{"id":2015,"date":"2020-08-22T17:16:11","date_gmt":"2020-08-22T17:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/?page_id=2015"},"modified":"2020-08-22T17:16:11","modified_gmt":"2020-08-22T17:16:11","slug":"black-elk-8","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/black-elk-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Elk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Iron Hawk Speaks:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am a Hunkpapa, and, as I told you before, I was fourteen years<\/p>\n\n\n\n

old. The sun was overhead and more, but I was eating my first <\/p>\n\n\n\n

meal that day, because I had been sleeping. While I was eating I<\/p>\n\n\n\n

heard the crier saying: “The chargers are coming.” I jumped up<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and rushed out to our horses. They were grazing close to camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I roped one, and the others stampeded, but my older brother<\/p>\n\n\n\n

had caught his horse already and headed the others off.. When<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got on my horse with the rope hitched around his nose, the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

soldiers were shooting up there and people were running and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

men and boys were catching their horses that were scared because<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of the shooting and yelling. I saw little children running<\/p>\n\n\n\n

up from the river where they had been swimming; and all the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

women and children were running down the valley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our horses stampeded down toward the Minneconjous, but<\/p>\n\n\n\n

we rounded them up again and brought them back. By now<\/p>\n\n\n\n

warriors were running toward the soldiers, and getting on the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ponies, and many of the Hunkpapas were gathering in the brush<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and timber near the place where the soldiers had stopped and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

got off their horses. I rode past a very old man who was shouting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Boys, take courage! Would you see these little children taken<\/p>\n\n\n\n

away from me like dogs?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went into our tepee and got dressed for war as fast as I could;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but I could hear bullets whizzing outside, and I was so shaky<\/p>\n\n\n\n

that it took me a long time to braid an eagle feather into my<\/p>\n\n\n\n

hair. Also, I had to hold my pony’s rope all the time, and he<\/p>\n\n\n\n

kept jerking me and trying to get away. While I was doing this,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

crowds of warriors on horses were roaring by up stream,yelling:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Hoka hey!” Then I rubbed red paint all over my face and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

took my bow and arrows and got on my horse. I did not have a<\/p>\n\n\n\n

gun, only a bow and arrows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was on my horse, the fight upstream seemed to be<\/p>\n\n\n\n

over, because everybody was starting back downstream and yelling<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s a good day to die!” Soldiers were coming at the other<\/p>\n\n\n\n

end of the village, and nobody knew how many were down there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A man by the name of Little Bear rode up to me on a pinto horse,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and he had a very pretty saddle blanket. He said: “Take<\/p>\n\n\n\n

courage, boy! The earth is all that lasts!” So I rode fast with<\/p>\n\n\n\n

him and the others downstream, and many of us Hunkpapas<\/p>\n\n\n\n

gathered on the east side of the river at the foot of a gulch that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

led back up the hill where the second soldier band was.[Custer’s]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a very brave Shyela with us, and I heard someone say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He is going!” I looked, and it was this Shyela. He had on a spotted<\/p>\n\n\n\n

war bonnet and a spotted robe made of some animal’s skin and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

this was fastened with a spotted belt. He was going up the hill <\/p>\n\n\n\n

alone and we all followed part way. There were soldiers along<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the ridge up there and they were on foot holding their horses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Shyela rode right close to them in a circle several times and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

all the soldiers shot at him. Then he rode back to where we had<\/p>\n\n\n\n

stopped at the head of the gulch. He was saying: “Ah, ah!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone said: “Shyela friend, what is the matter?” He began<\/p>\n\n\n\n

undoing his spotted belt, and when he shook it, bullets dropped out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was very sacred and the soldiers could not hurt him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was a fine looking man.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Excerpted from “Black Elk Speaks”,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

as told through John G. Niehardt, author.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Islander.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iron Hawk Speaks: I am a Hunkpapa, and, as I told you before, I was fourteen years old. The sun was overhead and more, but I was eating my first meal that day, because I had been sleeping. While I was eating I heard the crier saying: “The chargers are coming.” I jumped up and … Continue reading “Black Elk”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2015","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2016,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2015\/revisions\/2016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}