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Black Elk

Black Elk Quotes

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Famous Black Elk Quotes

“Crazy Horse was dead. He was brave and good and wise. He never wanted anything but to save his people, and he fought the Wasichus only when they came to kill us in our own country. He was only thirty years old. They could not kill him in battle. They had to lie to him and kill him that way. I cried all night, and so did my father.”

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Book:Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
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“Wherever we went, the soldiers came to kill us, And it was all our own country. It was ours already when the Wasichus made the treaty with Red Cloud, that said it would be ours is long as grass should grow and water flow. That was only eight winter’s before, and they were chasing us now because we remembered and they forgot.”

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Book:Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
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“I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about 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; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. 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 children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.”

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Author:Black Elk
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“Once we were happy in our own country and we were seldom hungry, for then the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds lived together like relatives, and there was plenty for them and for us. But the Wasichus came, and they have made little islands for us and other little islands for the four-leggeds, and always these islands are becoming smaller, for around them surges the gnawing flood of the Wasichu; and it is dirty with lies and greed.”

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Author:Black Elk
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“I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.”

I CanSawsShapesUnderstoodSacredCirclesIndianNativeNative AmericanMother EarthAmerican IndianNative American WisdomNative AmericaNative American IndianStarlightNative American EarthIndian WisdomNative WisdomAmerican SpiritNative American Indian InspirationalNative American SpiritualSpiritual IndianNative American ProverbsFlowering Trees
Book:Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
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“Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles.”

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Book:Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
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“The life of an Indian is like the wings of the air. That is why you notice the hawk knows how to get his prey. The Indian is like that. The hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal. For instance, the coyote is sly, so is the Indian. The eagle is the same. That is why the Indian is always feathered up, he is a relative to the wings of the air.”

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Book:The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's teachings given to John G. Neihardt
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“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”

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Author:Black Elk
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“Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations.”

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Author:Black Elk
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“Hear me, four quarters of the world-a relative I am! Give me the strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is! Give me the eyes to see and the strength to understand, that I may be like you. With your power only can I face the winds.”

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Book:Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
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“I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that 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.”

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Author:Black Elk
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“We should understand well that all things are the work of the Great Spirit. We should know the Great Spirit is within all things: the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the mountains, and the four-legged and winged peoples; and even more important, we should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples. When we do understand all this deeply in our hearts, then we will fear, and love, and know the Great Spirit, and then we will be and act and live as the Spirit intends.”

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Author:Black Elk
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“Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus should we do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World.”

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Book:Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
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“The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.”

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Book:Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
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“Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.”

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Book:Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
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“Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people flourished.”

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Book:Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
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“The Universe is circles within circles, and everything is one circle, and all the circles are connected to each other. Each family is a circle, and those family circles connect together and make a community, and the community makes its circle where it lives on the Earth. It (the community) cares for that part (of the Earth) but cares for it as a circle - which is to say in a cooperative and egalitarian way, where everybody is cared for, and everybody is respected.”

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Author:Black Elk
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“At the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit. And that center is really everywhere. It is within each of us.”

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Author:Black Elk
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