Posted on 09/02/2015 4:54:50 PM PDT by TradicalRC
Secular historians may snicker at early Christians who insisted Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue was a vision of the Messiah, but the case for interpreting Black Elk’s vision that way is not so easy to dismiss. Raymond DeMallie, founder and director of the American Indian Studies Research Institute, has delved into the transcripts of what Black Elk originally divulged to Neihardt. DeMallie’s definitive study shows the association with Jesus in this culminating passage to be unavoidable. Black Elk also said that the transfiguring figure he saw had “holes in the palms of his hands.” In addition, Black Elk flatly asserted to Neihardt, “It seems to me on thinking it over that I have seen the son of the Great Spirit himself.” In short, Native America’s most famous vision quest culminated in a vision of Jesus; and Neihardt, universalist that he was, did not quite tell it like it was told to him.
??? thread ping.
That Black Elk later became a Christian catechist is largely unknown to those who prefer to focus only on his pre-Christian paganism.
He spent more years as a Christian than he did as a pagan.
And was none the less Sioux for it.
Beautiful. May all the indigenous American saints, both known and unknown, rejoice in the glory with which the Savior has endowed them, and may they pray for us.
Sorry, I do not understand your post or what I possibly did wrong.
Good post
Thanks
You didn’t ping BlackElk to the thread by putting his name in the “To” line, so Darksheare did.
Neat article, I read it on the FT website this morning. It had a different title, though.
That is correct.
If I’m not mistaken, the initial posting of an article doesn’t provide for a “To:” field. That has to be done on a subsequent post.
I don’t know. I’ve posted threads only a few times in 12 years. Anyway, that was the occasion of Darks’s “correction” post.
I’ve only posted a couple as well but I’ve never seen a post that was addressed specifically to someone. Either way, as you said, Dark took care of it.
True, if you want to alert someone to a thread that is posted, post 2 is where the ping has to go.
Probably easier that way considering how messed up just posting a thread can be.
For many years after Little Big Horn, Black Elk was a shaman, a pagan "medicine man" and cleric. When Black Elk was in his forties, he was called to the bedside of an apparently dying elderly Lakota warrior and tried to revive him to no avail. At that point, a Roman Catholic missionary priest arrived, baptized the old man, administered the sacraments to him and the man revived. This occurred in around 1905. Black Elk was devastated and, perhaps, humiliated. Nonetheless, he then asked the priest to baptize him and Black Elk spent the rest of his very long life as a Roman Catholic lay missionary to the Lakota, dying in about 1950 at an age estimated to be 87.
I have heard but cannot confirm that he died trying to walk to Mass in a blizzard.
Nienstadt deserves maximum skepticism as an historian. He apparently went into his work with the old noble savage stereotype of Black Elk and would pay no heed to (Nicholas) Black Elk's Catholicism.
He undoubtedly met Fr. DeSmet in that blizzard…:)
Not uncommon among secular anthropologists, unfortunately.
The Indians mentioned in the Jesuit Relations apparently converted because they could gain spirit power, because they were marginalized, every reason except the most obvious one, that they thought the Christian religion was true.
I like Frank Fool Crow’s story better, but I have to admit to being in awe of Black Elk.
I am from Nebraska.
I read “Black Elk Speaks” in college, and was rather surprised that it didn’t go into his conversion to Christianity. The homestead used to be by a place called The Tower of the Four Winds in Blair. There is a huge cross, with the symbols from Elk’s visions arranged around it.
We new growing up that he was a Christian, and led many other Indians to Christ. Some were the grandparents of the parents of my friends as a kid.
When I was traveling, I was on a flight to New Mexico. There was a man in Native dress reading the book. I mentioned that I grew up near the Tower, and about Black Elk’s later life. He was very surprised. The fact that the book is used in some circles as a pagan text is pretty sad to me.
John G. Neihardt did not have a very good reputation in Nebraska. He was known to be rather, shall we say, condescending in his views. He refused to admit that Elk was a Christian.
Having a monument to Black Elk with a huge Crucifix was said to anger those who knew Neihardt. I think it was one of a long line of Nebraskan jokes at the expense of Neihardt.
Remember reading it when I was young. Will have to give it another look.
‘He spent more years as a Christian than he did as a pagan.
And was none the less Sioux for it.’
Indeed, as did the great chief Red Cloud who can be listed as one of the few to have successfully defeated the US Army.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.