"Black Elk was one of the most gifted spokesmen for the Lakota wisdom tradition, and his farseeing literary collaborations have disseminated his teachings far beyond their original cultural horizon. Lakota holy men still teach the great lessons of this tradition–respect for sacred power, the relatedness of all beings, and care for the earth–and they still draw on Black Elk's legacy, which continues to confront and challenge European ways of viewing humanity, society, and the cosmos."
But he also spent the last fifty years of his life as a committed Catholic and catechist, a spiritual leader, a guide. He walked to daily Mass even when he was finally dying of tuberculosis.
Ahead of his time, he combined the realities of the Lakota Wisdom tradition - respect for sacred power, the relatedness off all beings, and care for the earth -with the truths of Catholicism in his own spirituality and belief system.
Today Black Elk's life example is showing his descendants and other Lakota Catholics a way to develop a Native American identity that bridges two worlds: the world of the Lakota tradition, and the world of the Catholic Christian. But his influence extends to Catholicism as a whole, for the Lakota Wisdom tradition has the potential to give the Church a new way to understand and interact with God's creation.
In fact, Black Elk's Catholic descendants on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota spearheaded a drive among fellow Lakota Catholics requesting that the Diocese formally nominate their ancestor for canonization. Their Bishop agreed with them, studied written material on Black Elk, and worked to get the support of the regional Bishops. He chose Bill White, a Lakota candidate for the Diaconate and the father-in-law of Jerome Lebeaux, a prominent Sun Dance chief, to be the local postulator for the cause.
Black Elk was attuned to spirituality from the age of four, when he began to see visions, but at first he told no one about them. He had a major vision when he was nine, as he lay ill in his parents' tepee. As he spoke about it later, he said that he had terrifying sights of fighting, gunfire, and smoke, and his people fleeing "like swallows." However, the vision ended with the powerful sight of the whole world as one, the hoops of many nations united in one hoop, with one mighty tree sheltering everyone as the children of one father and one mother. He was then instructed by the mystic six grandfathers to go back empowered and restore his people.
From this vision, the young boy received an indelible strength: he knew that terrible things would happen to his people, that he would have a leadership part to play to help them, and that one day, the whole world would be one in peace. Through his whole life he labored, first in one role, then another, to guide his people towards that mystic vision.
First, he would experience the hell of war. Black Elk was a second cousin to the legendary Crazy Horse, a Native American visionary and warrior, a leader of the Oglala Lakota who fought beside Sitting Bull against General George Custer in the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. A twelve year old Black Elk fought there with his cousin.
He followed Sitting Bull to Canada for a few years, and then returned to South Dakota and settled on the newly formed Pine Ridge Reservation, where at the age of nineteen, he became a medicine man, a healer among his people. For a few years he traveled around Europe with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show.
Later, as the various tribes continued to be forced onto reservations and their land taken from them, he became a ghost dancer, following the Paiute prophet who urged all the tribes to unite and dance together to bring peace to all the tribes, send the white men away, renew the herds of Buffalo, and give the Indians new life. He fought in the aftermath of the massacre of men, women, and children at Wounded Knee by a military that felt threatened by the Ghost Dance. Furious at the sight of so many bodies lying in the snow, he wanted to keep on fighting. But, Chief Red Cloud dissuaded him from fighting further. He went back to the Pine Ridge Reservation. As an elder, he said of Wounded Knee,
"I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heapen and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A peoples dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. . . .the nations hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead."
In 1904, Black Elk became interested in Catholicism and converted, taking on the name of "Nicholas" for his Baptism. He gave up his healing practice as medicine man, began to memorize Scripture, and became a dynamic preacher. Damian Costello says
"He spent decades as a catechist, taking numerous missionary trips to other reservations....
"Today, in the parish where Black Elk did much of his pastoral work, the aura of sainthood is unmistakable. There is an air of reverence when his name is spoken. He is credited with bringing 400 people into the Roman Catholic Church. Black Elk also lived a life of unquestioned holiness and experienced the kind of suffering that is often associated with lives of the saints. His first wife (Katie War Bonnet) died in 1903, son William in infancy, son John of tuberculosis at 12, an infant son and two stepdaughters of tuberculosis in 1910. He himself lived with tuberculosis from 1912. (His second wife, Anna Brings White, and daughter Lucy Black Elk are pictured above with Black Elk.)
"But Black Elk never complained about his suffering and he proclaimed his Catholic faith until the end. 'Now my heart is getting sad - but my heart willl never turn bad,' he wrote in a letter in 1948. 'Ever since Wakan Tanka (the Lakota name for God) gave light to my heart, it stands in light without end." (from "Saint Black Elk?" in "America" magazine, October, 2017.)
Already at Our Lady of the Sioux, a small Catholic Church in Oglala, Native American practice is being creatively integrated with Catholic practice in the Mass:
"George Looks Twice, 83, (Black Elk's grandson), holds a stick next to a drum that sits beneath his legs as the priest intones the eucharistic prayer. He is waiting for the point of consecration, where the bread becomes the Body of Christ. But instead of ringing bells, Looks Twice will strike the drum three times, the honor beats heard in the Sun Dance and other Lakota traditional songs. The drum will give honor to Jesus, whom the Lakota call Wantkiya, 'He Who Makes Live....'
"Black Elk taught that the drum is the beating heart at the center of the universe, saying 'the voice of Wakan Tanka (Great Spirit), and this sound stirs us and helps us to understand the mystery and power of all things.'" (Costello, in "America")
Black Elk's daughter Lucy said that her father understood that his role as medicine man, before his conversion, was in the service of Wakan Tanka, but that his conversion by the Black Robes (the Jesuits), aided by Lakota converts, showed him that he was meant to pursue a different direction in serving the Great Spirit: missionary work to spread the Gospel, and a new way of teaching and healing others. As a catechist, his role was to help priests establish faith communities. He was the caretaker of the St. Agnes Chapel in Manderson, S.C. and served as the priest's lay assistant when services were conducted. Michael F. Steltencamp tells us in his book "Nicholas Black Elk: Medicine Man, Missionary, Mystic":
"When a priest was not present, Black Elk would lead Scripture services, preach, instruct new converts, visit the sick, bury the dead, and baptize people who were close to death." When he taught, he used images from his own Lakota tradition to reinforce Christian truths. Black Elk chose to lead his people into the Christian Era, "by being a Lakota elder who fused the best of old and new understandings of the sacred....
"The holy-man said that his people will depend on the sacred stick (the cross or Christ presence) and that 'it will be with us always....From this we will raise our children and under the flowering stick we will communicate with our relatives - beast and bird - as one people. This is the center of the life of the nation.'" (Steltencamp) In this way, Black Elk had rediscovered his vision as a boy of all creation becoming one. The man maddened by violence and the destruction of his people had found new hope in the death and resurrection of Christ Who brings all creation into one in Him.
"(His daughter) Lucy said that her father's vision for the Lakota was depicted on a beaded, circular medallion that she asked her daughter to craft. On the medallion, a cross - what (Black Elk's) vision cites as a 'blooming tree' or 'sprouting stick' - was at the center of seven tipis (which, camped in a circle, represented the Lakota nation's 'hoop.')" (Steltencamp)
On October 21, 2017, Bishop Robert D. Gross, of Rapid City, South Dakota, celebrated a Mass at Holy Rosary Church in Pine Ridge to formally open the Sainthood Cause for the man baptized Nicholas William Black Elk. At that Mass,
" the Native American was described as someone who merged the Lakota and Catholic culture in a way 'that drew him deeper into the mystery of Christ’s love and the church.'
"'Black Elk’s love for God and Scripture led him to become a catechist, fulfilling the mission of all disciples', said Bishop Robert D. Gruss of Rapid City, S.D., in his homily...The bishop said that for 50 years Black Elk led others to Christ often melding his Lakota culture into his Christian life. 'This enculturation can always reveal something of the true nature and holiness of God,' he said, adding that Black Elk always 'challenged people to renew themselves, to seek this life that Christ offers them.'
"Bishop Gruss said Black Elk’s life as a dedicated catechist, spiritual leader and guide 'inspired many to live for Christ by his own story.'
"Deacon Marlon Leneaugh, Rapid City’s diocesan director of Native Ministry, described Black Elk as a revered holy man among the Lakota who bridged the gap between traditional native spirituality and Catholicism.
“'He showed his people that you did not have to choose between the two, you could be both. He did not abandon his native ways when he became a Christian. To him it was together—praying to the one God.'
"With the formal opening of his cause, Black Elk now has the title '“servant of God.'" (Catholic News Service, November 3, 2017)