Black Elk Speaks

"Black Elk Speaks" is a 1932 story of an Oglala Sioux medicine man as told by John Neihardt. Black Elk's son, Ben Black Elk, translated Black Elk's words from Lakota into English [ [http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/studies_in_american_indian_literatures/v017/17.1kaye.html Kaye, Frances W. Interpreting the Legacy: John Neihardt and Black Elk Speaks (review)Studies in American Indian Literatures - Volume 17, Number 1, Spring 2005, pp. 98-101] ] .

Background

In the summer of 1930, as part of his research into the Native American perspective on the Ghost Dance movement, Neihardt contacted an Oglala holy man named Black Elk, who had been present as a young man at the 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn and the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre. As Neihardt tells the story, Black Elk gave him the gift of his life's narrative, including the visions he had had and some of the Oglala rituals he had performed. The two men developed a close friendship. The book "Black Elk Speaks", grew from their conversations continuing in the spring of 1931, and is now Neihardt's most familiar work. The current popularity of the book shows the growth of interest in the social and ethical analysis of Native American tribes.

An online publication called "The Indian Reader" [ [http://www.indianreader.com/ The Indian Reader] ] , a publication of an organisation called "The Native American Church" [ [http://www.nativeamericanchurch.com/index.html "The Native American Church" ] ] claims to have interviewed Wallace Black Elk, Black Elk's grandson, also a medicine man [ [http://www.indianreader.com/blackelk.html A Moment with Wallace Black Elk] ] . It is claimed [ [http://www.indianreader.com/blackelk.html Interview Introduction to Interview with Wallace Black Elk ] that a copy of the book interested scholars in Germany, including the psychologist Carl Jung and that it was was republished in 1961.

Ben Black Elk and the oral legacy

In 1931, Ben Black Elk translated his father's words for John Neihardt. Afterwards and increasingly after his father's death in 1950, Ben Black Elk visited local schools to tell the traditional stories of the Lakota history and culture. Some of those sessions were recorded by a Lakota educator called Warfield Moose, Sr., who entrusted the tapes to his son, Warfield Moose, Jr., in 1996. Warfield Moose, Jr. made a CD of these recordings [ [http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2003-07/a-2003-07-13-25-i-Ben.cfm Ben Black Elks Speaks] ] . This won the award for "Best Historical Recording" at the 2003 Native American Music Awards [ [http://www.nativevillage.org/Messages%20from%20the%20People/2003_native_american_music_award.htm] ] .

Publication data

*"Black Elk Speaks", 1932, William Morrow & Company; 1961 University of Nebraska Press edition with new preface by author, 1979 edition with introduction by Vine Deloria, Jr., 1988 edition: ISBN 0-8032-8359-8, 2000 edition with index: ISBN 0-8032-6170-5.

Controversy

Because the book shows John Neihardt as the author of the book and not just the editor, there has been some weasel-inline controversy Fact|date=August 2008 as to the accuracy of the story from Black Elk's point of viewweasel-inline. To make this book, Black Elk spoke to his son who translated the story into english for John Neihardt and his daughter to record. Because Neihardt is the author he was able to exaggerate or change some parts of the storyweasel-inline.

References

External links

* [http://blackelkspeaks.unl.edu/ Electronic text from University Of Nebraska]
* [http://www.firstpeople.us/articles/Black-Elk-Speaks/Black-Elk-Speaks-Index.html Electronic text on First People]
* [http://www.bookrags.com/biography/john-gneisenau-neihardt-dlb/ Dictionary of Literary Biography on John Gneisenau Neihardt]
* [http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2003-07/a-2003-07-13-25-i-Ben.cfm Ben Black Elk Speaks - Review of CD]
* [http://www.amazon.com/Ben-Black-Elk-Speaks/dp/B00007802P CD Ben Black Elk Speaks - Amazon]