Black Elk

Oglala Lakota holy man and warrior, c. 1863–1950. Cousin of Crazy Horse. At nine he had a great vision of the six grandfathers of the four directions, the sky, and the earth — a vision he carried, mostly unspoken, for the rest of his life. He fought as a teenager at the Little Bighorn and was at Wounded Knee in 1890 when his people were massacred there. He became a Catholic catechist in middle age — there is still debate about how to read this — but never stopped being Lakota. In 1930 he told his vision to the poet John Neihardt in long sessions through an interpreter; the book that resulted, *Black Elk Speaks*, became one of the most important spiritual books of the twentieth century. Core teaching: the sacred hoop of the people was broken at Wounded Knee, but the vision is still alive. Walk the good red road. The center of the world is wherever you are standing in right relationship to all things. Key works: *Black Elk Speaks* (as told to John Neihardt), *The Sacred Pipe* (as told to Joseph Epes Brown).