BLACK ELK ON THE SIGNIFICANCE
OF CIRCLES & OF RITUALS
Black Elk was a great Sioux shaman (visionary,
curer) who dictated his life story to John G. Neihardt in 1931. Neihardt
(working through an interpreter) recorded, rearranged, and edited this
story, publishing it as Black Elk Speaks,
a book still readily available. Born in 1862, Black Elk was 28 years old
at the Battle of Wounded Knee, the bloody end of Plains Indian autonomy
in the US. From then until his death in 1950, he lived on the Pine Ridge
Reservation in South Dakota. In these excerpts, he says something of the
power of the circle, how it may be used, and the consequences of denying
it. And he speaks of collective ritual.
After the Heyoka ceremony, I came to live here where
I am now at Wounded Knee Creek and Grass Creek. Others came too, and we
made these little grey houses of logs that you see, and they are square.
It is a bad way to live, for there can be no power in a square.
You have noticed that everything an Indian does
is done in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always
works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days
when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the
sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken, the people
flourished. The flowering tree was the living center of the hoop,
and the circle of the four quarters nourished it. The east gave peace
and light, the south gave warmth, the west gave rain, and the north with
its cold and mighty wind gave strength and endurance. This knowledge
came to us from the outer world with our religion. Everything the
Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and
I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are the stars.
The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in
circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth
and goes down in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round.
Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come
back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from
childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
Our tepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set
in a circle, the nation's hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit
meant for us to hatch our children.
But the (Whites) put us in these square boxes.
Our power is gone: we are dying, for the power is not with us anymore.
You can look at our boys and see how it is with us. When we were
living by the power of the circle in the way we should, boys were men at
12 or 13 years of age. But now it takes them much longer to mature.
Well, it is as it is. We are prisoners of
war while we are waiting here. But there is another world.
I think that I have told you... that a man who has
a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed
the
vision on earth for the people to see. 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....
It was even then only after the heyoka ceremony, in which I performed my
dog vision, that I had the power to practice as a medicine man, curing
sick people; and many I cured with the power that came to me. Of
course it was not I who cured. It was the power from the outer world,
and the visions and ceremonies had only made me like a hole through which
the power could come to the two-leggeds. If I thought that I was
doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through.
Then everything I could do would be foolish....
It was during the next summer, when I was in my
twentieth year (1883), that I performed the elk ceremony, as a duty to
that part of my great vision. You will remember how the pipe and
the bison were in the east and the elk in the south.
This ceremony of the elk was to represent the source
of life and the mystery of growing.
I sent a pipe to Running Elk...a good and wise old man.
He...was willing to help me. We set up a sacred tepee at the
center as before. I had to use six elks and four virgins.
The elks are of the south, but the power that they represented in my
vision is nourished by the four quarters and from the sky and the earth;
so there were six of them. The four virgins represented the life
of the nation's hoop, which has four quarters....Running Elk chose two
of the elks, and I, who stood between the Power of the World and the nation's
hoop, chose the four others, for my duty was to the life of the hoop on
earth. The six elk men wore complete elk hides on their backs and
over their heads. Their limbs were painted black from the knee and
elbow down, and yellow from there up; for the growing power is rooted in
mystery like the night, and reaches lightward. Seeds sprout in the
darkness of the ground before they know the summer and the day. In
the night of the womb the spirit quickens into flesh. The four virgins
wore scarlet dresses, and each had a single eagle feather in her
braided hair; for out of the woman the people grow, and
the eagle feather was for the people as in the bison ceremony. The
faces of the virgins were painted yellow, the color of the south, the source
of life. One had a daybreak star on her forehead. One had a
crescent moon...for the power of woman grows with the moon and comes and
goes with it. One had the sun upon her forehead; and around the mouth
and
eyebrows of the fourth a big blue circle was painted to mean the nation's
hoop. On the back of each of the elk men was painted the hoop, for
upon the backs of men the nation is carried, and in the center of each
hoop hung a single eagle feather for the people. They had yellow
masks on their faces, for behind woman's power of life is hidden the power
of man. They carried flowering sticks of the sacred rustling tree
(the cottonwood) with leaves left on top: the sticks were painted red.
The woman is the life of the flowering tree, but the man must feed and
care for it. One of the virgins also carried the flowering stick,
another carried the pipe which gives peace, a third bore the herb of healing
and the fourth held the sacred hoop; for all these powers together are
woman's power.
Of course, before any of this was done, those who
were to take part were purified in the sweat lodge as always....
...This was the ceremony, and as I said before,
the power of it was in the understanding of its meaning; for nothing can
live
well except in a manner suited to the way the Power of the World lives
and moves to do its work.
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