“And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.”
With Neihardt as the decipherer, Black Elk extends his visions as a shamanic prophet with spiritual abilities. Black Elk is in touch with the ancestral land and heritage of his people hence undertakes the shamanic role as his personal calling. He expresses the spiritual ties that the Native people have with their land, something the US government will never understand. Thus, the assertion highlights his visions of the global lands and how it must bring the people together as one.
“Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.”
Further accentuating of Black Elk’s spiritual abilities that stem from the revelations he gets through religious experiences. He has shown to have a personal calling from the ancestors that grant him a deeper connection to spiritualism. The statement expresses the nature of his visions and how they should resonate with their current state of affairs as Natives. In that, his ecstatic religious revelations gave him a clearer and better visions of the reality they should lead and have.
