Black Elk (1863-1950), the Lakota holy man, is beloved by millions of
readers around the world. The book Black Elk Speaks is the most
widely-read Native American testimony of the last century and a key work
in our understanding of American Indian traditions. In Black Elk, Lakota
Visionary, Harry Oldmeadow draws on recently discovered sources and
in-depth research to provide a major re-assessment of Black Elk's life
and work. The author explores Black Elk's mystical visions, his
controversial engagement with Catholicism, and his previously
unrecognized attempts to preserve and revive ancestral Sioux beliefs and
practices. Oldmeadow's lively and highly readable account also examines
the controversies that have surrounded Black Elk and his collaborators,
John G. Neihardt and Joseph Epes Brown. Oldmeadow judiciously explains
why both Black Elk Speaks and The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of
the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux are to be ranked amongst the most
profound spiritual documents of the twentieth century. Black Elk, Lakota
Visionary will command the attention of every reader who is interested
in the American Indians, providing fascinating insights into their
ancestral traditions prior to the reservation era, the subsequent
destruction and revival of their traditional ways, and the vital lessons
which the contemporary world might draw from their spiritual legacy.
