Black Elk Speaks, As Told to John G. Neihardt, published by William Morrow & Company, 1932.

Black Elk was a Holy Man of the Ogalala Sioux and a witness to many pivotal events in Native American history. Black Elk was a second cousin of Chief Crazy Horse and, as a young boy, he was on the scene at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Black Elk and his father were also at Fort Robinson when Crazy Horse was killed while in captivity. Black Elk later on promoted the Ghost Dance Movement and personally observed the tragedy of the Wounded Knee massacre in the winter of 1890.

But the reason Black Elk is remembered is for his prophetic visionary talents. When he was only five years old he started hearing voices, and, when he was nine years old, he heard the same voices urging him to attend a council of his Six Grandfathers which took place in a Flaming Rainbow Teepee up in the clouds. Each of his Six Grandfathers gave him a gift and the oldest told him, “Grandson, all over the universe you have seen. Now you shall go back with power from whence you came.”

Black Elk personally narrated his life story to John G. Neihardt which culminated in the publication of Black Elk Speaks in 1932. The book was personally illustrated by Standing Bear, a friend of Black Elk’s, who participated in the interviews with Neihardt.
The role played by Neihardt in the creation of Black Elk Speaks is further explored in his biography, Lonesome Dreamer, written by Timothy G. Anderson.

John G. Neihardt grew up in Wayne, Nebraska where he later attended and graduated from Nebraska Normal College. While in college, Neihardt pursued his interests in poetry and literature. In 1900, John joined his family in a move to Bancroft, Nebraska where he became acquainted with the Omaha Indian Tribe. A short time later he got a job with the Omaha Daily News but it didn’t work out and Neihardt returned to Bancroft where he continued writing poems and stories. His book of short stories, The Lonesome Trail, was published in 1907 when he was twenty-six. John and Mona Martinsen, a sculptor from New York City, were married in 1908. Soon after their marriage, John commenced work on The Song of Hugh Glass, an epic poem about a fur trapper who, in 1823, was mauled by a bear and forced to crawl his way back to Fort Kiowa. John followed up with The Song of Three Friends which was awarded the Poetry Society of America prize. On April 18, 1921, Neihardt was designated Poet Laureate of Nebraska. In 1925, Neihardt published The Song of the Indian Wars, a long narrative poem descriptive of native inhabitants and their battles with the U.S. Army and profiling such leaders as Red Cloud, Man Afraid, Spotted Tail, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

Neihardt’s next work in progress was a poem titled The Song of the Messiah which addressed the spiritual struggles of the Natives of the Plains. In July of 1930, Neihardt and his son, Sigurd, driving a Ford Model T, drove to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota where they hoped to meet Black Elk. Accompanied by an interpreter, they proceeded to Black Elk’s home where they got acquainted and talked for hours and agreed to meet again. On his next trip to Pine Ridge, Neihardt brought along his two oldest daughters, Enid and Hilda. In anticipation of their visit, Black Elk had set up a teepee next to his house. Black Elk and his friends spoke Lakota during the interviews which were translated by Black Elk’s son Ben and written down in shorthand by Enid in her notebook. In the days that followed, Black Elk, at Neihardt’s urging, revealed the details of his personal story and his Grand Vision. They ended up talking for sixteen days. In the words of Neihardt, “The material I got was far beyond even my expectations and some that has never been given to a white man before.”

Neihardt took a six month leave of absence from his day job with the Post-Dispatch to write Black Elk Speaks. The process was significantly enabled by Enid’s typewritten transcripts of the interviews. Neihardt finished the manuscript in October, 1931 and it was published by William Morrow in January 1932. Reviews were positive but sales were disappointing until a paperback edition, based upon a recommendation by Mari Sandoz, was later published by Bison Books in 1961 as an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press.