Black Elk Speaks

Black Road enlists the help of a man, Bear Sings, to prepare for Black Elk’s horse dance. The two build a sacred teepee and paint the various images of Black Elk’s vision onto the teepee. Black Elk teaches Black Road and Bear Sings the songs Black Elk had heard in his vision, so that they might sing these songs during the horse dance. Groups of horses and riders gather to represent the four groups of horses Black Elk saw in his vision: black, white, sorrel, and buckskin. Six old men are chosen to be the sacred Grandfathers.

As the dance begins, the six grandfathers sing and introduce each of the horse groups to Black Elk. Afterwards, Black Elk leaves the sacred teepee and mounts his bay horse, and faces westward along with the horse riders and the Grandfathers. In the west, Black Elk sees a thundercloud appear. Within the thundercloud, Black Elk sees his original vision of himself visiting the Grandfathers. Black Elk describes the horse dance in the tribe as akin to “a shadow cast upon the earth from yonder vision in the heavens” (130). Though there is much thunder and lightning, the cloud barely rains—which Black Elk interprets as a sign that the “thunder beings were glad” (131) about the horse dance.

The horse dance begins, with each of the four horse groups riding in a circle around the village. As the horses dance, Black Elk and the Grandfathers sing of the various gifts and powers Black Elk had received in his vision. Many of the townspeople ride their own horses and join the dance. At the end, the Grandfathers look inside the sacred teepee, and see “prints of tiny pony hoofs,” suggesting “spirit horses” had been inside the teepee (134). The ceremony closes with the entire village smoking from the sacred pipe. Black Elk describes how his prior fear vanishes after performing the horse dance.

The Wasichus eventually force the Lakota to leave their camps, telling them that they must go south to join the other Lakota at the new reservations that had been created. Black Elk hears a rumor that the Ogalalas had gone back to their former country, and Black Elk decides to set out and find them. One night, Black Elk sees the two men from his vision, and knows that they want him to “do my duty among the Ogalalas with the power they had brought me in the vision” (137). Black Elk finally reaches the Ogalalas at a place called the Seat of Red Cloud or the Place Where Everything is Disputed, where the Wasichus intend to build a reservation for the Ogalala. However, Black Elk feels alienated from his people, who were not present at the horse dance and do not know of his vision. 

Black Elk sets out to “lament” with a medicine man named Few Tails (139). The two venture to a secluded hill, where Few Tails prepares the area for Black Elk’s ceremony. Once alone, Black Elk walks around, wailing and asking the spirits to provide him with understanding of how he should help his people. Black Elk sees several birds appear, as well as a swarm of butterflies. The birds tell Black Elk that the butterflies represent his nation. Black Elk then sees “heads of dogs […] peeping” (141) out of a cloud of dust. The butterflies transform into swallows and begin attacking the dogs, whose heads transform into “the heads of Wasichus” (142). The next day, Black Elk returns to the town, where he decides to “perform the dog vision” (144) for the rest of his people. Black Elk is told to perform the vision with heyokas, or “sacred fools,” who will help his people laugh during the performance (144).

Twenty days after the vision, Black Elk performs a ceremony with the heyokas. Black Elk describes the heyokas as groups of individuals who have experienced “visions of the thunder beings” (145). The heyokas perform ceremonies “backwards” to make people watching laugh and become full of joy (145). In the ceremony, Black Elk and the heyokas prepare a dog for offering to the Great Spirit, with the heyokas killing the dog by strangling it with a noose. Afterwards, the heyokas cut away all of the dog’s body, besides “the head, the spine, and the tail” (146), and then place it to boil in a pot. As the dog boils, the heyokas gather and perform “foolish tricks” while singing songs about the vision (147). Afterwards, Black Elk is joined by a man, One Side, who charge towards the pot on horseback and grab at the dog’s head and heart. The ceremony closes with the Ogalala people eating the dog flesh, which acts like a “medicine to make them happier and stronger” (149). 

Black Elk describes how after the heyoka ceremony he moves and settles between “Wounded Knee Creek and Grass Creek” (150). Black Elk and his people build log cabins according to the Wasichu customs. Black Elk explains how the cabins are improper to live in, as they are square rather than round like teepees. Black Elk and other Lakota believe that one must model their life after circles, as “everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle” (150). Black Elk believes that living in rectangular buildings weakens a person’s health and saps their power.

Black Elk sets out with his friend One Side to search for a powerful herb that he had seen in both of his earlier visions. Though Black Elk has never seen the herb in person, he believes it will grant him immense power. He finds the herb near the site of his prior dog vision. The herb is unique as it is “flowering in four colors, blue, white, red, and yellow” (152). The next day, Black Elk is approached by a Lakota whose son is gravely ill. Black Elk prepares a ceremony to attempt to heal the boy using the power from his visions, though Black Elk is “afraid” as he has never attempted such a feat before (153). The ceremony begins with Black Elk walking counterclockwise around the boy’s teepee, which follows the directions that Lakota believe one’s life takes. Afterwards, Black Elk prays to the six Grandfathers he had seen in his prior vision, and offers the boy a cup of water with bits of the herb in it. The ceremony is a success, and the boy is healed within several days afterward.

Black Elk explains that the usage of the powers granted in his vision depends on performing the vision in a ceremony “on earth for the people to see” (157). Afterwards, Black Elk is able to employ the powers granted him in the vision to help people. Black Elk clarifies that he himself is merely channeling powers of the spirits, and does not contain the power to heal within himself. Black Elk compares himself to a “hole through which the power could come” (157) to his fellow people.

Black Elk decides to perform other parts of his visions that he had not previously told anyone about. One of these involves a red man who transforms into a bison and leads people down a “good red road” to prosperity—an image representing “the relation between the people and the bison” (158). To release the power of this part of the vision, Black Elk and his friend One Side perform a ceremony in which they are painted red and wear bison horns. The two then walk around the village behaving like bison and offering Lakota children to drink the “water of life from the wooden cup” (160). During the next summer, Black Elk performs a ceremony representing a part of his vision in which elk appear in the south, representing “the source of life and the mystery of growing” (160). Black Elk and several other men dress as elk, dancing around the village and making offerings to the spirits.

Black Elk’s people begin living in rectangular buildings, and are forced to live within reservations by the Wasichus. The Wasichus begin to kill great numbers of bison in order to take the bison’s hides. Black Elk mourns the loss of bison and of the Lakota’s former ways of living. Black Elk describes how the symbolic “sacred hoop” that lies at the center of the Lakota nation and allows a “holy tree” to grow has become “broken and scattered” (165). Black Elk’s vision had depicted him healing this sacred hoop, but he is unsure of how to fulfill this duty.

Black Elk and other Ogalala are invited by Buffalo Bill (called Pahuska) to travel across America and Europe in a show of Native Americans. Though Black Elk’s parents feel he should remain with the other Lakota and continue to heal the sick, Black Elk wants to travel and learn more about how the Wasichu live. Black Elk is taken by wagons to New York via Omaha and Chicago. He is shocked to see such massive cities, and expresses dismay to see how separate Wasichus live from the natural world. Black Elk also notes the greediness of many Wasichus, hoarding money for themselves while others “had nothing at all and maybe were starving” (167). Black Elk and his fellow Ogalala perform Lakota dances and songs for Wasichus at Madison Square Garden.

After several months, Black Elk and the Ogalala are taken aboard a “very big fire-boat” to cross the Atlantic and perform in London (167). During the voyage, a storm strikes, leaving the Native Americans onboard in fear that they are about to die. Though they survive, several of the bison and elk that had been brought along perish, and their carcasses are thrown into the ocean. Once in London, Black Elk performs in numerous shows, including a performance for Grandmother England (Queen Victoria). The Queen is delighted by their performance and tells the Native Americans that she would never “let them take you around in a show like this” if she had been their ruler (170). Grandmother England invites the Native Americans to an event at her palace, where she bows to them. In return, the Native Americans sing a song for her. 

The show travels to Manchester, where they put on shows for several months. On the day the show is meant to travel, Black Elk and several other men get lost in Manchester and miss the boat. Unsure what to do, and unable to speak “the Wasichu language,” the group travel to join a Native American show in London lead by a man named Mexican Joe (172). The group travels and performs in Paris and Germany. While in Paris, Black Elk starts a relationship with a Parisian girl, and becomes close with her family, although he still cannot speak the language.

One day, while having breakfast with the family, Black Elk has a vision. He sees the roof of the girl’s house fall away, and a cloud comes down and takes Black Elk into the sky. The cloud travels with Black Elk across the Atlantic and over New York until it reaches the Pine Ridge reservation, where Black Elk sees all of the Lakota people camped. Black Elk looks down and makes eye contact with his mother, at which point the cloud travels back “very fast” to Paris (174). Black Elk awakens in a bed in Paris, with his girlfriend’s family and a doctor staring at him. Black Elk learns that during his vision, he had appeared dead for three days and was barely breathing. Soon after, Black Elk learns that Buffalo Bill is in Paris with his show. Buffalo Bill gives Black Elk a ticket to travel back home. After a long period of travel, Black Elk finally returns to his family at Pine Ridge following three years of being away. Black Elk’s mother tells him that one night she dreamed she had seen him visit in a cloud.