Black Elk Native American Quotes & Sayings

Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. — Black Elk

And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle. — Black Elk

The song and the drumming were like this: Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling. — Black Elk

Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred. — Black Elk

If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish. — Black Elk

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. — Black Elk

The Holy Land is everywhere — Black Elk

Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus should we do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World. — Black Elk

I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw. — Black Elk

But if the Vision was true and mighty, as I know, it is true and mighty yet;for such things are of Spirit, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost. — Black Elk

Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles. — Black Elk

The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours ... — Black Elk

Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations. — Black Elk