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Black elk speaks sparknotes12/31/2023 He feels sad that he has not been able to enact his own vision, but then becomes happy that perhaps the time has come to do so. He sees a ceremony that is like his vision after all - a circle, with a flowering stick, and the faces of the dancers painted red. Another is to be held at Wounded Knee Creek and Black Elk goes to see it. Black Elk is puzzled because this is not like his vision at all. Some believers claim to have seen their dead relatives. Through the year, rumors grow about the redemption the Wanekia promises. This Wanekia had a vision and says that the Indians might be saved if they perform a "ghost dance." Black Elk thinks that perhaps this man had the same vision he did and that he was meant to help him. The Oglalas send three men to investigate, and they come back with the news that a man named Wovoka, whom the whites call Jack Wilson, is a Wanekia (a great spirit, "One Who Makes Live"). Rumors of a man among the Paiutes who would save the Indians and bring back the dead and the bison, circulates among the Indians. He says that his power was dead while he was gone and he thought it was gone forever, but now that he is back, he continues to work as a healer. Black Elk himself is suffering: His father dies his younger brother and sister have died while he was gone. The treaty of 1889 left the Indians with even less land, the bison are gone, crops will not grow, the food that the white men promised to send is not forthcoming, and measles and whooping cough are taking lives. That fact, which Neihardt says may appear only coincidental to Wasichu (white) readers, leaves the reader with a sense of the authenticity of Black Elk's early vision and the hope that the fragile state of the Sioux nation can eventually be strengthened until it thrives once more.Black Elk comes back to see that hunger and disease ravaged his people. And yet, it does rain, for however short a time, during the worst drought that any of the old Indians can remember. The low sound of thunder and the small amount of rain that occur seem to signify diminishment: Both Black Elk's power as a holy man and the vital relation between the Sioux nation and the Great Spirit are much weaker now than they had been. He expresses his sorrow at not having been able to use the power of his vision to bring his people to prosperity and happiness. He refers to the gifts of the six grandfathers of his vision: the pipe, the cup, the bow, the wind, the herb, the daybreak star, the sacred hoop, and the flowering tree. He offers a prayer to the four quarters of the earth. In his prayer to the Great Spirit, Black Elk uses the symbology of the vision granted almost 60 years before. The entirety of Black Elk's story up to this point was, of course, only told to Neihardt. This is the only chapter in which Neihardt becomes a participant in the narrative, witnessing Black Elk's supplication of the spirits of his vision. In this chapter, Black Elk steps out of the story he is narrating into the present day reality of his conversation with John Neihardt. After a short time, the sky clears again. ![]() A low sound of thunder is heard and it begins to rain. ![]() ![]() He begs the Great Spirit to allow him to help his people. Black Elk sends a prayer to the spirits who appeared to him almost 60 years before, saying that he acknowledges their great power and laments the fact that he has never been able to actualize the vision they granted to him he has not been able to maintain the sacred hoop of his nation and make the tree flower in its center. It is a cloudless day in the middle of a severe drought. The party travels to the peak with Black Elk dressed and painted as he was in his vision. He tells his son Ben, who has been acting as interpreter, that if he has any power left at all, there should be some rain or thunder. Having concluded his story, Black Elk points to Harney Peak in the distance and says that it is the place of his vision and that he would like to go there once more before he dies.
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