Black Elks religion and spiritual practices

Black Elk's Religion member of the Oglala Sioux nation, Black Elk was nine years of age when he had a mystical vision that spoke to the future well-being of his own tribe and that of all living things (Wink 2000). When he was seventeen, he finally spoke of it to a wise medicine man who in turn encouraged him to share it with his tribe, saying, "You must do your duty and perform this vision for your people upon earth" (Wink 2000). Black Elk's vision offered hope and the opportunity of harmony.

Black Elk, born in 1863 on the Little Powder River, was the fourth person in his family to bear the name. During his lifetime, he experienced the end of the Sioux wars with the United States and the beginning of the oppressive polices toward his people, and lived during the early reservation period before the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act went into effect (Hoxie 1996). He was only three years old when the Fetterman Battle was fought, five years old during the signing of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, and a young adolescent during the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Hoxie 1996). He was twenty-seven years old when Chief Big Foot and his men were massacred at Wounded Knee Creek in 1890, and event that happened just eight miles from his own home at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (Hoxie 1996).

During Black Elk's young adulthood, missionaries tried to convert the Oglala Lakotas to Christianity, with few escaping the intense measure inflicted upon those who resisted, including Black Elk (Hoxie 1996). He attempted to understand Christianity after he was subjugated to it, and was even baptized Nicholas Black Elk on December 06, 1904, at the Holy Rosary Mission dear Pine Ridge, South Dakota (Hoxie 1996). Although Catholicism was forced upon him, Black Elk played the role well to appease his oppressors (Hoxie 1996).

In his vision, the Powers of the World, which were portrayed as the Grandfathers who represented the powers of the four directions, north, south, east and west, gave Black Elk a gift and a special power (Black). With the gifts, the grandfathers also gave him the center of the nation's hoop, saying, "Behold a nation, it is your. Behold, they have given you the center of the nation's hoop to make it live" (Black).

Black Elk's vision took place during an illness that lasted for twelve days, in which he appeared to be near death, and afterward his people saw a light emanating from him which established him as a sacred being, a holy man (Downey 1994). After receiving the vision, Black Elk became responsible for being an intermediary between the Spirit World and his nation on earth (Downey 1994). He had to communicate his vision by re-enacting it with his tribesmen as participants, for it was his duty to keep his nation intact through his vision (Downey 1994). Black Elk described the climax of his vision saying:

Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world... And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father.

And I saw that it was holy (Downey 1994).

In this vision, Black Elk also sees that ultimately "the nation's hoop would be broken and the flowering tree be withered," and that it was his responsibility to "bring the hoop together with the power that was given [him], and make the holy tree... flower in the center" (Downey 1994).

Black Elk shared his vision with the entire tribe, which then carefully enacted each detail (Wink 2000). They gathered sixteen horses: four black horses which represented the west, four white horses for the north, four sorrels for the east, and four buckskins for the south, and all with riders painted accordingly (Wink 2000). Then they began dancing, wheeling from one quadrant of the sacred circle to the next, drawing everyone into the circle until all were within the center (Wink 2000). A stick was planted in the earth that would flower as a sign of life and hope for the Sioux tribe (Wink 2000).

Black Elk never doubted that his vision depicted the harmony and life that the Great Spirit wanted for all human beings on earth, yet due to the suffering the Sioux endured by the United States policies, he felt that the vision had failed, and even blamed himself (Wink 2000). Toward the end of his life, Black Elk once said,

And now when I look about me upon my people in despair, feel like crying, and I wish and wish that my vision could have been given to a man more worthy. I wonder why it came to me, a pitiful old man who can do nothing. Men and women and children I have cured of sickness with the power the vision gave me; but my nation I could not help. If a man or woman or child dies, it does not matter long, for the nation lives on. It was the nation that was dying, and the vision was for the nation; but have done nothing with it (Wink 2000).

The massacre at Wounded Knee had so devastated Black Elk that much of his last years were filled with bitter sadness at the life forced upon his people by white colonizers (Downey 1994). Speaking of the massacre, he said, "...something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream... The notion's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead" (Downey 1994).

Although the last years of his life were filled with sadness, Black Elk was a devout catholic and held the teachings sacred. His daughter Lucy recalled that he often walked for miles to find a priest who would administer last rights (Black). Yet, his Lakota spirituality remained strong, and the underground traditional religious activities became a vital part of his life (Hoxie 1996). Black Elk mastered both, for he feared U.S. policies would eventually destroy the Lakota identity (Hoxie 1996). His religion had a huge impact on his community, and many Sioux came to him for advice and healing (Black).