Black Elk: Holy Man of the Oglala

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Summary: A realistic, non-commercial, likely unpopular,portrayal!
Review: I was required to read an excerpt of Neihardt's work on Black Elk. Choosing, as usual, to go beyond the scope of my text, I searched carefully for a meaningful book about Black Elk, and this was certainly it! I was so fascinated by the fact that the two most popular books written about Black Elk "conveniently" didn't address the last 60 years of his life, and failed to mention that he had totally rejected his "Holy Man" status in favor of embracing Catholicism. How fortunate we are that the author, Michael Steltenkamp, connected with Black Elk's only surviving daughter and was able, at her insistence, to set the record straight. Had this not occurred, we would likely still buy into the fallacies of other, earlier publications touted as the authorotative sources not only about Black Elk's life, but holding his life as they portrayed it as the standard for Native Americans! We learn that Black Elk was NOT a teary eyed, old Indian, pining away for pre-reservation days, awaiting death at any moment, but that he lived, and lived FULLY, embracing the new world around him. While this portrayal is probably not when Indian Movement Advocates want to acknowledge, it is a fair, balanced, accurate portrayal, carefully researched and corroborated. My appreciation to Mr. Steltenkamp for his diligence in undertaking this project. This word was extremely stimulating and thought provoking.

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Summary: A Truly Unique Representation of the famous Oglala Sioux
Review: Michael F. Steltenkamps research of this widely researched Indian is a fascinating for lack of a better word. He shows the man's later coversion to Catholicism in the 60 years following "Black Elk Speaks." A great resource!

Rating:
Summary: A Truly Unique Representation of the famous Oglala Sioux
Review: Steltenkamp continues the tradition of looking at Indians through the lens of Christian prejudice. The book neglects to explore the fact that Black Elk's daughter, Lucy, was kept from any knowledge of Nick Black Elk's medicine training and practice. Nor does the text examine the shame and shock inducing behavior of the Christian priest who barged into the middle of Black Elk's healing of a patient, discarding the healer's tools, ridiculing him and depriving the patient of healing, literally yanking him out of practice, nor the other priests who continued to badger this medicine man, (a man revered by his people) until he gave in for the safety of his family. The book also fails to give the details behind the fact that Lucy's brother was knowledgeble about and supportive of Nick's practice as a medicine man. For those who are willing to give the text a close reading, you'll see how the author unwittingly reveals the methods of Christian clerics' destruction of an ancient culture, the results of that destruction, and how Nick Black Elk, deposed and put in service of the priests, was at least able to tap their pockets and provide for his family. As an example of yet another writer's Christian bias toward the Indians with examples of their brainwashing and coercion, so thorough, that even the child of this famous healer was kept in the dark about the truth of her own father, this book is worth a read.

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Summary: Indispensable companion to Black Elk Speaks
Review: Steltenkamp does a superb job of describing Black Elk's years as a devout Catholic -- Black Elk converted in 1904 and remained a praying Christian until his death in 1950 -- and demonstrating that the Lakota holy man's Christianity was an organic continuation of his earlier years as a Lakota traditionalist. This book thus provides a necessary complement to Black Elk Speaks, which avoids discussing the second half of Black Elk's life. Not to be missed by anyone who wants to learn about the real Black Elk -- and thus give a great saint and prophet his due.

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Summary: Was Black Elk a Noble Savage?
Review: This is a mild revisionist biography of Black Elk. The account has a definite ring of truth. The book received the *Alpha Sigma Nu Award* in 1994. Based on extensive ethnohistorical research of archival sources and extensive interviews with the daughter of Black Elk, author Steltenkamp (who has a Ph.D. in anthropology) shows that many of the biographies of Black Elk are highly mythologized. Most interesting, it turns out that Black Elk was a committed Catholic and Christian missionary to his own people for the last 46 years of his life (he died in 1950 at about age 90). Why did the previous biographers fail to tell that? Why keep secret that Black Elk was a Christian? Steltenkamp concludes that it would have compromised his Indianness. For example, John Neihardt, who wrote the classic biography *Black Elk Speaks* (1932)--which I personally read several times by the time I had graduated from high school in 1953--avoided the issue by focusing on Black Elk's 19th century life. (Black Elk participated as a teenager in the Custer Massacre and witnessed the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee.) Neihardt instead "highlighted 'the end of the trail' and 'vanishing American' themes" (19, xiv). Steltenkamp reviews the work of the Jesuit missionaries among the Lakota in a good light. He leads his reader to understand the lay public's bias against missionaries, seeing them as part of the ethnocide of the Lakota, and how the mythological accounts of Black Elk, the "traditionalist who will lead his people back to cultural revival," supports this view. But of course if Black Elk was a Christian trying to lead his people into American Catholicism, this would ruin everything. Like the famous Chief Seattle (see the July 1993 issue of Reader's Digest), Black Elk was used to perpetuate false romantic myths of Noble Savages. key words: missiology, ecological Noble Savage, revisionism, myth of primitive harmony, New Ageism, idealization of primitivity