Black Elk Quotes & Sayings (Page 3)

“To use the power of the bison, I had to perform that part of my vision for the people to see.”

“I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.”

“I looked about me once again, and suddenly the dancing horses without number changed into animals of every kind and into all the fowls that are, and these fled back to the four quarters of the world from whence the horses came, and vanished.”

“You remember that my great vision came to me when I was only nine years old, and you have seen that I was not much good for anything until after I had performed the horse dance near the mouth of the Tongue River during my eighteenth summer.”

“I know now what this meant, that the bison were the gift of a good spirit and were our strength, but we should lose them, and from the same good spirit we must find another strength.”

“And if the great fear had not come upon me, as it did, and forced me to do my duty, I might have been less good to the people than some man who had never dreamed at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me.”

“But I think I have done right to save the vision in this way, even though I may die sooner because I did it; for I know the meaning of the vision is wise and beautiful and good; and you can see that I am only a pitiful old man after all.”

“I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.”

“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.”

“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.”