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I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.

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

Boys Girl Girls Learned Warrior
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
Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
BLACK ELK

Circles Country Native Power
It’s in the darkness of men’s eyes that they get lost.
BLACK ELK

Darkness Eye Lost Men
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
The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
BLACK ELK

Country Meaning Native Power Understanding
And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.
BLACK ELK

Children Daylight Flowering Hoops Shelter
I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
BLACK ELK

Circles Country Native Shapes
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

Deeply Great Intends Love Spirit
Behold this day. It is yours to make.
BLACK ELK

Behold Inspirational Life
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 ELK

Air Country Eagle Feathered Wings
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
Everything 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 ELK

Circles Country Native Strong
Grown men may learn from very little children, for the hearts of little children are pure, and, therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss.
BLACK ELK

Children Country Heart Native
Everything tries to be round.
BLACK ELK

Education Statistics Trying
It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds.
BLACK ELK

Bird Bloom Depression Roots Singing

I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.

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I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.

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