Mediator between realities
Black Elk was only five years old when he began to hear voices. This special ability to see past reality was considered special within the Lakota community. Professor Donald Fixico, an American Indian Professor, cites Black Elks’ “gifted powers to see things connected with the metaphysical world made him valuable to his people as a mediator between the two realities of the physical and metaphysical.” From a cultural worldview that encompasses everything within the realm of possibility, healers were expected to traverse this divide and were singled out to perform this service for the community. This ability to “see” encompasses the “acceptance of fact that a relationship exists between a tangible item like a mountain and a dream.” Part of the traditional way of this ability to see according to the nonlinear, circular way is to view “things from a perspective emphasizing that circles and cycles are central to the world and that all things are related within the universe. This point of view is a different perspective from that of the American mainstream, based on the Western mind believing in empirical evidence.” In order to comprehend the vision of Black Elk and other visionaries, one must adjust to another way of thinking and looking at the world.
The ability to perceive past the basic world of human contact into the metaphysical world is indigenous to Lakota culture. Fixico asserts that “it is a perspective that involves human beings, animals, plants, the natural environment, and the metaphysical world of visions and dreams.” This all-encompassing view considers everything from a holistic viewpoint. The ability to see visions and dreams is a reflection of this way of thinking, and “for Indian people who are close to their traditional way of life, “thinking” is seeing visions and dreams in a visual reality, unlike seeing things in a linear manner.” But this ability could not operate in a vacuum. It relied upon community support.
Read more:
Black Elk, Lakota Visionary
Black Elk and John Neihardt
Black Elk's Vision
Mediator between realities
Spiritual Rituals
The Life of Black Elk
Influence of Black Elk
Recommended Reading and Photo Credits
About the Author