Black Elk Speaks is such a story. The Sioux lifestyle of moving camp from place to place forms the journey as a plot structure. The troubled period of tribal history depicted in the story, with the Sioux migrating into exile in Canada and being forced to move out of their own territory and onto reservations, further dramatizes the journey plot. In addition, Black Elk himself travels to Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. But the most important journey the narrative represents is Black Elk's process of fulfilling the destiny promised to him in his vision, a process that ends somewhat tragically, according to the narrative, rather than heroically.
Because of the vision he was granted at the age of nine, it is clear that Black Elk is a child with a privileged destiny. The terms of his great vision give him the mandate of maintaining the sacred hoop of his people — an imaginable structure of cultural coherence and unity. The Sioux are known as warriors, but Black Elk will be something different, a holy man and a healer, equally valued in his community. Black Elk comes from a family of medicine men, and he will need the recognition of other healers and holy men in the tribe in order to fulfill his destiny. First of all, the fact that his culture has a place for such a person is important: his task will be to equip himself to take on a public role that is already defined. One of the first steps in this process is receiving the recognition of others. This happens almost immediately on the evening following his great vision, when the medicine man Whirlwind Chaser tells Black Elk's father that his son is sitting "in a sacred manner" and that he could see "a power like a light all through his body" (see Chapter 4). When Black Elk is about 18 and old enough to assume his role, the medicine man Bear Sings helps him perform the horse dance, an enactment of his vision (see Chapter 14); later, another medicine man, Few Tails, helps him conduct the lamentation ceremony in which he receives his dog vision (see Chapter 15) and another older man, Wachpanne, helps him enact the heyoka ceremony (see Chapter 16), after which he performs his first cure (see Chapter 17).
