Black Elk Speaks is a well-known text both for non-Native American readers who wish to study the Oglala Sioux culture and for Native American youths who are searching for their roots. Black Elk and Neihardt present a picture of the Sioux people during a time of considerable conflict caused by confrontation between the European and Sioux cultures. The details of these conflicts highlight the important differences between attitudes toward land, values, customs, and religion. For example, when Black Elk emphasizes conflicts over land, he compares the happy summers before the “big trouble” to reservation life and the loss of the Black Hills because of the Wasichus’ (white people’s) desire for gold. The following quote exemplifies Black Elk’s ability to illuminate the diverse attitudes toward land and animals:Once we were happy in our own country and we were seldom hungry, for then the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds lived together like relatives, and there was plenty for them and for us. But the Wasichus came, and they have made little islands for us and other little islands for the four-leggeds, and always these islands are becoming smaller, for around them surges the gnawing flood of the Wasichu; and it is dirty with lies and greed.

Black Elk’s attitude toward the loss of land and the impoverishment of his people corresponds with historical research that documents the demise of many Native American populations in the 1800’s. Black Elk’s interpretations of his great vision are also related to the conflicts over land. During the fourth ascent, he sees starving people and dying animals.

Sioux values, customs, and religious beliefs emerge as Black Elk describes his life and his visions and as he compares his beliefs with those of the Wasichus. The differences in attitudes toward Mother Earth are among Black Elk’s strongest conflicts: He cannot understand how people can either own or sell land. Even Black Elk’s attitude toward houses shows his strong belief in the power of the circle and the “sacred hoop.” Black Elk maintains that one of the reasons that the power of his people is gone is because the government built and forced them to live in square houses rather than in circular tepees. Black Elk’s sorrow is revealed as he describes the harmony that is possible when people live with the circles represented by the whirling wind, the rounded sky, and the circular seasons. Throughout his autobiography, Black Elk seeks ways to bring his people back into the ways of the sacred hoop.

Black Elk’s beliefs correspond with cultural values identified in earlier studies reported in the Journal of American Indian Education in 1965 and traditional Lakota values reported by the Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards in 1975. According to these sources, Native Americans value harmony with nature. Nature is regarded as part of the universal order by which everything on earth must live. Consequently, people must respect nature or face the consequences. Black Elk’s examples compare the Sioux, who conform to nature, and the white settlers, who try to dominate and destroy nature. Black Elk’s point of view reflects a close relationship between religion and nature. His descriptions of visions, of the interactions with the Great Spirits, and of the Ghost Dance are reverent. Studies have described many Native American religions as individualized expressions completed between the individual and the Great Spirit.