Black Elk Speaks

Black Elk prepares for the ghost dance by dressing “in a sacred manner,” and visiting the dying tree in the center (184). At the tree, Black Elk weeps as he thinks about the fate of his people and of his dead relatives. As Black Elk begins dancing, he experiences his body beginning to lift off the ground, though he does not have any visions. During the next day’s dance, Black Elk experiences the same feeling before falling to the ground. Black Elk then sees a “spotted eagle dancing” and begins following him to a camp of Native Americans amidst a prospering, fertile land (186). Two men in special “holy shirts” come to Black Elk and tell him to bring back what he has seen, which Black Elk interprets as the method for making their holy shirts (186). Black Elk tells people of his vision, and works with others to make holy shirts similar to those in his vision.

Black Elk leads the ghost dance on the following day, and he again has a vision of the dancing spotted eagle. During this vision, the eagle leads Black Elk to a group of six villages. In the sixth village, Black Elk approaches a flowering holy tree in the center, where Black Elk sees a beautiful man of an unknown race, being neither a Wasichu nor an Indian. Black Elk then returns to his body, and he sings of his vision and the “beautiful world” he saw to his fellow dancers (190).

The ghost dance movement spreads across various Native American reservations, where suffering Native Americans are eager to believe in the “good new world that was coming” (191). The ghost dances worry the agents and soldiers overseeing the reservations, who do not understand the meaning of the dances. Black Elk begins traveling to other tribes’ ghost dances and gifts them the holy shirts he had seen in his vision. Black Elk has another vision, of the rainbow teepee that he had seen in his original vision, and of an eagle saying “Remember this” (192). Black Elk reflects that he was being told to follow and obey his original “great vision,” not the other visions that had since come to him while dancing (192). News spreads that the Wasichu soldiers are investigating the ghost dance movement. A ruling is made that people can only participate in the ghost dances three days out of a month. However, Black Elk is also told by a policeman that the soldiers intend to arrest him for his role in the ghost dances. Black Elk leaves Pine Ridge for the Brules tribe at Wounded Knee, where he encourages people to continue participating in the ghost dance so as to be welcomed into the coming world. Black Elk is eventually made to return to Pine Ridge, where he hears news that the soldiers are cracking down and attacking other tribes. 

Black Elk sees a group of 500 soldiers leave Pine Ridge for Wounded Knee Creek, where the Big Foots Native Americans are camping. The next morning, Black Elk hears gunshots, and decides to travel to Wounded Knee, bringing nothing but a holy shirt and a sacred bow. Black Elk is joined by numerous other young Lakota men. They reach a ridge where they can see soldiers firing at women and children. Black Elk and the others sing a battle chant, and then charge at the soldiers. The group chases away many of the soldiers and saves some of the women and children, but Black Elk also sees many dead bodies lying on the ground. They corner the soldiers, who eventually march away, revealing “men and women and children […] heaped and scattered all over” (200). Though Black Elk wants “revenge” for these people’s deaths, he also reflects that the dead are now “happy in the other world” (200). 

Black Elk returns to Pine Ridge with two orphaned babies, but finds that the Lakota have fled the reservation. Black Elk follows their trail to a camp at Clay Creek, where he reunites with his mother, who had been “singing a death song” as she believed Black Elk had died (203). Thirsty for revenge, Black Elk and other Lakota form a war party to kill Wasichu soldiers. The party joins a fight between Lakota and soldiers. Black Elk charges at the soldiers with his gun, killing numerous soldiers. On his way back to the war party, however, he is hit but a bullet in his side. Black Elk is brought back to the Lakota camp, where a man named Protector cares for his wound. After his wound heals, Black Elk joins another war party to attack an approaching group of Wasichu soldiers. Following another skirmish, the Wasichu negotiate a peace treaty with the chief Red Cloud. Though many, including Black Elk, long to continue fighting, Red Cloud convinces the warriors that more fighting will be futile. The Lakota return to the Pine Ridge reservation and surrender. Black Elk reflects that the massacre and resulting surrender represent the death of “a people’s dream” (207).

Neihardt describes a trip with Black Elk to Harney Peak, the mountain and “center of the earth” (208) that Black Elk was brought to during his vision. At the peak, Black Elk predicts that thunder clouds will appear at his call if he has “any power left” (208). Black Elk performs a ceremony, calling out to the Great Spirit and asking for the spirit to appear and “nourish” the sacred tree (210). Despite a long drouth and a clear sky, a few drizzling rainclouds gather at the closing of Black Elk’s ceremony.