Heavenly Blues

BLACK ELK SPEAKS--John G. Neihardt --Morrow ($3.75).

Though Moses and the Hebrew prophets cornered the Western market long ago, other races, other men have produced scripture too. Such a one is Black Elk, holy medicine man of the Ogalala Sioux. His life story, told to and superbly set down by Poet Neihardt, has the quality of true scripture. More generic than literature, which reflects individual men's spirits, it reflects whatever divine image there may be in a tribe, a race, Man.

Amerindian Black Elk was born in 1863, in time to see and take part in much of the fighting that drove his race off the free earth into government reservations to decay. Treaty after treaty the Indians drew up with the Wasichus (white men) who took what land they wanted, promised the rest should remain Indian "as long as grass should grow and water flow. You can see that it is not the grass and the water that have forgotten."

His first vision came when he was five, his great vision four years later. In it he saw a mythological panorama of his people's fate, was promised magical powers to save. He was carried to the centre of the world ("anywhere is the centre of the world") on the top of Harney Peak in the black Hills. ". . . Beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw. ... 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." On returning to himself he found that he had been lying unconscious for twelve days.

During the ensuing years he fought with his tribe against the Wasichus, took his first scalp at Custer's Last Stand. Though Black Elk fought, fled, starved with the rest, always he pondered how to materialize his vision. At 17 he grew sick with fear because he could do nothing. An old medicine man advised him: "You must do your duty and perform this vision for your people upon earth." Together they organized an elaborate ritual dance. All the people acted out Black Elk's vision in detail. After the dance everybody, even the horses, felt better. Black Elk lost his fear, taught his people more dances, one comic one with heyokas (clowns) to cheer the people up. Suddenly power came to him to cure the sick.

But already the Wasichus were crowding the Indians into reservations. "The people were ... so heavy that it seemed they could not be lifted; so dark that they could not be made to see any more." After four years of curing the sick, Black Elk, to learn from the Wasichus some secret that might help his people, joined Buffalo Bill's Indians, went to New York, London and parts of Europe. He discovered no secret, returned to find the tribes aroused by the Messianic teachings of Wovoka, dancing the ghost dance that meant trouble for Wasichus. The butchering of warriors, women and children at Wounded

Knee (1890) buried the Indian's dream in blood and snow. Black Elk leaves his story there, concludes: "I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth--you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer and the sacred tree is dead."

The Author, Poet Laureate of Nebraska, Author Neihardt knows his Indians well. To the Omahas he is Tae Nuga Zhinga (Little Bull Buffalo); to the Sioux, Igimou Chicakala (Little Cat). He first went to interview Black Elk to get tales of great Chief Crazy Horse; returned for an extended stay to write down the old man's own story. At its conclusion the party went to the top of Harney Peak. There the medicine man delivered his final lamentation for his people; from a droughty sky he called rain to accompany his tears. Black Elk's friend Standing Bear illustrates his visions in his heaven-kissing book.

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