Black Elk Speaks Read Online Free PDF

there were cheering voices from all over the universe, and I saw the Six Grandfathers sitting in a row, with their arms held toward me and their hands, palms out; and behind them in the cloud were faces thronging, without number, of the people yet to be.
    “He has triumphed!” cried the six together, making thunder. And as I passed before them there, each gave again thegift that he had given me before—the cup of water and the bow and arrows, the power to make live and to destroy; the white wing of cleansing and the healing herb; the sacred pipe; the flowering stick. And each one spoke in turn from west to south, explaining what he gave as he had done before, and as each one spoke he melted down into the earth and rose again; and as each did this, I felt nearer to the earth.
    Then the oldest of them all said: “Grandson, all over the universe you have seen. Now you shall go back with power to the place from whence you came, and it shall happen yonder that hundreds shall be sacred, hundreds shall be flames! Behold!” 30
    I looked below and saw my people there, and all were well and happy except one, and he was lying like the dead—and that one was myself. Then the oldest Grandfather sang, and his song was like this:
    “There is someone lying on earth in a sacred manner.
  There is someone—on earth he lies.
  In a sacred manner I have made him to walk.” 31
    Now the tepee, built and roofed with cloud, began to sway back and forth as in a wind, and the flaming rainbow door was growing dimmer. I could hear voices of all kinds crying from outside: “Eagle Wing Stretches is coming forth! Behold him!”
    When I went through the door, the face of the day of earth was appearing with the day-break star upon its forehead; and the sun leaped up and looked upon me, and I was going forth alone.
    And as I walked alone, I heard the sun singing as it arose, and it sang like this:
    “With visible face I am appearing.
In a sacred manner I appear.
For the greening earth a pleasantness I make.
The center of the nation’s hoop I have made
   pleasant.
With visible face, behold me!
The four-leggeds and two-leggeds, I have made
   them to walk;
The wings of the air, I have made them to fly.
With visible face I appear.
My day, I have made it holy.” 32
    When the singing stopped, I was feeling lost and very lonely. Then a Voice above me said: “Look back!” It was a spotted eagle that was hovering over me and spoke. I looked, and where the flaming rainbow tepee, built and roofed with cloud, had been, I saw only the tall rock mountain at the center of the world.
    I was all alone on a broad plain now with my feet upon the earth, alone but for the spotted eagle guarding me. I could see my people’s village far ahead, and I walked very fast, for I was homesick now. Then I saw my own tepee, and inside I saw my mother and my father bending over a sick boy that was myself. And as I entered the tepee, some one was saying: “The boy is coming to; you had better give him some water.”
    Then I was sitting up; and I was sad because my mother and my father didn’t seem to know I had been so far away.

4
The Bison Hunt
    When I got back to my father and mother and was sitting up there in our tepee, my face was still all puffed and my legs and arms were badly swollen; but I felt good all over and wanted to get right up and run around. My parents would not let me. They told me I had been sick twelve days, lying like dead all the while, and that Whirlwind Chaser, who was Standing Bear’s uncle and a medicine man, had brought me back to life. 1 I knew it was the Grandfathers in the Flaming Rainbow Tepee who had cured me; but I felt afraid to say so. My father gave Whirlwind Chaser the best horse he had for making me well, and many people came to look at me, and there was much talk about the great power of Whirlwind Chaser who had made me well all at once when I was almost the same as dead.
    Everybody was glad that I was living; but as I lay