Nicholas Black Elk: The Apostle to the Lakota
Apostle, Theologian, and Servant of God
Introduction
*Author note: I am working on this book in real-time. The book will be published via Missio Dei’s imprint, but as a thank-you to our patrons, I am providing the manuscript as it is being written for their commentary.
My friend, Jonathon Fessenden among others, has urged me to write a book on Servant of God Nicholas Black Elk. And to be honest, admiring the man, I have been quite reluctant to take on such a venture. Furthermore, Black Elk is such a towering figure in Lakota Catholicism that a failure to adequately write on the topic would be an injustice to Lakota Catholics. Any good writer knows that sometimes the secret to writing is simple—just start writing! So, I have decided that a rough draft on the topic of Nicholas Black Elk will be written in real time and given to the supporters of Missio Dei Catholic as a thank-you. It’s an endeavor that continues to stir in my heart, such that I feel like Jonah whenever I turn away from this work and get distracted by other subjects.
The question I have wrestled with is the style of writing about Black Elk. There is an art to the historian’s craft. I have long lamented in biblical studies that New Testament scholars who rely solely on a diachronic method of exegesis—the historical-critical method—would better serve the discipline if they took a historiography course, and learned how history is written. Black Elk’s full story has been written sufficiently in a more academic format by Fr. Michael Steltenkamp, SJ. Steltenkamp’s first book on the topic, Black Elk: Holy Man of the Oglala (1993), is an academic work in tone, seeking to set the record straight about the totality of Black Elk’s life, which includes his conversion to the Catholic faith, leaning heavily on the personal testimony of Black Elk’s daughter, Lucy Looks-Twice. The second treatment by Fr. Steltenkamp, Nicholas Black Elk: Medicine Man, Missionary, Mystic (2009), is more of a modern biography that draws on a wide range of sources to examine Nicholas Black Elk's life.
Fr. Steltenkamp will be the first to admit that he is indebted to the work of anthropologist Raymond J. DeMaille, who, with permission from the John G. Neihardt estate, edited and published the invaluable transcripts from John G. Neihardt’s Black Elk Speaks, in the book The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk’s Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt. Neihardt’s text served as a foundation for keeping Black Elk’s memory alive in the public mind, but DeMaille’s transcripts have served as the focal point for academics and admirers getting to know the figure of Black Elk. There is little doubt that Servant of God Nicholas Black Elk’s cause for canonization is the fruit of the work from DeMaille and Fr. Steltenkamp’s interviews with Lucy Looks-Twice.
Personally, I am deeply indebted to Dr. Damien Costello’s work on Black Elk: Colonialism and Lakota Catholicism. I had the pleasure of speaking to Dr. Costello on the phone for about an hour on the topic of Black Elk and building the cult of awareness of Black Elk’s cause for the world. Dr. Costello made one particular point on the call that struck me with a bit of wisdom, saying (note: I am paraphrasing from memory), “I used to be more critical of John G. Niehardt’s Black Elk Speaks, but it’s really how we still know him today.” I remember responding to Dr. Costello, “I think we also then have to give credit to groups like the American Indian Movement (AIM), who revived the popularity of Black Elk Speaks.”
Dr. Costello’s work, written as a doctoral student, is, though biographical when needed, a contextual and textual analysis of Nicholas Black Elk’s mystical visions from youth and, later, his Ghost Dance visions argued within the concept of Black Elk as authentically both Lakota and Catholic—a true internalization of the Catholic faith within the cultural frameworks of the Lakota. Dr. Costello’s thesis has convinced me that Nicholas Black Elk is the greatest Christian theologian among the indigenous peoples of the Americas.