Case file · Folklore / legend
Black Elk's great vision recorded
In May 1931 the Oglala Lakota holy man Black Elk described his boyhood great vision to the poet John Neihardt at Manderson on the Pine Ridge Reservation, through his son Ben as interpreter; it was published in 1932 as Black Elk Speaks.
1931 CE · 43.24, -102.47 · status: account
The account
The vision, received during an illness around age nine, showed the Grandfathers, the sacred hoop of the nation and a flowering tree. The book became one of the most read works on Native American religion.
The sceptical view
Scholars such as Raymond DeMallie compared the published book with the interview notes and found that Neihardt shaped and added to the text, and that it says little of Black Elk's later Catholic life.
Connections in the atlas
- Miracle, the white buffalo calf
- Plenty Coups' vision in the Crazy Mountains
- Ghost shirts and the Lakota Ghost Dance