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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

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
Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
BLACK ELK

Earth Prayer Steps
Any man who is attached to things of this world is one who lives in ignorance and is being consumed by the snakes of his own passions
BLACK ELK

Ignorance Men Passion
I 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 ELK

Good Memory People Some Vision
I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
BLACK ELK

Circles Country Native Shapes
It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
BLACK ELK

Darkness Eye Men
Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
BLACK ELK

Birds Nests Religion Same
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
Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
BLACK ELK

Circles Country Native Power
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
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 hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.
BLACK ELK

Animal Country Down Hawk Lament Swoops
And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.
BLACK ELK

Circles Country Inspirational Native
And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
BLACK ELK

Breath Country Lightning Native
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
I cured with the power that came through me. Of course, it was not I who cured,it was the power from the Outer World.
BLACK ELK

Cured Outer Power Two Vision World

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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