August 19--Nicholas Black Elk, Holy Man

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John G. Neihardt wrote Black Elk Speaks as an account of the destruction of the Native American culture with the Massacre of Wounded Knee as the final battle of the Indian Wars. But there is more to his life than the ending of a time and culture. Black Elk was a boy of nine when he had a vision where he was visited by spirits, shown the sacred tree, and called to save his people. His vision became the core of Neihardt’s book, as well as his life up to Wounded Knee.

He came from a long line of medicine men. He participated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn and traveled to England with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. He also fought at and survived Wounded Knee. That is where Black Elk Speaks ends with a later postscript showing Black Elk on top of Harney Peak, now named Black Elk Peak. There is no mention of how Black Elk became Nicholas Black Elk, a Catholic catechist.

Black Elk was baptized Nicholas in 1904 and was appointed a catechist on the Pine Ridge Reservation. As a catechist, he taught his people how Catholicism connects with the Lakota traditions and beliefs. He converted 400 people. At the end of his life, he wrote a book called The Sacred Pipe, whose purpose was stated: “It is my prayer that, through our sacred pipe, and through this book in which I shall explain what our pipe really is, peace may come to those peoples who can understand, and understanding which must be of the heart and not of the head alone. Then they will realize that we Indians know the One true God, and that we pray to Him continually.” His cause for canonization was opened in the Rapid City Diocese in 2017.

*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Elk.jpg

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