Inspirational Quotes by Black Elk (Native American Spiritual Leader)

Black Elk (1863–1950,) originally Heȟáka Sápa, was a spiritual leader of the Oglala Lakota branch of the Sioux nation. A second cousin of the war leader Crazy Horse, Elk was a wičháša wakȟáŋ (“medicine man, holy man”) and “heyoka” of his tribe.

Black Elk was born into an Oglala Lakota family along the Little Powder River in present-day Wyoming. Black Elk survived Little Big Horn and the Wounded Knee massacre.

Black Elk is best known for the autobiography Black Elk Speaks (1932,) compiled and written by American poet and novelist John G. Neihardt. Black Elk’s narratives, translated into English by his son Ben Black Elk, included boyhood participation in battles with the U.S. Army, becoming a medicine man, and joining Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 1886.

Black Elk Speaks was translated into multiple languages, and it became a significant source of information about 19th-century Plains Indian culture. It also spurred great interest in Native American traditions and religions.

In his forties, Black Elk converted to Catholicism. He also became a catechist, teaching others about Christianity. In 2016, the Roman Catholic Diocese initiated an official cause for his beatification.

In addition, in 2016, The U.S. Board of Geographic Names renamed South Dakota’s highest peak in the Black Hills National Forest as Black Elk Peak.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Black Elk