Throughout “The Great Vision” there are many times when Neihardt fails to mention events which seem to be very significant to Black Elk. This can be noted when reading the passage about the second grandfather. Neihardt failed to mention “Black Elk understands the second Grandfather to be saying that he will ‘create a nation,’ and ‘cure lots of sickness with this herb,’ thus causing the people to cry joyfully as geese do when returning to their northern home after the hard winter has passed” (1091). If Black Elk were truly telling this event it does not seem that he would have left out so much detail.

It does not really even matter how much detail was left out, the mood of the piece was altered with every omission. Even the s

I felt myself wondering if there were more places that Neihardt went around the truth that were not cited in the text. I just did not understand why Neihardt would chose to leave out such vivid details in some sections and add details in others. He had translators so that he would understand Black Elk’s story and perhaps they did not translate some sections as well as they could have but I still believe that Neihardt knew what Black Elk was saying and he chose to write it differently for whatever reasons, which brought out the voice of Neihardt and masked that of Black Elk. The main thing that really took away from my belief that Black Elk was the voice behind the text was the fact that songs were cut. Songs were such a tradition for tribes and it does not seem that Black Elk would have chosen not to include his songs if he truly was the voice. Neihardt simply did too much tampering with Black Elk’s vision for me to believe that it was Black Elk’s voice.

How does your answer to this question influence the meanings you take from the text?

As seen in the footnotes, there are instances when Neihardt does not speak correctly of Black Elk’s experiences or simply chooses to put less emphasis on scenes. Take for example the scene on page 1092. It is written that the fourth Grandfather is telling Black Elk of a black road goes from where the thunder beings live. The writing portrays

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