Sioux Culture In Black Elk Speaks

In the 1870’s, as westward expansion was consuming white American ideology, another American ideology, and way of life, was being demolished. The indigenous population in America has been commercialized, and in the 21st century most people regard Native Americans as casino owners or models for their Halloween costume. However, the book Black Elk Speaks sheds a more morose light on Native American life and culture. John G. Neihardt tells the story of Nicholas Black Elk, a healer and visionary of the Oglala Lakota tribe; Black Elk’s story stands testament to the cultural annihilation Indian peoples faced in America during the latter part of the nineteenth century. It is through the perspective of Black Elk that one can see just how much Sioux culture was displaced by the white invasion of the Great Plains. One of the most sacred aspects of the Sioux belief system is its connection with nature. This is not to say the Sioux do not kill animals, but rather to say that the Sioux tradition holds a high reverence for nature, and animals are therefore a religious symbol as well as a source of food and other goods (“Sioux Religion”). Bison, for …show more content…
Black Elk’s story is one of lamentation for a lifestyle lost at the hands of white invaders. While it is true that many Natives still practice the traditional Sioux belief system, nothing will ever compare to the Native life presented to readers in Black Elk Speaks. Black Elk remarks at the beginning, “But the Wasichus came, and they have made little islands for us and other little islands for the four-legged, and always these islands are becoming smaller, for around them surges the gnawing flood of the Wasichu; and it is dirty with lies and greed” (Elk 6). Black Elk remembers little to nothing about his life before the white man tried to invade his people’s land and take their homes for their own personal