Black Elk Speaks

According to Black Elk, his people should follow the “good red road”. In his vision, he could see a beautiful land where many, many people were camping in a great circle. They were happy and had plenty. Their drying racks were full of meat and the air was clean and beautiful with a living light everywhere. Around the circle were fat and happy horses. Animals of all kinds were scattered over the hills and hunters were returning with their meat. The flowering tree was in the center of the circle, all green and full of flowers (pg. 186).

Black Elk saw his people going down the “black road”. They were no longer acting as one people. They were scattered. When the white settlers, or Wasichus, began to take over the land the Indians had occupied, their way of life began to diminish. Black Elk’s people were forced to live in “square boxes” and they felt powerless.

The Native American culture revolved around a circle, or what Black Elk called the “sacred hoop”. The flowering tree was the center of the hoop. The flowering tree was symbolic of growth and prosperity for all people in the tribe. It is equally shared between all members of the tribe. “Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round” (pg. 150). The flowering tree at the center of the circle was nourished by the seasons, which also occurred in a circular pattern. Black Elk also made references to the sky and the earth being round, the moon and the sun setting in a circle as well as both being round. “The wind blows in circular whirls. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood” (pg. 150).

In Black Elk’s vision, he saw a “sacred herb”. The herb he used in the curing of his people. The “black road” symbolized following the bad way of life, a life with no rules and order. The “good red road” symbolized the way Black Elk wanted his people to live and how they lived before the Wasichus came. The “good red road” is the good way of life. The Indians lived as one people and shared a set of common rules, a code.

When many of the remaining Indian tribes were almost diminished, Black Elk joined the Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. This was a show that toured across America and eventually to England. Black Elk did not join the show for money. He joined because he wanted to learn about how the Wasichus lived and viewed life. He just wanted to learn about the white culture and their way of life. He felt that if he could learn about their culture he could restore the “sacred hoop” that had been broken for his people.

Once he was on tour, he learned about the ways of the white civilization that was occupying most of the land. He could see that the Wasichus did not care for each other the way his people did before the “sacred hoop” was broken. The Wasichus would take everything from each other if they could. He noticed that some had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and were maybe starving. Black Elk noticed that the Wasichus lived in square houses and their plots of land were divided, not shared.

Black Elk also noticed that the Wasichus had no regard for the land or nature. They would hunt bison and just take the tongues to sell. Many times, they would hunt them just for sport and nothing else. “They