Eagle Elk--but that has not previously been recorded. In recounting
such remembered material in this book, I have enriched my story and
ensured the accuracy of my memory by turning to several sources. I
have referred to the published transcripts of Enid's 1931 notes; I have
myself transcribed from her shorthand tablets a number of letters my
father dictated, as well as all of her diary; and I have checked my own
typewritten reports made when I accompanied my father in 1944 to in-
terview Black Elk and Eagle Elk.

For the most part, however, this book comes from my memory of
the 1931 interviews, when I was a rather advanced high-school student;
from my recollections of the summer of 1931 when my father, Alice,
and I camped on Ben Black Elk's land while I was in college; and from
the 1944 interviews when, in my twenty-eighth year, I acted as re-
porter for my father. What I tell here results likewise from my contin-
ued association with the subject matter throughout my life, enriched
by my close rapport with my father during his lifetime.

During the several years taken to complete it, I have regarded the
writing of this book as imperative because--except for Enid, who has
been most helpful to me--no one else is still living who was present
during the interviews. Black Elk himself, Eagle Elk, Ben, Ellen, Lucy,
and Leo are all gone, and John Neihardt as well, which leaves to me
the privilege of reporting this previously untold story.

It is not surprising, since Black Elk Speaks has attracted great interest
both in this country and abroad, that the book has been the subject of
varying interpretations, some of which reveal serious misunderstand-
ings. Although portions of my story are devoted primarily to a hu-
man-interest narrative of what happened during our visits, other parts
express certain critical facets of the Black Elk story. Among those
facets I would include Black Elk's response to my father's question
concerning the holy man's participation in a white church and what
Lucy volunteered to me about the true religious beliefs of her father,
her brother, and herself. I have related such facts and communica-
tions, which I consider essential to an understanding of the whole
Black Elk story, simply and without embroidery, just as they unfolded
naturally during talks with the holy man and with Ben and Lucy.

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