The hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.
BLACK ELKThe hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.
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.
BLACK ELKI might have been less good to the people than some man who had never dreamed at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me.
BLACK ELKWe should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples.
BLACK ELKI was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
BLACK ELKPerhaps 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 ELKLet every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
BLACK ELKThe Universe is circles within circles, and everything is one circle, and all the circles are connected to each other.
BLACK ELKHe who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything; then he knows that world which is real.
BLACK ELKCrazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that world….
BLACK ELKEverything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.
BLACK ELKThey told me I had been sick twelve days, lying like dead all the while, and that Whirlwind Chaser, who was Standing Bear’s uncle and a medicine man, had brought me back to life.
BLACK ELKI cured with the power that came through me.
BLACK ELKThe 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 ELKAnd I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
BLACK ELKAs you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer.
BLACK ELK