S. D. Nelson - Black Elks Vision: A Lakota Story
Here you can read online S. D. Nelson - Black Elks Vision: A Lakota Story full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2014, publisher: ABRAMS, Inc. (Ignition), genre: Home and family. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:
Romance novel
Science fiction
Adventure
Detective
Science
History
Home and family
Prose
Art
Politics
Computer
Non-fiction
Religion
Business
Children
Humor
Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.
- Book:Black Elks Vision: A Lakota Story
- Author:
- Publisher:ABRAMS, Inc. (Ignition)
- Genre:
- Year:2014
- Rating:5 / 5
- Favourites:Add to favourites
- Your mark:
Black Elks Vision: A Lakota Story: summary, description and annotation
We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Black Elks Vision: A Lakota Story" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.
Black Elk (18631950) was a Lakota-Oglala medicine man and a cousin of Crazy Horse. This biographical account follows him from childhood through adulthood, recounting the visions he had as a young boy and describing his involvement in the battles of Little Big Horn and Wounded Knee, as well as his journeys to New York City and Europe with Buffalo Bills Wild West Show.
Award-winning author and member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe S. D. Nelson tells the story of Black Elk through the voice of the medicine man, bringing to life what it was like to be Native American from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. The Native people found their land overrun by the wasichus (White Man), the buffalo slaughtered for sport, and their people gathered onto reservations.
Interspersing archival images with his own artwork, inspired by the ledger-art drawings of the nineteenth-century Lakota, Nelson conveys how Black Elk clung to his childhood vision, which planted the seeds to help his people-and all people-understand their place in the Circle of Life. Backmatter includes a Lakota description of the Circle of Life, a brief history of the Lakota and a timeline.
Colorful, imaginative artwork, created using pencils and acrylic paints, is interspersed with nineteenth-century photos, underscoring that this dramatic account reflects the experiences of a man who witnessed history. -Booklist (starred review)
An important contribution to Native biography. -School Library Journal
S. D. Nelson: author's other books
Who wrote Black Elks Vision: A Lakota Story? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Black Elks Vision: A Lakota Story — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work
Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Black Elks Vision: A Lakota Story" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.
Font size:
Interval:
Bookmark:
... while I stood there I saw more than I can tell
and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing
in a sacred manner the shapes of all things...
Black Elk
opposite: Black Elk and Elk in dance costume, as they appeared when touring England with the Buffalo Bill show.
Circa 1887.
Stay close to the tipi, our mother warned.
If you children wander away, the Wha-shi-choos will snatch you. I had never seen a Wha-shi-choo. I feared them. They had white faces and had started terrible battles against our people. So we stayed close to home and played like nervous young rabbits. We knew enemy eyes could be watching from the tall grass.
I was four years old in 1867 when I first heard the spirit voices. They sounded like my mother calling me. But when I looked she was not there. Then a year later I heard and saw the spirits. I had ridden my pony into the woods near our village. A kingbird chirruped from a tree branch, and the clouds turned dark above. The bird spoke: The clouds above watch you. A voice calls you. Do you hear?
A great wind roared in the treetops. Lightning flared all about. Then two Cloud People appeared from the storm overhead. Thunder drummed in my ears, and the two spirits sang: ________________
Behold, a sacred voice is calling you;
All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.
Rain poured down upon my pony and me. We stood our ground. The spirit of the West Wind whirled all about us. Then the chanting Cloud People turned into geese. Together with the kingbird, the winged-ones flew away into the storm. Although I was only a small boy, I had been shown something extraordinary. I told no one about my vision. I feared they would laugh and call me foolish. Still, I often wondered about what I saw.
Before the Wha-shi-choos came into our country, the Cloud People lived in the blue sky above. There were no wagon roads or iron-horse rails dividing the land. My people, the Lakota, lived freely on the open prairies. We followed the great herds of buffalo. They were our brothers. They provided us with food, and we used their skins to make our clothing and tipis. Along with the women, we children would gather berries and dig for wild turnips from Mother Earth. As I grew older, we boys played at being hunters and warriors. We learned to shoot arrows while riding our horses at a gallop. We wrestled and played many rough-and-tumble games.
above: Buffalo meat drying near the
Yellowstone River. 1877.
right: Women preparing buffalo
hides. Circa 1890.
There were many happy times with good belly laughs. In our village certain men often performed silly antics. We called such men heyokas. They were foolish clowns, and yet they were holy. For laughter itself is a holy gift. Sometimes these men would paint their bodies and wear masks. They usually did things backwardthey would say good-bye when they meant hello, or say Im not hungry when they wanted something to eat.
I remember when two heyokas rode on one horse into our village. They rode backward, of course. A crowd of villagers gathered around for the entertainment. One heyoka fell off into a puddle. He splashed around and pretended he was drowning in a great riverwhich was ridiculous! The other heyoka jumped in to save him. The two men flopped around until they were covered in mud. Finally, they just sat there crying like babies. It was the funniest thing I have ever seen. We all laughed so hard that our stomachs hurt.
The seasons passedautumn into winter and spring into summer. As I grew older, when I was alone, I would sometimes hear the spirit voices. But I never told anyone. It seemed we had an endless supply of days to be lived beneath the open blue sky. But our world was changing. The Wha-shi-choos, the White People, came into our country looking for the yellow metal they called gold. They made lines on our land with their wagon roads and their iron rails. Still, when the buffalo herds moved, we followed. The Circle of Life held firm against these strange forces.
opposite and bottom left:
Trains and covered wagons brought
more and more Wha-shi-choos west,
invading the hunting grounds and
territories of the Indians. Circa late
nineteenth century.
top left: A mining camp sprawls
across Lakota hunting grounds in
Deadwood, South Dakota. Circa late
nineteenth century.
In 1872, when I was nine years old, our entire village was on such a move. Horses carried people and hauled all of our supplies. One day we boys rode our horses beneath a stand of cottonwood trees. Others were laughing and joking, but I felt dizzy and strangely sick. We stopped by a stream to drink and to water our horses. My arms and my legs ached. When I climbed down from my pony, my legs folded beneath me. I spent the night with a fever. The next day I was too sick to ride. Instead, I was laid on a pony drag and pulled all the way to our new encampment. My parents were very worried.
Font size:
Interval:
Bookmark:
Similar books «Black Elks Vision: A Lakota Story»
Look at similar books to Black Elks Vision: A Lakota Story. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.
Discussion, reviews of the book Black Elks Vision: A Lakota Story and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.