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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
I enjoyed reading it but I am suspicious of the accuracy and would like to read the fancy annotated version and DeMallie's book about the process of this book before I rate it.
After reading The Sixth Grandfather: You should definitely read that instead of/in addition to this.
After reading The Sixth Grandfather: You should definitely read that instead of/in addition to this.
I first read this three years ago for a Native American Traditions course that explained and discussed the issues surrounding the making and translating of this retold memoir. Critics are quick to point out some of these issues, something along the lines of: a good-hearted attempt by a white man to give voice to a Native American healer and ex-warrior of a time that most contemporary Americans forgot about, never learned about, or do not know much about, or consider it a non-issue. The criticisms center around Neihardt's prose writing, which comes from his daughter's shorthand of a Native American's instant translation of his fellow Black Elk's retelling of his own memoir. This criticism holds if one is looking for authenticity and Black Elk's true voice and roots, but that wasn't quite the goal of Neihardt, for good or bad. These author criticisms aside, the memoir is important for what it discloses about Black Elk and his contemporaries' lives and their distinct-from-a-Western-worldview. The history Black Elk discloses, from Custer to the Sun Dance, the Ghost Dance, and the Wounded Knee massacre, are told and described vividly with a perspective that is believable, interesting, and sombre. While it would be amazing to know exactly what Black Elk spoke of to Neihardt, Black Elk does come from a storytelling culture and something will ALWAYS be missing when one is reading a vocal account due to the reader's inability to actually HEAR it him/herself.
The words of Black Elk and his friends about their life experiences brings to life a side of the story of the American west that isn't often told, and when it is it isn't usually the main focus of the narrative. The descriptions of people and places fills in my picture of that time in history. Black Elk's experiences and his views on his culture as well as the wasichu culture were very interesting and paints a picture of a way of life that has, for the most part, disappeared. I also found the introductory words and epilogue interesting as they demonstrated the interaction between Black Elk and Neihardt and his party as they both worked to get the life story of Black Elk recorded.
This is the story of Black Elk as told by John G. Neihardt. It's the "as told by" that knocks my rating down from 5 stars. According to the notes in the appendix (which I was grateful for), Neihardt took quite a bit of poetic license in extrapolating what he thought Black Elk meant by what he said or felt at various times.
Black Elk lived from 1863 to 1950, although this book wraps up shortly after the Indian Wars were concluded (read: the US government and people got their way and most of the native lands). Black Elk was a medicine man and holy man of the Oglala Lakota tribe. He was cousin to Crazy Horse. This is his experience woven through the background of the greater Native experience.
Again, I'm aghast at all of this being skipped in history teaching in our schools.
This book was readable. It did have several prefaces and introductions. And oh so many appendices. Honestly, I skimmed some of those.
A valuable read for anyone.
Read more of my reviews at https://mommyreadsbooks.blogspot.com/
Black Elk lived from 1863 to 1950, although this book wraps up shortly after the Indian Wars were concluded (read: the US government and people got their way and most of the native lands). Black Elk was a medicine man and holy man of the Oglala Lakota tribe. He was cousin to Crazy Horse. This is his experience woven through the background of the greater Native experience.
Again, I'm aghast at all of this being skipped in history teaching in our schools.
This book was readable. It did have several prefaces and introductions. And oh so many appendices. Honestly, I skimmed some of those.
A valuable read for anyone.
Read more of my reviews at https://mommyreadsbooks.blogspot.com/
Because I have read "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee", I'm familiar with some of the events and the people mentioned by Black Elk in this transcription of his life story by John Neihardt. Black Elk was present at the Battle of Little Bighorn and at the ghost dances at Pine Ridge. He knew Crazy Horse and toured with Buffalo Bill's show in the US and in England. His story of his visions, what they meant, and his vocation as a medicine man among the Lakota form the spiritual part of the book. While the book is touted as a spiritual work for all humankind, I think that Black Elk would be pretty clear that the visions were specifically for his people, the Lakota. I would be interested in checking the original transcriptions on which this book is based since Neihardt is known to have embellished the language. I read this book for my 2016 Reading Challenge "read a book about an indigenous culture" (Bustle Reads).
Here is my blog entry on what this book made me think. I include this in lieu of a review because I feel this concept I pulled from the story matters more than what I think of the actual story.
http://schuhmachersmusings.blogspot.com/2017/06/my-thoughts-on-black-elk-speaks.html
http://schuhmachersmusings.blogspot.com/2017/06/my-thoughts-on-black-elk-speaks.html
It's unclear how I feel about this book. To begin, I'm not someone who believes in any higher spiritual power, and yet much of the book is Black Elk detailing his visions from the Spirit World in his attempt to use them to save his people. While I fully appreciate and believe that he believes this, it's hard for me to look past that aspect and I must confess, much of it did not hold my interest. On the other hand, and as an account of much of the history in the late 1800s between whites and American Indians, I found his stories fascinating and revealing about parts of USA history that I had never been taught or had been poorly taught. It is poetic and well written, but the biggest question, the biggest thing that gives me pause in the whole book, is the numerous footnotes saying that the interviewer/documenter had added a paragraph or a sentence in that Black Elk didn't say. It feels like artistic/journalistic/historical dishonesty and a lack of integrity that Black Elk's works were not enough, that the white man he is speaking to must inject himself into the book for it to somehow be incomplete. I also did not have the time to chase down every footnote, so it became a guessing game where Black Elk actually said the words, or when he was being embellished on. I was glad to experience this book, but I wish I had read it as part of an American Indian studies class, so that I could have an educated professor to guide me through it, and a classroom of others whom I could consult with my questions and concerns.