The prominent psychologist Carl Jung read the book in the 1930s and urged its translation into German; in 1955, it was published as Ich rufe mein Volk (I Call My People).[3]
Reprinted in the US in 1961, with a 1988 edition named Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, as told through John G. Neihardt (Flaming Rainbow) and a State University of New York Press 2008 Premier Edition annotated by Lakota scholar Raymond DeMallie, the book has found an international audience. However, the book has come under fire for what critics describe as inaccurate representations of Lakota culture and beliefs.
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Things regarding spirituality, religion and culture are basically impossible to accurately translate whether to English or German or to any other language.
Why?
Because linguistic and cultural norms cannot usefully be translated simply because all spirituality is an experience not meant for words. And so genuine religious experience also cannot be translated and must be experienced by the individual.
and So, intellectually describing other cultures spirituality is somewhat useless because we tend to put such things within our own cultural context and in doing so we misunderstand what is actually happening.
I was fully able to realize this while doing a vision quest under the tutelage of a Blackfoot Sioux Medicine man myself.
While doing this vision quest of no water or food in the wilderness for 4 days or 96 hours I realized just how different a Native American Vision quest is from western Culture entirely.
However, in some ways it is exactly the same experience that Buddha and Jesus each had when they fasted on water alone for 40 days each.
what I"m saying here is that spirituality and religious experience is very individual and a personal experience with God and nature during something like a vision quest and it forever changes a person's life ever after.
By God's Grace
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