After joining the Wild West Show in 1886 and traveling to Chicago and New York to learn from the Whites, citing Neihardt in Peter Farb, Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
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I did not see anything to help my people. I could see that the Wasichus [Whites] 'did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation's hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the earth was their mother. This could not be better than the old ways of my people.

— Black Elk

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I did not see anything to help my people. I could see that the Wasichus [Whites] 'did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation's hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the earth was their mother. This could not be better than the old ways of my people." in the context of "After joining the Wild West Show in 1886 and traveling to Chicago and New York to learn from the Whites, citing Neihardt in Peter Farb, Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Black Elk" (Quotes, Black Elk Speaks (1961): Black Elk Speaks : being the life story of a holy man of the Ogalala Sioux (1961), as told to John Neihardt ) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Black Elk

About Black Elk

Nicholas Black Elk Hehaka Sapa (c. December 1863 – 17 August or 19 August 1950 sources differ) was a famous Wichasha Wakan (Medicine Man or Holy Man) and Heyoka of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux). He participated at about the age of twelve in the Battle of Little Big Horn of 1876, and was wounded in the massacre that occurred at Wounded Knee in 1890.