The Life of Black Elk
In Black Elk Speaks the author meets Black Elk and starts learning about his story about himself and his tribe after Black elk offers the peace pipe. The One Hundred Slain War happens and Black Elk begins to see and hear things. Black Elk becomes very sick and he has his main vision. In the beginning of this vision the six grandfathers start giving him gifts. Crazy Horse gets murdered by a Lakota policeman. A band of Lakotas escaped the reservation to Canada and started starving. The tribe started recreating Black Elk’s vision and the horses starved. The tribe went to the the reservation and the soldiers did not give them anything. Black Elk goes with Buffalo Bill to London for his Wild West Show. The Battle of Wounded
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At the end of this book it is very sad seeing how everything for the Sioux went downhill fast. This really hurt the tribe when all of this happens.“I could see that the Wasichus did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation’s hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the earth was their mother.” If the sacred hoop is broke or the flowering tree dies, the tribe will fall apart. Once the tribe starts dying the go to the reservation and lose all power. “I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped 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 people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream . . . the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered.” Lots of people died and were wounded and the tribe could not do much but surender. This is a very sad thing to see, but it came to a point where they could not do much of anything
Rykhus 3 The Moccasin Trail I read the book ” The Moccasin Trail”, this book is mostly about a man named Jim Heath. Jim is a man who shortly after leaving his family behind to go be himself was severely attacked by a grizzly bear. Shortly after the attack a group of Crow Indians found Jim who was half alive and took him to their Tribe and took care of him until he was better. Ever since Jim got better he joined the Crow Indians tribe and become one himself. One day, after six years of living with the Crow Indians Jim received a letter from his sister saying that they( as in his two younger brothers, sister, and little nephew) were backing up all their stuff and moving out west to Oregon territory in search for
Black Elk Speaks, is a personal narrative that tells a story about Black Elk who is a medicine man of the Lakota tribe; the book is narrated by John Neihardt and is twenty-five chapters long. Black Elk mostly talks about the visions he had when he was a young child. Black Elk explains to Neihardt that he had his very first vision when he was five years old and he says that he saw two men appeared in the sky singing a sacred song (Black Elk Speaks p.17). The second vision that Black Elk tells Neihardt about is a very detailed one that takes place when he falls ill for a few days. The vision that he had involved him seeing a highly detailed symbolic message from his ancestors.
So later when the old chief died, he was elected to be a leader, and he was the leader of the shone people. Then the white man came to Wyoming and started the organ trail, and other tribes came up and killed the white man, but chief Washakie said nor did not kill the white man he made a treaty to protect the white man if they gave him something for his duties. Once a freezing white man came into Washakie camp. his feet were freezing, chief Washakie saw this told him to stay where he was. When he came back he had one of his wives, and he said to him to put his feet on her belly and tomorrow he would be able to walk, and the next day the man could walk.
Through the duration of the fourth ascent, the nation’s hoop is broken and the birthplace of the tribe’s
By the end of the book, the only things left of Black Elk and hsi home is the remnants of a dream full of life and prosperity, and a sorrowful old man who still only wants the best for his people. “And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream” (218). While Black Elk finishes the recount of his story, he remembers the people butchered there, and the pieces of a dream filled with life, prosperity, and hope.
Chapter 11: Crazy Horse goes on a raiding spree into Crow territory for several weeks along with his brother, Little Hawk, and Red Cloud, High Back Bone, and other Lakota. They dominate every camp they come across and become a real force of the land. Crazy Horse saves many of his fellow warriors over the trip and gains more respect from others. Upon returning home, he receives news that Black Buffalo Woman decided her husband would be a boy named No Water. He becomes heartbroken by her decision and stays in his parents’ lodge for several days.
The Indian Removal Act was signed in 1830 by President Andrew Jackson to remove the Cherokee Indians from their homes and force them to settle west of the Mississippi River. The act was passed in hopes to gain agrarian land that would replenish the cotton industry which had plummeted after the Panic of 1819. Andrew Jackson believed that effectively forcing the Cherokees to become more civilized and to christianize them would be beneficial to them. Therefore, he thought the journey westward was necessary. In late 1838, the Cherokees were removed from their homes and forced into a brutal journey westward in the bitter cold.
The sudden stealing of traditions can seem large but Indigenous communities are larger, and all connected. With the Elders by their side as their teachers, and the able-bodied to clear the rocks, the community thrives, even after the large landslide and stolen pathway. As Russel says, “Colonialism has obscured and covered up so many things from our past and yet we have languages and cultures that still thrive. ”(Wallace). When new paths are created by the community to heal from tragedy, skepticism arises about leaving the old path behind, but "yet the deviated path reaches the same river" (Wallace).
This land has been enriched over centuries. One of the most important thing is that he talks a lot about the different Cherokee chiefs throughout the book. From John Ridge to John Ross and explaining the process they did to deal with the problem of removal. This book gives some strong argument and very good explaining about what happened in the removal of the Cherokee tribe by providing explanation and justifiable proof. Even though the author made excellent claims, we notice a little confusion there.
The people believe that the Sioux boy has betrayed them
Could you imagine the government coming to your family 's property you have had for years and taking it and making everyone walk a 1000 miles? Well thats is what happened to the Native Americans. They were drove from there property beaten and killed. Then made them walk over a 1000 miles to their new place that was awful. There was no food or water or anything while the government took there land and made fun of them.
Whites were hiding behind enormous rocks trying to get closer and closer until an eventual attack. Light Hair was waiting for his signal from High Back Bone. The Lakotas and the Whites both rode horseback, but the Whites were also supplied with rifles. The Lakotas were more unconventional, and carried bow and arrows instead of guns. A white man began to go after Light Hair to which he instinctively shot an arrow.
Throughout history, there have been many literary studies that focused on the culture and traditions of Native Americans. Native writers have worked painstakingly on tribal histories, and their works have made us realize that we have not learned the full story of the Native American tribes. Deborah Miranda has written a collective tribal memoir, “Bad Indians”, drawing on ancestral memory that revealed aspects of an indigenous worldview and contributed to update our understanding of the mission system, settler colonialism and histories of American Indians about how they underwent cruel violence and exploitation. Her memoir successfully addressed past grievances of colonialism and also recognized and honored indigenous knowledge and identity.
The Sioux described how depressed the man came, and how many white men ridiculed him for it. Some Native Americans tried to escape allotment. One Cheyenne man and his family decide to leave the reservation and its new allotment for the mountains to stay away from white people, who could not be trusted. Most however were forced to allow their lands to be cut smaller and smaller, like the Northern Ute, until there was almost nothing left to live on. These particularly tragic tales continue into today, as Native Americans live in overcrowded reservations that have high rates of poverty, alcoholism and drug abuse, and even suicide, as tribes in Canada have recently
As I listened attentively, I gathered that whatever it was walked on two legs, but it could not be my son—too heavy—and its trudging was much too clumsy for one of my fellow hunters. I fetched my rifle and Black Fox’s bow and quiver, which he had flung to the ground in his excitement, and dove behind a nearby bush. For fear that the emerging creature would turn out to be an enemy, I fixed the butt of my rifle to my shoulder, ready to fire if need be. I sat in wait, until the figure emerged from between two trees, stammering from side-to-side. It was a white man, obviously drunk, who had most crossed into Cherokee territory in search of gold.