Frithjof Schuon Archive

Father Gall, born Erich Schuon (1906 -1991), was Schuon’s older brother. He became a Cistercian monk in 1921 and lived for most of his life at the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Scourmont in Belgium. The two brothers shared a love of the American Indians from their early childhood. Father Gall later became the adopted son of Black Elk, the famous Lakota holy man. Joseph Brown wrote to Frithjof Schuon in 1947, “Black Elk has taken a great interest in his son, Father Gall; he talks of him often, and is having several things of buckskin made for him. He is also sending him his necklace made of sacred deer hoofs, and we are sending him a pipe and sacred tobacco.” One of Schuon’s poems provides this insight: “My late brother was a monk, / From his childhood a friend of the Red Indians. / Once a troupe of Red men came from across the sea; / He made firm friends of some of them. / He learned Lakota and, all his life, / He wrote letters in this language; / To his monastery Indians came several times — / He learned many wondrous Indian songs.”