InTheTemazcal

The first time I heard the temazcaleros sing, "Tierra mi Cuerpo," in the Temazcal , I knew that I had heard the song long ago ... somewhere in my childhood. There, though, it bore a name from my native tongue, English. I later remembered that I had learned it as "The Element Song," also known as "The Element Chant." The harmony took me back to a circle around a campfire, and, as it drifted through my mind, I heard its echo from a classroom in the Midwest, ... maybe in Greenwood Elementary School . I know that I have heard a number of versions and interpretations by different artists, in several languages. The song, or chant, ... simple and direct ... verbalizes a very basic relationship between the temazcalero, the human participant in the temazcal ceremony, and the elements of the temazcal: earth, water, air, and fire. In the temazcal, or Mexican steam bath ,  recall, ... in its most basic form, the temazcalero sits on an earthen floor, exposed ...

Black Elk and John G. Neihardt (1932) introduced the audience of the book,  Black Elk Speaks , to important symbols in the Lakota culture within John G. Neihardt's six-paragraph introduction (Chapter One: "The Offering of the Pipe." There, the holy man, Black Elk, moved to "... make an offering and send a voice to the Spirit of the World, that it may help me to be true. ... But before we smoke it you must see how it is made and what it means." As an author, organizing transcribed texts, memories, and impressions, Neihardt, through this six-paragraph introduction of Black Elk, set a mood and intimate focus for the reader. The visionary Lakota, sharing and describing the sacred pipe, developed a tangible image of the entire universe, represented by the shared offering of the pipe. Without such a physical or otherwise perceivable model, we might never manage to begin to contemplate the Lakota universe. As a reader of  Black Elk Speaks,  taking the time to...

Image Source: Pixabay "My friend, I am going to tell you the story of my life, as you wish; and if it were only the story of my life I think I would not tell it; for what is one man that he should make much of his winters, even when they bend him like a heavy snow? So many other men have lived and shall live that story, to be grass upon the hills." from  Black Elk Speaks John G. Neihardt opened his most successful book, Black Elk Speaks  with his own words, expressing them in the sense of Black Elk's "mood and manner" for telling his life story (Neihardt 2008). The book reaches us, the readers, as a collaborative effort of many participants, with Black Elk speaking as the Lakota holy man and Neihardt as the poetic writer. The former told the saga, while the latter orchestrated its transcription, translation, and publication, sending a united voice to the universe. The book's first six paragraphs, in Chapter One, "The Offering of the Pipe,...