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The hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.

Black Elk

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.
BLACK ELK

Country Dirty Legend Lying Seldom
The song and the drumming were like this: Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.
BLACK ELK

Country Native Sky Song
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

Boys Girl Girls Learned Warrior
But the Wasichus came, and they have made little islands for us and other little islands for the four-leggeds, and always these islands are becoming smaller, for around them surges the gnawing flood of the Wasichu; and it is dirty with lies and greed.
BLACK ELK

Around Islands Legegd Little Smaler
The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
BLACK ELK

Childhood Everything Life Moves Person
If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish.
BLACK ELK

Close Doing Everything Foolish
The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls.
BLACK ELK

Country Native Stars Wind
I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
BLACK ELK

Summer Thinking Years
If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish.
BLACK ELK

Country Everything Foolish Native
Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me.
BLACK ELK

Fog Glowing Meaning Talk Thinking Words
It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
BLACK ELK

Darkness Eye Men
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

Anything Country Horse Native Summer Years
The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
BLACK ELK

Country Meaning Native Power Understanding
I cured with the power that came through me.
BLACK ELK

Advertising Agencies Country Dream Native Power
As you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer.
BLACK ELK

Earth Prayer Sacred
Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations.
BLACK ELK

Country Honesty Inspirational Native True

The hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.

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The hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.

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Popular Authors

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