ABSTRACT
Black Elk, the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) holy man, became widely known when his “Life Story,” originally told to John G.Neihardt in 1931 and first published in 1932, was reissued in 1961 by the University of Nebraska Press and eventually translated into more than half a dozen languages. In Neihardt’s poetic prose, Black Elk Speaks became a virtual manifesto of Native American revival and a source of inspiration for 1960s counterculture causes. The book’s eventual popularity with those seeking to restore Native culture and value was based on the general assumption that it was Black Elk’s authentic testimony and that Neihardt was only a translator and reporter. But Neihardt had come to Black Elk as a self-professed epic poet in the Christian tradition of Milton, seeking information for his typological Song of the Messiah from Lakota elders who had participated in the Ghost Dance (Black Elk, The Sixth Grandfather 1984: 2627). But Neihardt found Black Elk himself so interesting that he decided to write his “autobiography” before resuming work on the Song. Neihardt’s poem, eventually published in 1935, shows the Lakota advancing through the Ghost Dance to Christian illumination.
