Black Elk was an Oglala Sioux holy man and distant cousin of Crazy Horse. He was born near the Little Powder River in Wyoming and as a teenager he fought in the Battle of the Little Big Horn in which General George Armstrong Custer and his soldiers perished. In 1877, Black Elk was taken by his family into Canada after Crazy Horse's death. Then, he and his family were placed on a South Dakota reservation after the surrender of Sitting Bull.