Black Elk's Religion

The Sun Dance and Lakota Catholicism

by Clyde Holler

In this religious history of the spiritual life of the great Lakota leader Black Elk, Clyde Holler reconstructs the development of the Lakota Sun Dance--the central religious ritual of the Lakota tradition, which is essential to understanding Black Elk's thought. This comprehensive study of the dance, which was banned by the U.S. government in 1883, shows how Black Elk adapted and reinterpreted it in terms commensurate with Christianity.

246 pp — ©1995