BLACK ELK SPEAKS
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Black Elk Speaks
In the year 1930, a writer called John Neihardt, together with his son, went to speak with Black Elk in the Pine and Ridge, and this was in the process of finalizing a cycle of the west about his epic poem concerning the history of the American West. He was looking for the content part using Indian wars’ songs, and the songs were acquainted with the Indian culture when he survived near the Omaha reservations. Out of this, he knew Black Elks as a holy man. When the two men met, the Black elk recognized that Neihardts to be a very compassionate listener and further someone passionate in the spiritual world in the Indian history settings. One thing excellent Black Elk had not shared his vision with many people, and since he was about to fade away, and thus he had to share with Neihardt (Ahmad et al. 2020).
In writing, the theme of loss, culture, and community is well elaborated. Culture can be defined as the way of life of a particular group of people. Black Elk portrays the tragedy of a culture that cannot support its old-style ideals. He claims that the Sioux have lost the consecrated hoop of their particular nation. He says that they did not lose their government through a lack of faith or any internal weakness. Still, they lost their government as results of inevitably to the forces of economic gluttony significantly when the white American extended westwards looking for different lands and more valuable resources as well. The culture was lost via the loss of the initial traditions and lifestyles that the Black Elk commemorated. In the culture of the people hunting practices is a striking example of the loss of culture. In this land, it was well known that the Great Spirit was to provide more food staffs that kept the people of the providence of the Great Spirit, which was considered to be sacred one in the land (Ahmad et al. 2020).
It is claimed that the bison roamed the prairie, which appeared to be a never-ending supply of what the people need for them to have a happy life. There was the transcontinental separation of the held, but this did not result in any threats to the society since the born was more than what they could use. The break was done by the transcontinental railroad. The complex cultural event happened with the excellent bison hunt, and it was featured by the hunters being on top of horsebacks, which showed the audacity and bravery (Ahmad et al., 2020).
It is funny that the people finally celebrated with swaying, melodic, and thanksgiving. A lovely feast was held, and the people were happy with the railway and the settlement expansion. Little did the people recognize that the whites were aiming to kill the bison carelessly to have fun, and thus, they died until the herd decreased at a very high rate? Soon the Indians In the year 1876, the Indians were forced onto a reservation; the food supply was to be used as the weapon and controlling key to controlling how they behaved (Dee et al. 2020).
After the herd’s bison was much weakened and repossession of the Indian horses and gun, the people were done since they could not any more supply their food, and in this way, they had to depend on the government rational. For instance, when the Indians seem to become more disobedient to survive in the reservations, the rations were even reduced more to suppress the Indians to adhere to whites’ interests. Coercion was used to bring the people to submission, and as a result, many Indians starved and get sick to death, and thus the held was lost together with sacred not leaving the Sioux identity and independence (Jackson et al . 2020).
The loss of the nomadic way of life was another case of the cultural dislocation of the Sioux. The Indians lost their interdependence with nature when headed onto agency –governed reservation by forces of the whites. It did not take long when the Indians were forced to the reservation than when the Sioux life and its immediate sense of community social structuring were replaced with a foreign immobility culture. The Sioux sense of identity was destroyed entirely (Steltenkamp et al., 2020).
The loss of the culture traditions practices led to the destruction of the image of the Sioux way of life, which was the central belief of the people. In this connection, the ideas the power of the world works in circles are fully connected since the community is understood in a circular image as Black Elk claimed it to be nation hoops. The Indians hold some of its crucial practices during this time of cultural displacements, for instance, the act of sacred pipe for smoking, and this culture was transformed for an appearance like smoking of the cigarette (Steltenkamp et al. 2020).
Regardless of the displacement of the culture, the culture of the Sioux was replaced with the new identity of features like addressing spirits while in red underwears unlike before when they used red paints as well as using metallic drums instead of woods and skins that this indicated that the circular nature of the world as per the Black Elks (Steltenkamp et al. 2020).
References
Ahmad, M., & Shahzad, A. K. (2020). CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF NATIVE AMERICANS IN BLACK ELK SPEAKS. Hamdard Islamicus, 43(1), 550-556.
Dee, G. W., & Thayne, S. (2018). Ecological linguistics and fraught historicity in Black Elk Speaks a thesis in environmental humanities.
Jackson, J. (2016). Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary (Vol. 35). Macmillan.
Steltenkamp, M. F. (2017). Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary. The Catholic Historical Review, 103(2), 377.