Black Elk

September 26, 2016
Jackson (Atlantic Fever) panoramically renders a narrative as majestic as the American West in this fine account of the life of Black Elk, an Oglala Lakota holy man. With compassion and clarity, Jackson portrays Black Elk as a man haunted by his inability to make sense of the “Great Vision” that came to him as a child. Born in 1863 to a family of medicine men, he grew up during a time of declining fortunes for his people. Black Elk’s life provides a window on major events in the post–Civil War West: Red Cloud’s War, the battle of Little Bighorn, and the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Through those years, Black Elk sharpened his capacity for visions and cultivated his healing powers, always searching for ways to help the Oglala and even working with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. All of this is fascinating, but Jackson isn’t content to recount a familiar story. He brilliantly frames it with an incisive discussion of the creation of John Neihardt’s 1932 as-told-to book, Black Elk Speaks. Jackson digs into Native American culture and what it meant for Black Elk to be a holy man, especially in light of his 1904 conversion to Catholicism. He has produced a major contribution to Native American history. Maps & illus.

Stirring, wide-ranging biography of the Sioux elder whose testimonials underlay "one of the twentieth century's most important documents on Native American culture."Born in the Powder River country in Wyoming, Hehaka Sapa, or Black Elk (1863-1950), was a Lakota Zelig who had been on hand at some of the key moments in the history of the Indian Wars. He was a confidant of Crazy Horse, a leader of the Sun Dance, a warrior at Wounded Knee, and, in between, a performer in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show--and even, while touring Europe, briefly a suspect in the infamous Jack the Ripper killings. Jackson (Atlantic Fever: Lindbergh, His Competitors, and the Race to Cross the Atlantic, 2012, etc.) surveys a broad swath of world history to place the Lakota spiritual leader in that terribly eventful context, and he does excellent work in doing so, explaining the dynamics of medicine men in Sioux society (there were two classes of them, "war prophets" and "healers") and the dynamics of an American popular culture that saw John Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks grow from a memoir of modest sales to a kind of Bible of the New Age movement, which "would envelop everything related to Black Elk Speaks in a warm and fuzzy nimbus." One of the best moments in a book marked by many is Jackson's in-passing examination of the role of the American media in fueling the Indian Wars; another is his examination of the mystery of Black Elk's conversion to Catholicism, having long been an advocate of traditional Lakota ways. In the course of his narrative, the author provides a parallel biography of Neihardt, Black Elk's chronicler, who felt great affection for and attachment to his interlocutor even as various players in Indian country tried to drive a wedge between the two. Of much literary and historical merit and a fine addition to the shelves of anyone interested in this part of America's unhappy past. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 15, 2016

When John Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux was published in 1932, it was scarcely noticed by readers. When republished in 1962, its spiritualism spoke to the emerging counterculture, thus becoming one of the most influential American Indian works of the 20th century. Jackson (The Thief at the End of the World) endeavors to extricate the historical Black Elk from the mythology surrounding his legacy. Black Elk (1863-1950) lived during the most turbulent time in Oglala Lakota history. He fought in the Battle of Little Big Horn, witnessed the death of his cousin Crazy Horse, traveled throughout Europe in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show, saw the terrible slaughter at Wounded Knee, and was ultimately forced onto a reservation with his tribe. Although a Lakota spiritual leader, he converted to Catholicism. Black Elk's life as legend emerged as his words were translated by his son for Neihardt, who wrote the story he wanted to write by prioritizing certain events and minimizing others, most notably Black Elk's religion. VERDICT This fascinating biography should be read alongside Black Elk Speaks as it contextualizes and reframes that earlier work. [See Prepub Alert, 5/23/16.]--John R. Burch, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2016
Jackson's (Atlantic Fever: Lindbergh, His Competitors, and the Race to Cross the Atlantic, 2012) exhaustively researched biography expands on the widely read Black Elk Speaks (1932), based on the poet John Neihardt's interviews with the Sioux visionary and medicine man. Those extensive interviews ended with the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. Jackson fills in the details of Black Elk's life until his death in 1950 by drawing on archives held at many sites, from battlefield museums to the Library of Congress. Born in 1863, Black Elk began hearing voices at age four and five years later experienced his great vision that warned him of the assault on their identity his people would experience with the white invasion. He traveled with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show on its European tour in 1883, returned home to become his tribe's spiritual leader, conducting Ghost Dances, and then, surprisingly, converting to Catholicism in 1904. Jackson's enlightening account of this influential Sioux leader, whose life encompassed many landmark events of the tumultuous years of U.S. western expansion, leaves the reader in awe of Black Elk's struggle to help his people preserve their culture as their traditions, religion, and education were under constant and brutal attack.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)