Black Elk Lives: Conversations With the Black Elk Family

Rating:
Summary: A vibrant expression of the inheritors of the vision
Review: Black Elk Lives: Conversations With The Black Elk Family is an intimate set of interviews with the family and descendants of Nicholas Black Elk collected and edited by Hilda Niehardt and Lori Utecht. The intent of the collection is to present more of the perspectives and outlooks of the family members. Even more important, Black Elk Lives is a celebration of the strength and resilience of the human spirit, and the questioned survival of a way of life and thought that is Lakota in origin. Beginning with a transcription of a 1969 talk at Pine Ridge Boarding School by Benjamin Black Elk, the son and interpreter of Nicholas Black Elk as well as father and grandfather of other contributors, Black Elk Lives contains chapters on family memories, the changing roles of men and women, reclaiming the legacy (of Black Elk), the use and misuse of Lakota religion, fighting in Vietnam (Clifton DeSersa interview), working, Lakota legends, stories and games, grandfather's healing, and caring for grandfather (Black Elk).

Each chapter is actual interview dialogue, which allows the Black Elks to speak in their own chosen words. Because of this, and because of the relationship between the Black Elks and the interviewer(s), the reader has a sense of being told from the heart the feelings and experiences of these representatives of the Black Elk family. Sometimes the outlook is distinctly bleak and sad. Sometimes it seems hopeful. Other times, the speaker is making corrections, often to the assumptions or misunderstandings of the interpretations of "Black Elk Speaks" and other matters of Lakota vision.

Black Elk Lives is invaluable because of just that opportunity to inform the nonnative population. An example of this is at the end of the chapter titled "The Use and Misuse of Lakota Religion." Aaron DeSersa Jr. says:"It's just like my great-grandpa's book: People are walking on this road and some go off the road. As I've said, my great-grandpa's vision wasn't a spiritual vision. It was the future of our people, the Lakota people. Some people can't look at it that way - they want it to be spiritual and have a deep meaning. But what it is, when you look at it and interpret it, is what our people are going through in this life and in the future, and how they're going to be put back on that good road - bringing back the old ways and ceremonies and understanding them(p.103)."

The chapters of interviews and dialogue are enriched by several pages of black and white photos of the family members in several different decades. The cover jacket photograph of Nicholas Black Elk on Cuny Table (1931) is magnificent and unforgettable. Another helpful detail is the Black Elk family tree described on page 151. It is good to see the generations descent into the present. Perhaps there was not space for the birth dates of the present generation . It is still helpful to see the names of all the family members and to trace their lineage.

Black Elk Lives is a vibrant expression of the inheritors of the vision of "Black Elk Speaks". Now it is to unfold what will happen if people listen. Black Elk Lives will help to ensure that not only will they listen, perhaps also they will begin to hear and understand.

Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer