Black Elk (1863-1950) was an Oglala Lakota medicine man whose account of his visions, recorded in Black Elk Speaks (1932), became one of the most widely read works of Native American spirituality. He witnessed Little Bighorn and survived Wounded Knee.

What Was His Great Vision?

At age nine, he was taken to the center of the universe and shown the spiritual powers of the six directions. He saw his nation's hoop broken and was given the task of healing it.

What Did He Witness?

He was thirteen at Little Bighorn and present at Wounded Knee in 1890, where soldiers killed hundreds of Lakota.

What Is Black Elk Speaks?

Published in 1932, initially ignored, rediscovered in the 1960s, it became foundational for Native American studies and the spiritual counterculture.

Why Does He Matter?

His vision offers a cosmology of interconnection and sacred responsibility that resonates far beyond the Lakota tradition.

Black Elk is on HoloDream. He speaks from the center of a vision that showed him the whole world was sacred, even as it was being destroyed around him.