In a Circle

Topic: The Natural World

Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are the stars. The wind, in its greatest power whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our tepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation’s hoop.

Black Elk [Heȟáka Sápa]

Heȟáka Sápa, commonly known as Black Elk, was born in December 1863 along the Little Powder River in what is now Wyoming. He was a member of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) and a second cousin to the renowned war leader Crazy Horse. From a young age, Black Elk experienced profound spiritual visions that would shape his life and destiny. At the age of nine, during a severe illness, he had a vision in which he encountered the Six Grandfathers, spiritual beings who bestowed upon him gifts and powers, including the ability to heal. This vision set him on the path to becoming a wičháša wakȟáŋ, or holy man, a role he embraced throughout his life.

Black Elk's life was marked by significant historical events and personal transformations. He participated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 and witnessed the tragic Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. In the late 1880s, he traveled to Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, where he sought to understand the ways of the white people. Upon returning to the United States, he became involved in the Ghost Dance movement, which aimed to restore the Native American way of life. Despite the suppression of this movement, Black Elk continued to serve his people as a healer and spiritual leader, blending traditional Lakota practices with his later conversion to Catholicism in 1904. He became a catechist, teaching Christianity while maintaining his Lakota spiritual beliefs.

Black Elk's legacy extends beyond his lifetime through his contributions to literature and spiritual teachings. His autobiographical accounts, shared with poet John G. Neihardt and anthropologist Joseph Epes Brown, were published in the influential works "Black Elk Speaks" and "The Sacred Pipe." These books have inspired generations and contributed to the revival of Native American culture and spirituality. Black Elk's ability to integrate his Lakota heritage with his Christian faith exemplifies his resilience and adaptability. His life and teachings continue to resonate, symbolizing a bridge between cultures and a testament to the enduring spirit of the Lakota people.

(1863-1950) Native American Religions
Black Elk Speaks

Black Elk, Nicholas, et al. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. University of Nebraska Press, 2004, [Black Elk [Hehaka Sapa], Black Elk Speaks (1961)].

Black Elk [Heȟáka Sápa]

Theme: Natural World

About This Black Elk [Heȟáka Sápa] Quotation [Commentary]

Black Elk—Heȟáka Sápa—in Lakota begins with a direct teaching: “Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.” This is not just a natural fact but a way to recognize how sacred power moves. He names the roundness of the sky, the earth, and the stars. He points to the wind, which “in its greatest power whirls,” and the birds, who “make their nests in circles.” These forms are not merely practical; they reflect a shared pattern. “Theirs is the same religion as ours,” he says, linking human life with the ways of animals and the movements of the elements. The sun and moon “come forth and go down again in a circle,” and even time itself, through the seasons, returns “again to where they were.”

Black Elk’s focus remains on what is directly seen and deeply lived. “The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood,” he says, naming the arc of a life not as a straight path, but as a return. In this view, beginning and end are joined. The sacredness of the circle is not symbolic alone; it is visible in the structure of the world and the shape of human life. He draws no divide between spiritual insight and natural observation. Everything—light, time, weather, growth—moves with the same rhythm.

This circular form is also reflected in how his people lived. “Our tepees were round like the nests of birds,” he explains, “and these were always set in a circle, the nation’s hoop.” The round dwelling, the gathered circle, and the hoop of the nation all express the same pattern seen in the sun and stars. Black Elk offers no separation between the human world and the natural world. Both are formed by the same movement, shaped by the same power, and held together in the same circle.

Additional Black Elk Quotes

“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 [Black Elk Speaks, Ch. 17:The First Cure].

“Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all , and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.”

—Black Elk [Black Elk Speaks (1961)].

“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka , and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men.”

—Black Elk [The Sacred Pipe (1953)].

In a Circle

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