{"id":2078,"date":"2020-09-12T19:55:01","date_gmt":"2020-09-12T19:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/?page_id=2078"},"modified":"2020-09-12T19:55:01","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T19:55:01","slug":"black-elk-11","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/black-elk-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Elk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Black Elk Continues:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After I showed my mother my first scalp, I stayed with the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

women awhile and they were all singing and making the tremolo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We could not see much of the battle for the big dust, but <\/p>\n\n\n\n

we knew there would be no soldiers left. There were many other<\/p>\n\n\n\n

boys about my age and younger up there with their mothers and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sisters, and they asked me to go over to the battle with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we got on our ponies and started. While we were riding down<\/p>\n\n\n\n

hill toward the river we saw grey horses with empty saddles<\/p>\n\n\n\n

stampeding toward the water. We rode over across the Greasy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grass to the mouth of a gulch that led up through the bluff<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to where the fighting was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we got there, the Wasichus were all down, and most<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of them were dead, but some of them were still alive and kicking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many other little boys had come up by this time, and we<\/p>\n\n\n\n

rode around shooting arrows into the Wasichus. There was one<\/p>\n\n\n\n

who was squirming around with arrows sticking in him, and I<\/p>\n\n\n\n

started to take his coat, but a man pushed me away and took<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the coat for himself. Then I saw something bright hanging on<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the soldiers belt, and I pulled it out. It was round and bright<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and yellow and very beautiful and I put it on me for a necklace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first it ticked inside, and then it did not anymore. I wore it<\/p>\n\n\n\n

around my neck for a long time before I found out what it was<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and how to make it tick again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the women all came over and we went to the top of<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the hill. Gray horses were lying dead there, and some of them<\/p>\n\n\n\n

were on top of dead Wasichus and dead Wasichus were on top of<\/p>\n\n\n\n

them. There were not many of our own dead there, because they<\/p>\n\n\n\n

had been picked up already; but many of our men were killed<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and wounded. They shot each other in the dusk. I did not see<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Pahuska”[Custer], and I think nobody knew which one he was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a soldier who was raising his arms and groaning. I shot an<\/p>\n\n\n\n

arrow into his forehead, and his arms and legs quivered… I saw<\/p>\n\n\n\n

some Lakotas holding another Lakota up. I went over there, and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

it was Chase-in-the Morning’s brother, who was called Black<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wasichu. He had been shot through the right shoulder downward,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the bullet stoppped in his left hip, because he was hanging<\/p>\n\n\n\n

on the side of his horse when he was hit. They were trying to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

give him some medicine. He was my cousin, and his father and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

my father were so angry over this, that they went and butchered<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a Wasichu and cut him open. The Wasichu was fat, and his meat<\/p>\n\n\n\n

looked good to eat, but we did not eat any.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a little boy, younger than I was, who asked me to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

scalp a soldier for him. I did, and he ran to show the scalp to his mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While we were there, most of the warriors chased the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

other soldiers back to the hill where they had their pack mules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After awhile I got tired of looking around. I could smell nothing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but blood, and I got sick of it. So I went back home with some<\/p>\n\n\n\n

others. I was not sorry at all. I was a happy boy. Those Wasichus<\/p>\n\n\n\n

had come to kill our mothers and fathers and us, and it was our country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was in the brush up there by the Hunkpapas, and the first soldiers <\/p>\n\n\n\n

were shooting, I knew this would happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought that my people were relatives to the thunder beings<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of my vision, and that the soldiers were very foolish to do this.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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

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

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

To Be Continued:<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Black Elk Continues: After I showed my mother my first scalp, I stayed with the women awhile and they were all singing and making the tremolo. We could not see much of the battle for the big dust, but we knew there would be no soldiers left. There were many other boys about my age … 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-2078","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2078","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=2078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2079,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2078\/revisions\/2079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}