Anthropologist Dr. Raymond J. DeMallie explains in the preface of his book, The Sixth Grandfather, that he wrote the book not only to give readers a better understanding of the life of the Ogala Souix Holy Man, Black Elk, but also to publish, for the first time, the complete teachings Black Elk gave to John G. Neihardt, author of Black Elk Speaks. In my opinion, DeMallie does more than this with the extensive information he provides. He also gives you a look at Neihardt, the author and close friend of Black Elk. First, he provides material of historical importance concerning Lakota culture not used in the Black Elk interviews published by Neihardt, and second, he allows a comparison that shows the faithful interpretation and literary artisan of Neihardt's works.

The Sixth Grandfather is a book intended for a professional, scholarly audience. As a publication covering two other publications including their transcripts and notes, DeMallie's book is informative, however it is also repetitive. For the general audience, it is best suited as additional reading to accompany the reading of Neihart's Black Elk Speaks and When the Tree Flowered as it provides a useful resource of history and reference. DeMallie's book not only varifies the sincerity and authenticity of Neihardt's interpretive works by providing the transcripts of the Black Elk interviews, but also enables the reader to aquire a clearer insight of Black Elk's life and messages by including important details concerning Lakota language and culture.

Besides the original transcripts, DeMallie's sources of information include restored material omitted or changed in the transcripts by Neihardt's daughter from her written notes. DeMallie adds corrections of puctuation and grammer to some of these to clarify rather than improve the writing. Also, there are instances where DeMallie rearranges or adds to names given, or even substitutes a word in a quote that he explains in footnotes as more probable or plausable, but it does no damage to the original understanding given, nor does it attack the authenticity of Neihardt's works. Other sources written on North American Indians concerning traditions, folklore and calculated dates of events are compared to the transcripts and notes as well. Several archival sources are used to back up or compare to both the notes and Neihardt's final works. Although calculations of dates are argued, such as those concerning the "Origin of the Peace Pipe" in DeMallie's footnotes on page 284, the intention of the teaching itself isn't lost or damaged. Recalculation of people's actual ages, or particular dates of occurrances might be important to the historical aspects, but the spiritual subject matter is unscarred and presented for the reader's own personal interpretation.

The sincerity of Neihardt's works covering the life and teachings of Black Elk have been questioned since he wrote them. Simply thought, they were translative books about Indian traditions, messages and teachings written by a white man. By making available the notes and transcripts in their entirety, The Sixth Grandfather shows that Neihardt was genuinely focused on the importance of Black Elk's message. But at the same time, focused on the craft of writing and keeping the reader's interest and attention--the non-Indian reader in particular. In one case, it's found that Neihardt leaves out the translated procedure of smoking the peace pipe in Black Elk Speaks when compared to The Sixth Grandfather on page 288. Obviously Neihardt does this because it's already been introduced and covered in the first seven pages of Black Elk Speaks entitled, "The Offering of the Pipe". Also on page 235 of The Sixth Grandfather , DeMallie points out in the footnotes concerning "Black Elk's First Cure" that Neihardt misnames the herb used for the cure, associating it with the same herb used or seen in other ceremonies. To keep the general reader's attention Neihardt avoided repetition, as well as confusing details, in order to keep the literary focus on the message. It's also noticable that Neihardt left out much material about wars and some Native American opinions of the white people in Black Elk Speaks which are published in DeMallie's book, The Sixth Grandfather. Here again, it seems Neihardt is executing a down play on the violence and clash to further focus on the spiritual message.

DeMallie points out some translative mistakes on Neihardt's part that might be there in the realm of serious - if you're an easily insulted native Lakota maybe - but here again the spiritual message isn't distorted. For example in DeMallie's footnotes on page 232 of The Sixth Grandfather , he mentions that Neihardt mistakenly translates the native location of Pine Ridge as "the Place Where Everything Is Disputed", instead of "Distributed". Although the Lakota name for Pine Ridge, "Wakpamni", indeed translates "Distribution", the paragraph Neihardt writes on page 179 in Black Elk Speaks concerning the "Seat of Red Cloud" is talking about the building of the "Pine Ridge Agency". Which is indeed a place of dispute, as well as distribution I'm sure. Here again, it's no big deal, and no one's infallible because even DeMallie mistakenly notes Neihardt's "error" on the wrong page anyway--DeMallie said the particular episode and translation was on page 183 in Black Elk Speaks. An easy oversight when such detailed research can turn your brain to oatmeal quickly.

As if Neihardt's works covering Black Elk's spiritual message wasn't deep enough, DeMallie takes it much deeper by including Lakota theology, language and history to digest along with the reading. The only bad side about the book is the repetativeness of information. Of course as a publication of research, The Sixth Grandfather was not written for literary entertainment. And as a publication of two other publications, you have to have read at least one of Neihardt's publications to appreciate DeMallie's publication.

TooniOneFeather 2002

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