John Gneisenau Neihardt (1881 - 1973)

Born 8 Jan 1881 in Sharpsburg, Illinois, USA

Died 24 Nov 1973 at age 92 in Columbia, Missouri, USA

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Biography

John Gneisenau Neihardt was born near Sharpsburg, Illinois, on January 8, 1881, the third child of Nicholas Nathan Neihardt and Alice Culler.

He was an American writer and poet, an amateur historian and ethnographer, and a philosopher of the Great Plains. Born at the end of the American settlement of the Plains, he became interested in the experiences of those who had been a part of the European-American migration, as well as American Indians whom they had displaced. He traveled down the Missouri River by open boat, visited with old trappers, became familiar with leaders in a number of Indian communities and did extensive research throughout the Plains and Rocky Mountains.

Neihardt wrote to preserve and express elements of the pioneer past in books that range across a broad variety of genres, from travelogues to epic poetry. In 1921 the Nebraska Legislature elected Neihardt as the state's poet laureate, a title he held for fifty-two years until his death.

His most well-known work is Black Elk Speaks (1932), an extended narration of the visions of the Lakota medicine man Black Elk.

He married Mona Martinsen (1884-1958), a sculptress and one time student of Rodin, in 1908. They had four children: Hilda, Alice, Enid, and Sigurd.

Associated Profiles

Black Elk, was a wičháša wakȟáŋ ("medicine man, holy man"), heyoka of the Oglala Lakota people and educator about his culture. He was a second cousin of the war leader Crazy Horse and fought with Crazy Horse in the Battle of Little Bighorn. Now, December 26, 2017, Black Elk is being considered for Catholic sainthood.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Elk

Wovoka, the Paiute medicine man whose vision became the Ghost Dance Movement.

Good Thunder, Brave Bear, and Yellow Breast, who were taught the Ghost Dance by medicine man Wovoka.

Crazy Horse, Lakota war leader of the Oglala band.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Horse

Sources

• John G. Neihardt , Black Elk Speaks, [University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1932.]
• John G. Neihardt, When the Tree Flowered, (British title: Eagle Voice), [Macmillian, April, 1951, Pocket Books, New York, January, 1973.]
• The New Yorker, Another Vision of Black Elk, by Ian Frazier. Black Elk is being considered for Catholic sainthood.
• https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/another-vision-of-black-elk
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Neihardt