Black Elk Speaks depicts the tragedy of a culture that can no longer support its traditional ideals. In their own terms, the Sioux have lost the sacred hoop of their nation. But they did not lose it through a lack of faith or other internal weakness; they lost it, almost inevitably, to the forces of economic greed when white Americans expanded westward in search of more land and more goods. Their culture is lost through the loss of the traditions and lifestyle that Black Elk commemorates.
The end of the traditional Sioux hunting practices is a striking example of the loss of culture. The bison, an abundant source of food that was a daily reminder of the providence of the Great Spirit, were considered sacred. The bison roamed the prairie in what seemed to be a never-ending supply. Even the Transcontinental Railroad's separation of the herd into two halves, when Black Elk was still a child, did not seem especially threatening; as he says, half of the herd was still more than they could use. A complex cultural event, the great bison hunt, occurring just after his vision (see Chapter 4), is an arena for the hunters on horseback to display their courage and bravery (Standing Bear, killing his first adult buffalo, shows his manhood). Butchering, food preparation, and the hide-and-bone-processing practices that followed the hunt allowed for the tribe's sustenance. Finally, the community celebrated with dancing, singing, and thanksgiving rituals — a joyous feast. The priority of railroad and settlement expansion and the carelessness with which whites hunted the bison for sport ("They just killed and killed because they liked to do that," Black Elk says) meant that the herd decreased drastically in size. After January 1876, when Indians were ordered onto reservations, the food supply became a way to control defiant Indian behavior. With the bison herd much diminished and the confiscation of Indian horses and guns, the Indians had no way to supply their own food and were forced to rely on government rations. When the Indians seemed hostile, as when Sitting Bull refused to come out of Canada and live on a reservation, rations were decreased. The Indians, starved and sickened, were coerced into submission. When the bison herd was lost, so was contact with the sacred along with a sense of Sioux identity and independence.
