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A review by papidoc
Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux by Black Elk
3.0
I think Black Elk Speaks would be more interesting after learning more of the traditions, rituals, customs, and history of the Native American tribes. I have learned just enough to be dangerous, and while I found Black Elk’s account of his childhood vision and subsequent life interesting, it wasn’t as compelling as I think it would be with a richer and broader contextual understanding. Nonetheless, it was an interesting foray into the mindset of an acknowledged wise man, a shaman and healer of the old ways and times of the Lakota Indian tribe. It is biographical, based on extensive interviews of the subject by noted author and poet John Neihardt.
What struck me as much as anything was how similar, in many ways, some of Black Elk’s social experiences and upbringing were to that I have experienced in more modern times. Consider his account, for example of High Horse becoming “sick” over a girl, sneaking around just to be near her, then finding out she liked him (maybe a little…), trying unsuccessfully to impress her father, then trying to convince the girl to elope with him. It all sounds much like something that occurs every day and probably in one way or another in every culture around the world. When the girl refuses his advances, it “made High Horse feel so very sick that he could not eat a bite, and he went around with his head hanging down as though he might just fall down and die any time.”
I’ve been there, as I’m sure most young men have also. I’m so grateful to be happily married and not have to suffer the pangs of young love again!
Regardless of whether you accept Black Elk’s autobiographical book as a truthful account of a spiritual odyssey, it is certainly a glimpse into a fascinating (and likely soon to be extinct) culture and way of living and thinking and perceiving. For that reason alone, it is worth reading.
What struck me as much as anything was how similar, in many ways, some of Black Elk’s social experiences and upbringing were to that I have experienced in more modern times. Consider his account, for example of High Horse becoming “sick” over a girl, sneaking around just to be near her, then finding out she liked him (maybe a little…), trying unsuccessfully to impress her father, then trying to convince the girl to elope with him. It all sounds much like something that occurs every day and probably in one way or another in every culture around the world. When the girl refuses his advances, it “made High Horse feel so very sick that he could not eat a bite, and he went around with his head hanging down as though he might just fall down and die any time.”
I’ve been there, as I’m sure most young men have also. I’m so grateful to be happily married and not have to suffer the pangs of young love again!
Regardless of whether you accept Black Elk’s autobiographical book as a truthful account of a spiritual odyssey, it is certainly a glimpse into a fascinating (and likely soon to be extinct) culture and way of living and thinking and perceiving. For that reason alone, it is worth reading.