To understand what would take shape in Sioux culture over the next decade—and how Black Elk fit into—one must grapple with the Lakota concept of power. As Black Elk would one day tell a disciple, one found power in truth, and that truth was "the oneness of all things." To the Lakola, Nature could be neither fully known nor controlled; the best a man could hope was to venerate Nature's power, then use it to the best of his abilities. Man could not stand apart from Nature, for he was part of it; though his role was to understand vast forces, he could never realistically seek to dominate them. One dared not stand above and outside Nature’s sacred hoop, for such a stance was the arrogance of fools. Since one could exist only inside the hoop, one must try to direct the flow of power from within. If anything, said the modern holy man John Fire Lame Deer, such an approach was "a way of looking at and understanding this earth, a sense of what it is all about.” It was, above all else, "a state of mind."
After decades of fighting the army, the Sioux had come to suspect that this was the basic difference between the wasichu [White man] and them. Time had proved that the wasichu were human enough, not the maleficent spirits some feared during the tribewide debates of 1864. They bled like human beings, died like human beings, ran like cowards or fought as bravely as any warrior. Their parts were the same: they even bred and bore children by Lakota squaws.
The difference lay in the way they approached Nature: in essence, how they attained power. They stood outside the hoop and sought dominion. Their trains and fire-boats, guns and gunpowder, talking wires strung across the prairie—none were of this world. They might hail from forces teased from Nature, but none existed naturally. The consequences could be devastating: look what they had done to the buffalo. A people that could destroy something as limitless as Pte could destroy anything.
The Lakota, on the other hand, tried to work within Nature. To them, Wakan Tanka — understood generally as the "power of the universe"— could not be isolated from the natural world. No separation existed between the sacred and the secular. Every object had a spirit, called tonwan; thus, every object was holy, or wakan. Find a way to use tonwan and one found the power to do wakan things.
It was the shamans who tapped such power, The Lakota called them wicasa wakan; whites, "the wakan man." Every Lakota individual sought spiritual power to some extent, usually through vision quests and dreams; such power could lend an advantage in battle, hunting, or healing. The shaman, on the other hand, was distinguished from and separated from the rest of society by the intensity of his experiences. There were all kinds of healers; the shaman healed, too, but on a grander scale. He specialized in the trance in which his soul left his body and journeyed across the spirit world. He went to the very source of Wakan Tanka. Most cultures had a myth or belief that a time once existed when a bridge spanned the gulf between heaven and earth, and communication was common between men and gods. But something happened and the connection crumbled. The wicasa wakan could reestablish connection. He was the bridge.
Throughout the Plains tribes—in fact throughout the world—similarities existed in how shamans were "made." Guides such as Black Road knew what to look for in the young. The first hint of power often came in a dream state that resembled death; after a time, the dreamer was resurected. In his dream, he encountered divine messengers that escorted him to an animal guide, which in turn took him to the Center of the World. There he found the World Tree, guarded by the Cosmic Lord, who bestowed upon him some kind of innate power or handed him a powerfull tool.
All this had been manifested in Black Elk, yet a certain timing was still necessary. The first signs of power often appeared with maturity. Among the Yakut of Siberia, the future shaman grew frenzied, lost consciousness, withdrew to the forest, flung himself into fire or water, slashed himself with knives—just like Black Elk when thunder called. The family appealed to an old shaman, as the Black Elks did to Black Road; the shaman attempted to teach the sufferer that this was merely a stage. Thus began his apprenticeship. Black Elk must learn the names and attributes of the various tanwan, how to summon and control them. Though merely a start, such steps brought relief. They showed the initiate that he was going through a process - and not going crazy. Initiation was the cure.