Black Elk’s Life Speaks

Black Elk's story is remarkable on a number of levels and an inspiration for many...

While the cannon of Black Elk literature is established, there would appear to be a gap in terms of the way in which Black Elk's life speaks through his familial descendants, who when consulted about what has been written about Black Elk, due to their knowledge of stories based on familial accounts of Black Elk, stipulated his life speaks "that much ... more."

Based on the author's research endeavor and two years of interviews with Black Elk's great-great-great grandson, Maka Black Elk, Black Elk's Life Speaks: "That...Much More" explores the way in which Black Elk's life speaks. The publication integrates personal life journeys, narratives, and participant researcher interviews and experiences to highlight historical, anthropological, and contemporary perceptions of Black Elk in particular, and Native people in general.

In addition, it considers the implications of how Black Elk's life continues to speak, in the face of historical trauma, survivance, and cultural healing, through additional familial and related stories, as the educator, culture bearer, and "old man" dreamer and visionary.