The Lakota people have a vibrant, exciting, living religious tradition, and the fact that Black Elk's story was recorded is a gem and a blessing. I have had this on my "to read" list for years — everything in its time. Black Elk tells about the Wounded Knee massacre toward the end of his story. You have set the powers of the four quarters to cross each other. Everybody needs to read or listen to Black Elk's words to understand what a great people were destroyed. Black Elk describes the life of Indians, which is very spiritual and could be very unattainable to understand to the naked eye of a regular person who did not know all the Indians’ beliefs. The book shows how spirituality and unity among the people of the specific Indian tribe, Oglala, gave them strength for trying to overcome the people’s superiority that spoiled many of the natives’ lives. It should be required reading in public schools. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one.”, “I did not see anything [New York 1886] to help my people. First hand account of life as a Native American in the 19th Century, Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2014. This was told by Black Elk himself to the author. For instance, he describes how a powerful vision can stay with you your entire life, and how you can draw upon its power to do other magics later. Besides a trip down the path of history, the descriptions of visions, ceremonies, and traditions are quite interesting. Disabling it will result in some disabled or missing features. In analyzing the book, I would not say that the author was not persuasive, it was more of him not giving the straight facts that would induce us of real horror.

All that was Sacred; gone. Well written. This expands my knowledge of the Native American culture.

His vision, is probably one of the most important lessons in all of Native American history and belief systems. The sheer horror and completely inhumane and immoral manner with which the US Government carried out its mission to eradicate the Natives from the land and take it for the sole use of White "Christians" is a despicable sore on the face of American History.

His visions consist of detailed symbolism and instructions he received from his Grandfathers. Disabling it will result in some disabled or missing features. I grew up having similar otherworldly experiences like him, meeting and talking to higher beings, and I still do on occasion.

His philosophy echoes the greatest philosophers of all time back to Aristotle.

You have set the powers of the four quarters to cross each other. Black Elk went thinking he would learn something about whites that would help him save his people, but was really exploited and--apparently--lucky to ever get back home. Une erreur est survenue. The life story of Black Elk, a Lakota healer, during the Indian Wars of 1860-1890.