laurahastoomanywips 's review for:

Black Elk Speaks: The Complete Edition by John G. Neihardt

4.0

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This is a very moving telling of a part of Black Elk's personal history. Black Elk, a medicine/holy man shares the vision he had when he was 9, and subsequent visions with poet John Neihardt. He tells how sections of this vision were interpreted into dances for the tribe to participate in, in the hope that they would return to the time where they lived on the land as they originally did and were no longer threatened by the "white man". This is interwoven with the history of the Indian tribes of that time, including "Custer's last stand", the killing of Crazy Horse and the slaughter at Wounded knee.
This was often a difficult read given the treatment of Indians at that time but it gave a glimpse into a way of life/religion that is under threat of being lost.