For instance, the coyote is sly, so is the Indian. The eagle is the same. That is why the Indian is always feathered up, he is a relative to the wings of the air.
BLACK ELKI think I have told you, but if I have not, you must have understood, that a man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see.
More Black Elk Quotes
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Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred.
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Once we were happy in our own country and we were seldom hungry, for then the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds lived together like relatives, and there was plenty for them and for us.
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When we do understand all this deeply in our hearts, then we will fear, and love, and know the Great Spirit, and then we will be and act and live as the Spirit intends.
BLACK ELK -
I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.
BLACK ELK -
I think I have told you, but if I have not, you must have understood, that a man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see.
BLACK ELK -
The boys of my people began very young to learn the ways of men, and no one taught us; we just learned by doing what we saw, and we were warriors at a time when boys now are like girls.
BLACK ELK -
Perhaps you have noticed that even in the very lightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in differing ways.
BLACK ELK -
And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
BLACK ELK -
Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
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I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
BLACK ELK -
Now suddenly there was nothing but a world of cloud, and we three were there alone in the middle of a great white plain with snowy hills and mountains staring at us; and it was very still; but there were whispers.
BLACK ELK -
Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.
BLACK ELK -
Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
BLACK ELK -
You remember that my great vision came to me when I was only nine years old, and you have seen that I was not much good for anything until after I had performed the horse dance near the mouth of the Tongue River during my eighteenth summer.
BLACK ELK -
The hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.
BLACK ELK