Like other heroes, Black Elk undergoes trials that test the quality of his character. Surviving the illness, during which he experienced his great vision, is his first such trial. In other trials, he participates in the suffering of his entire tribe: the Battle of the Rosebud ("the fight with Three Stars"), the Battle of Little Bighorn, at which he took his first scalp, the exile in Canada, the move to reservation life, and the massacre at Wounded Knee. The lamentation ceremony during which Black Elk has his dog vision is a kind of crucible for him, a moment at which he undertakes the trials of all his people and, with fasting and the use of sacred ritual objects, begs for a vision that will show him how to fulfill his destiny (see Chapter 15). That vision does come, and the mandate is clarified: The white man is the enemy of the Sioux.
In traditional quest stories, the hero brings something back to the community. What Black Elk wants to bring back to his community is a restored sense of tribal identity, but the westward expansion of white Americans makes that impossible. In contrast to other such stories, Black Elk's story ends with his feeling that he was unworthy of his vision. He recognizes that as a healer he helped individual people, but mourns the fact that he could do nothing for his nation. Black Elk, then, appears to be a displaced hero, born to fulfill a role his culture could no longer support, and pitted against forces his community had no power to fight. The Author's Postscript contradicts Black Elk's conclusions, however, as the Great Spirit responds to Black Elk's invocation, and it rains.
