B L A C K E L K

Black Elk was an Oglala Sioux holy man from the Dakotas born in the late 1800's.   His visions and wisdom have become prophesy.

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I was four years old then,  and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.  It was a happy summer and nothing was afraid,  because in the Moon When the Ponies Shed (May) word came from the Wasichus [the White Men] that there would be peace and that they would not use the road any more and that all the soldiers would go away.  The soldiers did go away and their towns were torn down;  and in the Moon of Falling Leaves (November),  they made a treaty with Red Cloud that said our country would be ours as long as grass should grow and water flow.  You can see that it is not the grass and the water that have forgotten.

　

Maybe it was not this summer when I first heard the voices,  but I think it was,  because I know it was before I played with bows and arrows or rode a horse,  and I was out playing alone when I heard them.  It was like somebody calling me,  and I thought it was my mother,  but there was nobody there.  This happened more than once,  and always made me afraid,  so that I ran home.