29 Facts About Black Elk

Black Elk was a second cousin of the war leader Crazy Horse and fought with him in the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Black Elk toured and performed in Europe as part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West.

Black Elk is best known for his interviews with poet John Neihardt, where he discussed his religious views, visions, and events from his life.

Neihardt published these in his book Black Elk Speaks in 1932.

Black Elk converted to Catholicism, becoming a catechist, but he continued to practice Lakota ceremonies.

Black Elk came from a long lineage of medicine men and healers in his family.

Black Elk's father was a medicine man, as were his paternal uncles.

Black Elk was born into an Oglala Lakota family in December 1863 along the Little Powder River.

When Black Elk was nine years old, he was suddenly taken ill; he reported lying prone and unresponsive for several days.

Late in his life, Black Elk told Neihardt about his vision.

Black Elk envisioned a great tree that symbolized the life of the earth and all people.

In one of his visions, Black Elk describes being taken to the center of the earth, and to the central mountain of the world.

Black Elk was present at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and described his experience to John Neihardt:.

Black Elk had short hair and my knife was not very sharp.

In 1887, Black Elk traveled to England with Buffalo Bill's Wild West, an experience he described in chapter twenty of Black Elk Speaks.

Black Elk became separated from the group, and the ship left without him, stranding him with three other Lakota.

When Buffalo Bill arrived in Paris in May 1889, Black Elk obtained a ticket to return home to Pine Ridge, arriving in autumn of 1889.

Black Elk returned to the Pine Ridge Reservation after touring with the Wild West shows.

Black Elk became involved with the Ghost Dance movement, bringing to the followers of the movement a special Ghost Dance shirt, after seeing his ancestors in vision who instructed him, "We will give you something that you shall carry back to your people, and with it they shall come to see their loved ones".

Black Elk was present at the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, which occurred due to fear by US settlers of the large interest in the Ghost Dance by Plains tribes.

Black Elk organized an Indian show to be held at the Sitting Bull Crystal Cavern Dance Pavilion in the sacred Black Hills.

Neihardt writes that, unlike the Wild West shows, used to glorify Native American warfare, Black Elk created a show to teach tourists about Lakota culture and traditional sacred rituals, including the Sun Dance.

Black Elk married again and had more children with his second wife; they were baptized and reared as Catholic.

Black Elk became a Catholic in 1904, when he was in his 40s.

Black Elk was christened with the name of Nicholas and later served as a catechist in the church.

The widower Black Elk married again in 1905 to Anna Brings White, a widow with two daughters.

Black Elk later arranged them in chronological order for Neihardt's use.

Since the 1970s, the book Black Elk Speaks has become popular with those interested in Native Americans in the United States.

On October 21,2017, the cause for canonization for Nicholas Black Elk was formally opened by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rapid City, South Dakota, paving the way for the possibility of him eventually being recognized as a saint.