn down; and in the Moon of Falling Leaves (November), they made a treaty with Red Cloud that said our country would be ours as long as grass should grow and water flow. You can see that it is not the grass and the water that have forgotten.
Read the whole work
|
|
Teaching Topics in Social Studies
Black Elk was an OGLALA LAKOTA SIOUX, a tribe of the PLAINS INDIANS
in SOUTH DAKOTA.
Black Elk fought in the BATTLE OF LITTLE BIG HORN when he was only thirteen years old. Following the Sioux surrender, Black Elk lived on a RESERVATION. Later in his life he witnessed the massacre at the BATTLE OF WOUNDED KNEE in 1890. His life and work have served as inspiration to the AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT of the 20th century.
Teaching Topics in Language Arts
Since Black Elk could not read or write in English his words were TRANSLATED from his native Sioux language
into English. Black Elk Speaks can
be used to demonstrate difference between ORAL and WRITTEN LANGUAGE. Many people have questioned the role that the AUTOBIOGRAPHER or NARRATOR played in TRANSCRIBING the novel. Black Elk used FLASHBACKS throughout the novel. His wanted his STORY to be a part of this historical record.
| Facts About Black Elk and Black Elk Speaks |
- Following the surrender of the Sioux to federal control and reservation life, he was a performer with the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show in New York, France, England, and Italy (1887-1889)
- After Wounded Knee, Black Elk converted to Catholicism
- Black Elk endorsed the monument at Mount Rushmore (he blessed it the day before it opened)
- He gave "medicine man" performances annually to educate white people about his religion
- He was a devoted Catholic who walked to church every Sunday even when he was dying of tuberculosis
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
