Black Elk's vision is rooted in a traditional religious wisdom given long ago to the Dakota-Lakota-Nakota Sioux Nations by "a sacred woman" known to many as the "Buffalo Calf Woman" or "White Buffalo Calf Woman"
because she gave the nations "a pipe with a bison calf carved on one side"
and transformed herself into "white bison galloping away and snorting" (BES, pp. 3-5).
"And because it means all this, and more than any man can understand, the pipe is holy" (BES, p. 3).
According to Black Elk, "all life" is holy and good, and "us two-leggeds sharing in it with the four-leggeds and the wings of the air and all green things; for these are children of one mother and their father is one Spirit" (BES, p. 1).
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