"The Otherness of Things":
John G. Neihardt's Branson Saga
John G. Neihardt's Branson Saga(reprinted from White River Valley Historical Quarterly Fall 1997, pp. 3-7)
What drew poetic visionary John Gneisenau Neihardt and his cosmopolitan wife Mona (Martinsen)--former student of Auguste Rodin--to the Missouri Ozarks? Leaving the beaten Hwy-76 trail to meander along Neihardt Avenue, Branson travelers might well ponder the question, as they imagine the Ozarks as it must have appeared in 1921, the year the Neihardts left Bancroft, NE, to settle just outside of Branson. The wooded hills, blue haze caressing the age-worn shapes outlined in the distance, the mysterious hollows snaking around caves and sink holes--all must have enticed this young family, whose vision of poetic unity found in the real and practical a fascination with the "otherness of things."
Most readers first sample Neihardt through his collaboration in Black Elk Speaks, researched and published while the Neihardt family was living in Branson. The Oglala Sioux tribal history and "as-told-through" autobiography of the Lakota Holy Man, Nicholas Black Elk, fuses oral and literary tradition in what has been called both a Native American bible and the Rosetta Stone of 19th century Native American culture: Through the unfolding of Black Elk's prophetic vision, the work records selected events of Oglala history through the Messiah Movement of the 1880s and the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890.
Following its 1932 publication, Black Elk Speaks attracted only a selective readership for the next thirty years. A resurgent interest in Native American studies in the 1960s led to the book's being republished in 1961 and 1979. Vine Deloria, Jr.'s introduction to the 1979 edition praises the work as one of the greatest religious classics of the 20th century . Some readers, including many Native Americans, look to it, as Deloria puts it, "for spiritual guidance, for sociological identity, for political insight, and for affirmation of the continuing substance of Indian tribal life" (xiii). Many are drawn to the work not as a way to avoid the broken shards of contemporary society, but for a vision of a whole vessel which must transcend the preoccupations of individual cultures.
Certainly, Neihardt's efforts in making Black Elk Speaks accessible deserves critical acclaim, but the poet's accomplishments have a much larger scope: Selectively extracted from his 3,027 known poems, closet-dramas, stories, articles, and reviews-- from his earliest publication to his two-part autobiography All is But a Beginning (1972) and Patterns and Coincidences (published posthumously in 1978)--Neihardt's best works are characterized by a desire for poetic unity and a search for the heroic.
Especially his A Cycle of the West (published in five separate heroic poems from 1915 to 1948), an epic-like saga of the westward expansion written in iambic pentameter couplets, strives for unity and wholeness of human experience. Grouped in two separate volumes, The Mountain Men and The Twilight of the Sioux, the long poems of A Cycle romantically record the struggles of both whites and Native Americans absorbed by the spirit of manifest destiny of the late 1800s.
While he frequently concentrated on the spiritual, Neihardt's evolving poetic vision was always grounded in an appreciation for the real. He resented the popular belief that poetry offered an escape from reality, stating frequently that "if poetry (and by poetry we mean the essence of all the arts) has no greater function than that, then the practical person should employ not a poet, but a bootlegger . . . . [It is] not less reality that we want, but more" (Poetic Values 18).
It may have been this practical idealism--seeking the universal in the finite--that drew Neihardt to Black Elk. And while this idealism must have enriched Neihardt's intermittent stays in the Ozarks between 1921 and 1948, the seeds of his vision were sown much earlier. Born in Sharpsburg, IL, in 1881, Neihardt moved to Wayne, NE, with his mother and sisters in 1901, following his parents' separation. Struggling to support her children, his mother hired out as a dressmaker, scrimping and saving what she could as she raised her family on her father's farm.
According to later accounts of his life, the 11-year-old Neihardt had his first out-of-body experience during a bout with extremely high fever in the fall of 1892. He described the "terrible vastness" of the thrice recurring dream in All is But a Beginning, identifying it as the initiation of his subconscious poetic drive, a desire to fuse the "simple satisfactions of common sense and the costly rewards of spiritual striving" (48).
After recovering from this mysterious illness, Neihardt pursued his poetic and scientific interests with fervor: skipping high school altogether, he completed his studies at Nebraska Normal College in 1896 with a degree in science and a professional teacher's certification. Unable to afford the $3 graduation fee, the 15 year-old left college without his diploma (unpublished manuscript by Mona Neihardt, Oct. 1938, Neihardt Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection-- Columbia, MO).
He held a variety of jobs--including continued work as a marble polisher in a tombstone shop in Wayne, a job which put him in contact with one of his early mentors. An eccentric but gentle sculptor, "Professor" Durin introduced Neihardt to Hindu mysticism and provided a sympathetic audience for the aspiring poet's juvenalia. It was during this time that Neihardt began work on The Divine Enchantment, a poetic manifesto infused with Hindu and Vendanta philosophy.
Neihardt held teaching positions in 1898 and 1899 in Wayne County, NE, at Districts 77 and 55. His earliest contract on file, signed on 26 Nov. 1998, agreed to a four-month term for $30 a month--a meager sum, but one which allowed him to continue work on his poetry. After returning from an unsuccessful trip to Kansas City to find a publisher for his piece, he accepted the second position in Bancroft, signing a four-month contract on Oct. 20, 1899, for $35 a month (Teaching Contracts, Neihardt Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection--Columbia, MO).
When The Divine Enchantment was published in 1900, the poetic vista failed miserably. By this time, Neihardt had left teaching and had held a number of jobs--including a short stint as reporter for an Omaha paper. Though he continued to write and publish short pieces, it was not until the publication of A Bundle of Myrrh in 1907 that Neihardt received much critical attention.
Ironically, this volume was also responsible for his epistolary romance with his future wife: Mona Martinsen, then studying in Paris, read a copy of Neihardt's verses and began a correspondence with the poet. Though their letters were later destroyed in a fire, Hilda Neihardt Petri recalls the romantic tenor of her parents' version of their transcontinental courtship. Standing on the platform at Union Station in Omaha, NE, with a marriage license in his pocket, Neihardt met his fiancee for the first time on Nov. 28, 1908. Hilda recounts her 120-pound father's initial reaction to the woman he had come to wed: "She was so different, so stylish, so tall," Neihardt later told his children (Black Elk and Flaming Rainbow 6). Yet the couple was married the next day, a marriage that lasted nearly 50 years--without the mention of which any account of Neihardt's life, Hilda writes, would be "not just incomplete, but inaccurate" (7).
Neihardt's interest in the Ozarks as a haven from economic and intellectual distraction had taken root at least as early as 1912. In a 1912 letter to fellow poet George Sterling, Neihardt discussed his financial struggles that he feared would soon leave him "as poor as Jesus Christ and Socrates together." Not losing hope, he continued with his plan to escape the economic and climactic fluctuations of his Nebraska home:
"But this is not the letter of an unhappy man. I am going to dig up enough to get on a small farm in the Ozark Mountains of Northern Arkansas, where I can raise what I need--and a little more as my debt to Society--and have firewood for the labor of chopping it." (Neihardt Letters, Sterling Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA)
In the meantime, he continued his poetry, lecture tours, and literary reviews, steadily building his reputation. Following his publication of such works as Man-Song (1909), The River and I (1910), The Song of Hugh Glass (1915), and The Splendid Wayfaring (1920), Neihardt was named poet laureate of Nebraska in 1921, the same year he and his family moved to the Missouri Ozarks. On Jan. 23, 1921, he enthusiastically updated Sterling on the realization of his earlier plan:
"Since writing you last I have moved away from Nebraska and am now in the Ozark Mountains of So. Missouri. It's a very beautiful place and the climate is wonderful. At the present moment the grass is as green as a relative's eye, and the butter we make is golden. . . . I have bought 4 acres and a rather large house on top of a hill 500 feet above the lake. Such a view, and such a dear place in which to live and be one's best! Branson has 1100 population and during the summer 50,000 people come here. We are certainly not out of the world. Our home is within a minute's walk of woods, and yet we have electricity for light and power and our supplies are delivered at the house."
(Neihardt Letters, Sterling Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA)
Between his frequent travels to the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Pine Ridge Reservation, and his editorial jaunts for such papers as the Kansas City Journal Post and St. Louis Post Dispatch from 1926-1938, Neihardt returned to the Ozarks. His family remained in Branson during many of these travels, and his frequent letters to Mona and his mother record a perpetual longing for the creative respite his home above Roark Creek offered. In a 1921 letter to his family during one of his lecture tours, he articulated his typical sentiment:
"I'll be home just as soon as I can get there, you bet! I want to get to work, and I want to eat plain good meals, and I want to see the fog come up off Taney Como; and I want Sport to jump all over me; and I want to be kissed roughly by Mrs. Bessie [Jersey cow]. I like her far better than any lady I've seen on the Coast so far. she's prettier and has better sense too." (letter to family, Nov. 21, 1921, Neihardt Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection--Columbia, MO)
When he did return to the area, Neihardt devoted much time to outdoor activities with his family. Alice, the youngest Neihardt child, recounted her girlhood adventures with her father in a 1939 letter. In addition to hiking, swimming in Roark Creek, horseback riding, and camping out, the children enjoyed turkey hunting on Dewey Bald and Cooley Ridge. Alice's warm account of her family's activities revealed a peaceful contentment with Branson life. (letter to Elmer Holm, April 7, 1939, Neihardt Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection--Columbia, MO)
Among the Branson acquaintances mentioned with in the family letters collected in the Neihardt Papers in Columbia, special tenderness seemed to be felt toward Judge Duncan Vinsonhaler, Mrs. Cantwell, Mrs. Spurlock, Mrs. Greer, Dr. R. M. Good, and "the Devine Lady" Rose O'Neill. Still, the pastoral isolation which allowed Neihardt uninterrupted writing and family time had its drawbacks: he and Mona were dissatisfied with the educational opportunities for their four children, and certainly the family's literary and artistic interests went unappreciated by many of their Ozark neighbors. Occasionally the frustration of being misunderstood manifested itself in Neihardt's letters to his family, as it did in a 1923 letter to his mother. Predicting a return to Nebraska, he declared that "Branson can Bransonize, and be damned!" (Neihardt Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection--Columbia, MO)
Such outbursts, however, were not typical of his correspondences. Much more representative were optimistic letters, brimming with enthusiasm for renovation projects at their home, the progress of Mona's sculpture, and the magic of the then-unspoiled hills and hollows.
Deeply spiritual, Neihardt frequently advised his family to keep themselves in harmony with the mystical realm, as he encouraged his mother and sister in the early 1930s: "I know that when I don't feel close to the 'Other World' I'm miserable; and when I feel close, I feel invulnerable and can do anything I try to do. By 'Other World' I don't know exactly what I mean; but it is probable that I mean a higher state of consciousness, at the least; and, at the most, an actual world of intelligences interpenetrating our world. The latter often seems the only thing to believe." (letter to mother and sister, Neihardt Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection-- Columbia, MO)
Nevertheless, he had little interest in organized religion devoid of mysticism, avowing that "Without mysticism there is no religion; and so, most alleged religion is only a sort of organized ignorance and meanness." (letter to Mona, Oct. 24, 1939, Neihardt Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection-- Columbia, MO)
Black Elk apparently felt Neihardt's spiritual sensitivity on their first meeting in 1930, reportedly stating of his companion, "As I sit here, I can feel in this man beside me a strong desire to know the things of the Other World. He has been sent to learn what I know, and I will teach him" (Black Elk Speaks xvii). With his son Ben acting as interpreter, Black Elk told the story of his boyhood shaman vision, in which the Six Grandfathers commanded him to preserve the Sacred Hoop and the Flowering Tree. Neihardt's oldest daughter, Enid, served as stenographer, recording conversations and stories told by Black Elk and other tribal elders which Neihardt later organized into the present volume.
Neihardt's role as amanuensis has not gone unchallenged. Some critics believe Neihardt omitted too much of Black Elk's life, including his conversion to Christianity and his later years as Catholic priest, in order to present a romanticized "noble savage" who counted coup and worshipped Wakon Tonka. Others object that Neihardt exploited Black Elk by selling the Great Vision to publishers, strengthening Neihardt's reputation as a great white bard while violating the Lakota's trust. Ironically, sparks of recent interest in Black Elk Speaks have been fanned by the current controversies.
Nevertheless, transcripts of Enid's stenographic notes and correspondence from Ben Black Elk assembled in the Neihardt Papers of the Western Historical Manuscript Collection suggest the most vituperative of these claims are exaggerated. Undoubtedly, most fail to mention Black Elk's apparent bonding with Neihardt--his willingness to share his stories and his renaming Neihardt "Flaming Rainbow," a "word-sender" whose writing would preserve the vision of the Sacred Hoop.
Several Native American writers have expressed their respect for Neihardt, including Dee Brown who considered his own Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee to be a "culmination of Neihardt's influence" ("The Power of John Neihardt" 10). Even Pulitzer Prize winner N. Scott Momaday praised the poet: "The sacred vision is preserved . . . . For this task, successfully completed, among other things, we owe to the poet John Neihardt our best thanks" ("Save a Great Vision" 38).
As readers grow disenchanted with the fragmentation of much contemporary literature, Neihardt's collaboration on Black Elk Speaks and his later When the Tree Flowered (1951), a fictionalized autobiography of Sioux Eagle Voice, continue to earn the poet critical attention. Raymond DeMallie's study of Black Elk in The Sixth Grandfather (1984) and Hilda Neihardt Petri's account of her father's methodology and motivation in Black Elk and Flaming Rainbow (1992) answer many of the charges against Neihardt.
As DeMallie and Petri suggest, sometimes overlooked in textual studies is the fact that Neihardt's interest in Native Americans was more than literary. He was also committed to practical service, taking a job with the Indian Welfare Division of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Chicago from 1942 to 1946, where he worked to reform economic conditions for Native Americans. He did not advocate cultural separatism; however, he had deep respect for the humanity struggling in impoverished reservation environments and realized that acculturalization--not assimilation-- was necessary in order for the peoples to survive.
In 1946 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Missouri at Columbia, where he accepted a teaching job in 1948. Selling his Branson home, Neihardt purchased Skyrim Farm in Columbia, staying for the next twenty years. His interest in the spiritual realm contributed to his founding the Society for Research on Rapport and Telekinesis in 1961. Finally, he moved to Lincoln, NE, in 1968, to live and write until his death in 1973.
Regardless of their perceptions of the poet's motivation, readers can learn a great deal from Neihardt: His ear for the cadence of oral tradition, his eye for the minute detail of ordinary experience, and his sensitivity to the sacred allowed him to preserve both the spirit of place and its people--in both his prose and his epic sagas of the Westward Expansion--summoning them to appreciate the real as they seek the spiritual "otherness of things."
Works Cited
Brown, Dee. "The Power of John Neihardt." A Sender of Words. Ed. Vine Deloria, Jr. Salt Lake City, UT: Howe Brothers, 1984, pp. 5-11.
Deloria, Vine, Jr. Ed. "Introduction. " A Sender of Words. Salt Lake City, UT: Howe Brothers, 1984. pp. i-xiii.
DeMallie, Raymond. "John G. Neihardt's Lakota Legacy." A Sender of Words. Ed. Vine Deloria, Jr. Salt Lake City, UT: Howe Brothers, 1984, pp. 110-135.
-----. The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt. Lincoln, NE: U of Nebraska P, 1984.
Momaday, N. Scott. "To Save a Great Vision." A Sender of Words. Salt Lake City, UT: Howe Brothers, 1984, pp. 30-38.
Neihardt, Hilda Petri. Black Elk and Flaming Rainbow: Personal Memories of the Lakota Holy Man and John Neihardt. Lincoln, NE: U of Nebraska P, 1995.
Neihardt, John. All is But a Beginning. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.
-----. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. Lincoln, NE: U of Nebraska P, 1979.
-----. A Cycle of the West. New York: Macmillan, 1949.
-----. Man-Song. Lincoln, NE: U of Nebraska P, 1991.
-----. Patterns and Coincidences. Columbia, MO: U of Missouri P, 1978.
-----. Poetic Values. New York: Macmillan, 1925.
Neihardt Letters. Unpublished. Sterling Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
Neihardt Papers. Unpublished. Western Historical Manuscript Collection--University of Missouri, Columbia, MO.
Photographs of John Neihardt, Mona Neihardt, and Neihardt home courtesy of Lyons Memorial Library, College of the Ozarks
Richards, John Thomas. Rawhide Laureate: John G. Neihardt. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow P, 1983.
-----. A Voice Against the Wind: John G. Neihardt as Critic and Reviewer. Oregon, WI: New Frontiers Foundation, 1986.
