Black Elk Quotes
There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men.
Brown, Joseph Epes, editor. The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux. University of Oklahoma Press, 1953, p. 115.
Heȟáka Sápa, commonly known as Black Elk, was a wičháša wakȟáŋ ("medicine man, holy man"), heyoka of the Oglala Lakota people and educator about his culture. He was a second cousin of the war leader Crazy Horse and fought with him in the Battle of Little Bighorn. He survived the Wounded Knee Massacre and traveled in Europe as part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. He converted to Catholicism, becoming a catechist and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rapid City opened an official cause for his beatification within the Roman Catholic Church in 2016. His grandson, George Looks Twice said, "He was comfortable praying with this pipe and his rosary, and participated in Mass and Lakota ceremonies on a regular basis".
