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The boys of my people began very young to learn the ways of men, and no one taught us we just learned by doing what we saw, and we were warriors at a time when boys now are like girls.

Black Elk

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Black Elk
Age: 86 †
Born: 1863
Born: December 1
Died: 1950
Died: August 19
Heyoka
Medicine Man
Tribal Chief
Like
Taught
People
Ways
Warriors
Learn
Warrior
Girl
Began
Young
Girls
Way
Saws
Men
Boys
Time
Learned

More quotes by Black Elk

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All things are our relatives what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One.
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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.
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A good nation I will make live.This the nation above has said.They have given me the power to make over.
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May you always walk in Beauty.
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So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation's hoop I thrust it in the earth.
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One should pay attention to even the smallest crawling creature for these too may have a valuable lesson to teach us.
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Know the Power that is Peace.
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When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything.
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When I got back to my father and mother and was sitting up there in our tepee, my face was still all puffed and my legs and arms were badly swollen but I felt good all over and wanted to get right up and run around.
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I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.
Black Elk
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But I think I have done right to save the vision in this way, even though I may die sooner because I did it for I know the meaning of the vision is wise and beautiful and good and you can see that I am only a pitiful old man after all.
Black Elk
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Every place is the center of the world.
Black Elk
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Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people flourished.
Black Elk
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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
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The center of the universe is everywhere.
Black Elk
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And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
Black Elk
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Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
Black Elk
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And if the great fear had not come upon me, as it did, and forced me to do my duty, I might have been less good to the people than some man who had never dreamed at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me.
Black Elk
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I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
Black Elk
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It is good to have a reminder of death before us, for it helps us to understand the impermanence of life on this earth, and this understanding may aid us in preparing for our own death. He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything then he knows that world which is real.
Black Elk