Black Elk Speaks 1

http://www.nativewiki.org/images/5/5f/BlackElk.jpg


The history of Native Americans in the United States is one that is strife with conflict and depressing stories. In fact, it is not at all a stretch to say that Native Americans underwent a genocide under the hands of European Americans. What is the source of all these conflicts and tension? To me, what lies at the heart of the conflict is a misunderstanding of cultural differences.
To the Native Americans, nature and the land which they inhabited were not quantifiable things. Land could not be parceled into acres to be sold and owned. The land and nature were physical manifestations of their spiritual heritage. The land was as much a part of it as they were a part of the land. Westerners saw the land as economic opportunity. They saw the massive herds of buffalo as an endless source of revenue, and they saw the nomadic tribesmen as savage heathens. Needless to say, this difference in outlook was bound to end in tragedy.
Black Elk's oratory record is an amazing record of Native American traditions and and insight into their world view. Almost everything in Black Elk's world is symbolic and spiritual, even ribbons hanging from a peace pipe are "the four quarters of the universe" and the eagle feather "is for the thoughts of men that should rise high as eagles do" (Course Anthology 259). Knowing this, it is easy to see how spiritual traditions like choosing a totem animal has such resonance for Native Americans. Not arbitrarily chosen, totem animals are ACTUAL spiritual representations. And when animals were harvested in hunts, Native Americans treated them as fellow spirits, giving their bodies for the benefit of their human brothers. In fact animals were held to such a high regard, that when Black Elk speaks of killing a green frog he describes how holding its dead body caused him to think "'Now I have killed him,' and it made me want to cry..." (Course Anthology 268)http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/%27Buffalo_Hunt_on_the_Southwestern_Prairies%27,_oil_on_canvas_painting_by_John_Mix_Stanley,_1845,_Smithsonian_American_Art_Museum_%28Washington_D._C.%29.jpg

This spirituality was probably impossible for Westerners to comprehend, thus it is little surprise to me that they resorted to such racist and discriminating methods of interacting with Natives. While it is by no means excusable, history is filled with conflicting groups of people treating each other inhumanely. I would be willing to bed that most people living on the frontier in fact regarded their Native American neighbors as savages, almost sub-human. We as Americans tend to look at less technologically complex societies as inferior or "backwards," but we never stop to consider and think that perhaps this people want to live like this and if given the choice would continue to live this way.
So traditional Native culture lives on in a handful of surviving Native Americans, but to the American consciousness it is but a fleeting memory of a time immemorial, before guns, trains, and cars. We now look at the Native way of life with respect and awe at the richness of their culture. Had we only been able to realize this hundreds of years ago, history may have played out in a much different way.