Black Elk in Europe

End of the vision?

Buffalo Bill Cody’sWild West Show

• Mythology of Westward Migration– Manifest Destiny

• Blackstone, Buckskin, Bullets, and Business

Mythology of the Martyrdom of General Custer

• Buffalo Bill intentionally looked like Custer– Black Elk calls him

Pahuska (Long Hair)– Battle of Little Big Horn

(Greasy Grass) is the final act of the Show

Indians in the Wild West Show

• Sitting Bull• Why does Black Elk join

the Show?• Phillip Bigtree,

Mohawk

Travels with the Show

• Chicago, New York Madison Square Garden• England– Difficulties of Atlantic passage

• Meets “Grandma England” at her (Victoria’s) Diamond Jubilee

Mexican Joe Show

• Misses the boat home• Joins another Show and travels to Paris,

Germany and other places• Dies in Paris for 3 days– Visits home– Homesickness– Great trouble

• In Europe 1886-89

Ghost Dance “Messiah”

• New Treaty in 1889– Lost half of remaining

land

• Wovoka in Mason Valley, Nevada– Paiute– Jack Wilson

• Save the Indian– Destroy the Wasichu– Bring back the dead and

the Buffalo

Black Elk’s Ghost Dance Vision

• Ghost Dance takes Black Elk to the land of the Dead– Similar to Dog Vision

• Brings back the Ghost Shirt• Ghost Dancing makes Wasichus afraid– Why?

Butchering at Wounded Knee

• Bad trouble coming because of wasichu fear

• 7th Calvary (Custer’s outfit)– Fear of Ghost Dance led to

massacre of– Hotchkiss gun

• Big Foot’s band of elderly, women and children – Almost 300 died

Gatling Gun circa 1895

Reactions to Wounded Knee

“The nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they should die than live the miserable wretches that they are.” Editor, Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, Dec. 1890

After Wounded Knee

• “…[W]e had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up…and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.” Editor, Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, Jan. 1891

L. Frank Baum

• Wizard of Oz• “Clown of Syracuse”• Theosophist (Postive

Mind Cure), feminist, magician, salesman, writer of children’s literature

• Indian hater?

Capitalism and Gift Exchange

• Wizard of Oz as mythology of monetary exchange system

• Contrasted with Gift exchange of Lakota

Indians of Bloomingdales 2005

Trip to Harney Peak

• Offering the pipe• A little thunder and rain• Site of Black Elk’s vision

Trudell, the movie

Lakota Tradition resurgence

Deserted Churches on Pine Ridge territory

Manderson, Pine Ridge, SD

Ghost Dance

Wounded Knee

Wounded Knee Memorial