109 Quotes by Black Elk

If you will read again what is written, you will see how it was.

And if the great fear had not come upon me, as it did, and forced me to do my duty, I might have been less good to the people than some man who had never dreamed at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me.

They told me I had been sick twelve days, lying like dead all the while, and that Whirlwind Chaser, who was Standing Bear's uncle and a medicine man, had brought me back to life.

I know now what this meant, that the bison were the gift of a good spirit and were our strength, but we should lose them, and from the same good spirit we must find another strength.

And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me.

I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.

I cured with the power that came through me.

I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.

So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation's hoop I thrust it in the earth.