BLACK ELK (1863–1950) was a Lakota spiritual leader known in Lakota as Hehaka Sapa. Few American Indian spiritual leaders have gained greater national and indeed international recognition than this Oglala Lakota. Although Nicholas Black Elk was well known by his own people as a holy person (wicasa wakan), it was the poetic interpretation given to his life in Black Elk Speaks (1932) by John G. Neihardt that caught the imagination of a much wider public. A second book, on the seven rites of the Lakota, was dictated at Black Elk's request to Joseph Epes Brown. This work, The Sacred Pipe (1953), further stimulated interest in the man and his message, which became, especially during the 1960s, meaningful symbols for a generation seeking alternate values.

Of the Big Road band of Lakota, Black Elk was born in December 1863 on the Little Powder River in present-day Wyoming. During this time his...