and heart life.” This life song is inside each of us. “The world is full of people,” Campbell goes on, “who have stopped listening to themselves.” They go with society’s demands and live a life that their inner voice is not interested in at all.
And so the journey along the ancient path begins: finding a sacred place and igniting the first beacon. The following Meditative Reading introduces Black Elk as he talks about the experiences of his early years living in his “sacred place” on the Great Plains.
Meditative Reading
The Thunder-Beings Speak A Message of Fire and Ice
Black Elk recalls his life as a young boy. He tells of his early visions, the voices calling to him, and at age nine, receiving the Great Vision.
My name is Black Elk, I am 67 years old. I was born on Little Powder River in 1863, the Winter When the Four Crows Were Killed on the Tongue River. To begin with, I am the fourth of the name Black Elk. My father was a medicine man and was brother to several other medicine men. My father was cousin to Crazy Horse’s father.
When I was four years old, I played a little here and there and while playing I would hear a voice singing now and then, but I did not catch it very well then. The first time I rode a horse I was five years old and my father made me some bows and arrows. This was in the spring. I was out in the woods trying to get a bird and just as I was going into the woods there was a thunderstorm coming and I heard a voice over there. This was not a dream, it actually happened. I saw two men coming out of a cloud with spears. As I was looking up to that, there was a kingbird sitting there and these two men were coming toward me singing the sacred song and that bird told me to listen to the two men. The kingbird said: “Look, the clouds all over are one-sided, a voice is calling to you. I looked up and the two men were coming down singing:
Behold him, a sacred voice is calling you.
All over the sky a sacred voice is calling you
I stood gazing at them and they were coming from the north; then they started toward the west and were geese. This vision lasted about twenty minutes.
When I was six years old, it seemed that at times I would hear something calling me, and then at other times I would forget entirely about this voice.
It was 1873, I was now almost ten years old. Close to the Crow Camp on the Little Big Horn I was riding along and I heard something calling me again. Just before we got to Greasy Grass Creek (the Little Big Horn), they camped again for the night. There was a man by the name of Man Hip who invited me for supper. While eating I heard a voice. I heard someone say, “It is time, now they are calling you.” I knew then that I was called upon by the spirits so I thought I’d just go where they wanted me to. As I came out of the tent both of my thighs hurt me.
The next morning they broke camp and I started out with some others on horseback. We stopped at a creek to get a drink. When I got off my horse I crumbled down and I couldn’t walk. The boys helped me up and when the people camped again, I was very sick. They went on, taking me to the Sioux band camp and I was still pretty sick. Both my legs and arms were swollen badly and even my face. This all came suddenly.
As I lay in the tipi I could see through the tipi the same two men whom I saw before and they were coming from the clouds, Then I recognized them as the same men I had seen before my first vision. They came and stood off aways from me and stopped, saying: “Hurry up, your grandfather is calling you.” When they started back I got up and started to follow them. Just as I got out of the tipi I could see the two men going back into the clouds and there was a small cloud coming down toward me at the same time, which stood before me. I got on top of the cloud and was raised up, following the two men, and when I looked back, I saw my father and mother looking at me. When I looked back I felt sorry that I was leaving them.
Black Elk Is Given the Great Vision (included in its entirety as a conclusion to this narrative)
The next thing I heard was somebody saying: “The boy is feeling better now, you had better give him some water.” I looked up and saw it was my mother and father stooping over me. They were giving me some medicine but it was not that that cured me—it was my vision that cured me. The first thought that came to me was that I had been traveling and my father and mother didn’t seem to know that I had been gone and they didn’t look glad. I felt very sad over this.
I felt that my mother and father did not welcome me and when I came to, I found out that my whole body was swollen and puffed. As I thought about it, I knew that I had gone someplace. Standing Bear’s uncle was a medicine man called Whirlwind Chaser and he was treating me at this time. When I came to I felt better and wanted to go out and run around right away, but my parents wouldn’t let me. Next morning I was myself again and the vision was, of course, still in my mind. When they broke camp I thought it over and thought it was a wonderful place I went to. I thought the people should know it and I felt as though I wanted them to know about it. I pondered over it and at times I did not want to think about it. The medicine man got a great name because I was cured by him.
The next day we reached the Soldiers’ Camp. There were only about twenty tipis of the Oglalas that were traveling to the fort—the main band stayed back. When we reached the camp we scattered out among the relatives of ours. I had an aunt there and I made camp there right beside her tipi. Part of the Oglalas camped by the White Butte at Fort Robinson.
We stayed all winter at Fort Robinson. I was now ten years old. The only thing we did here was to make Indian sleds and coast down the hills and we also whipped the tops on the ice. The sleds were made out of jaws and ribs of buffalo, tied together with rawhide.
During the Spring we started back to the Tongue River and camped at Fort Keogh. We had a sun dance here. After the sun dance I recalled my vision and I was very much in fear and it seemed as though I hated to see a cloud. I could hear the Thunder-beings calling. I could understand the birds whenever they sang. When a cloud appeared with the birds it seemed that they would say: “Behold your grandfathers; make haste.” From here on I couldn’t get along with men – I had to get out and think about this and I knew all the time I had something to do but I couldn’t figure out what it was that I was to do that I didn’t do. I was always afraid of the spirits. All this summer I thought that every time there was lightning and thunderstorms I was afraid. I just pondered and wondered and thought and it seemed that I just held back, but I did not want to tell my mother and father, for they would think I was getting odd again. I would take my horse and go out by myself and compare everything on earth with the things in my vision. I was glad that it was getting fall because the Thunder-beings would quit coming, because I feared the Thunder-beings so bad.
In the moon when the ponies shed (May) we broke camp again and we started for the Black Hills to cut tipi poles for the tipis. There were about thirty tipis in the band now.
As I looked up I heard the shrill whistle of an eagle and I wondered if this eagle wasn’t the one of my vision, which was guarding me. I thought also that the people around me might be the nation of my vision. Whenever I saw a cloud appearing it seemed that someone was coming to see me and that some day it would be a duty for me to do something for my nation.
Next morning men got on horses and got axes ready to get tipi poles, They followed the Rapid Creek into the hills and into the thick of the forest and began cutting tipi poles, There were lots of slim poles, for no one at this time had bothered them at all. They brought them back and began to strip and dress the poles. Some of us knew how to strip them and some did not, so the work was rather slow. Men had gone out on a hunt so we had plenty of meat—bear meat, etc. We were sitting around camp boiling bear
