Black Elk sees a circled village and is told it is his. Everyone in the village seems to be dead or dying, but as he rides through, they revive. A voice tells him that it is the center of the nation's hoop that he has been given that made the people live. The voice tells him to give them the flowering stick, the sacred pipe, and the wing of the white giant. When he plants the stick in the center of the hoop, it grows immediately into a tree, under which all living things live happily. The sacred pipe flies in on eagle's wings, bringing peace. The daybreak star rises and the voice says that it will bring wisdom to all who see it. The entire group, including the spirits of the dead from the past, walk with Black Elk and the bay down the red road; the voice says they are walking in a sacred manner in a good land. They must climb four ascents, each one getting progressively steeper and more difficult. After the first, the people change into animals, and at the second, the animals are restless and the leaves are falling from the tree. The voice says that from here on, Black Elk must remember what he was given because his people will be in difficulties. They begin to walk the black road, and the nation's hoop is broken. The fourth ascent is horrifying, the people and their horses starving, and the voice that has been guiding them seems to weep. At this point, Black Elk sees a man painted red who changes into a bison near which a sacred four-rayed herb springs up. The herb blossoms in four colors that represent the four directions and is growing where the tree had been, in the center of the hoop. Black Elk sees fighting, gunfire, and smoke, and his people fleeing like swallows. His own horse is reduced to skin and bones, but he cures him with the herb.
Four virgins enter, carrying some of the symbolic objects Black Elk has been given by the Grandfathers. They dance and the horses dance. He looks down upon his people and the earth is restored and they are happy once again. Still on his horse, he sees the whole world as one, the hoops of many nations united in one hoop, with one mighty tree sheltering everyone as the children of one father and one mother. He saw that it was holy. Two men fly in and give him the sacred herb to plant. The voice tells him he will go back to his six Grandfathers and he follows the two flying men who change into flocks of geese. Black Elk rides through the Grandfathers' tepee, made of cloud, rainbow, and lightning, and they welcome him in triumph. The Grandfathers tell him he will go back empowered and restore his people. They give him the sacred gifts they gave him before. He sees himself among his people, lying as if he were dead, which his Grandfathers call a sacred manner. As Black Elk leaves the Grandfathers, he is lonely and looks back to see the spotted eagle. The rainbow tepee disappears and he sees his own village and hurries toward it. He enters his tepee and sees his parents attending a sick boy who is himself. He then regains consciousness and is sad because his parents do not understand where he has been.
