Nicholas Black Elk
1863-1950 20th century
The peace that begins inside a person, and two inheritances of prayer carried without setting them against each other.
Who was Nicholas Black Elk?
A Lakota medicine man and cousin of Crazy Horse, he survived Little Bighorn and Wounded Knee. Baptised at forty, he became a catechist in the Dakota reservations and travelled the camps for forty years with a Bible and a picture catechism, never disowning what his people's prayer had taught him.
In their own words
Read, or teach yourselves to read; study the Scripture and hold on to it strongly.
Grandfather, Great Spirit, you have always been, and before you nothing has been.
The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realise their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers.