Black Elk

Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round
about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood
there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for
I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit,
and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.
An I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops
that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the
center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of
one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.

Black Elk Speaks, The Great Vision, 1932, p. 36

Black Elk Speaks, published by Neihardt evolved from interviews with Oglala Sioux Holy Man Nicholas Black Elk. "Within a half hour, after I met him, Black Elk had chosen me as his spiritual son." Neihardt recalls, "and he seemed not only to know that I was coming but had expected me a long time." The universal symbolism of this book made it a favorite of scholars such as Carl Jung and Josesph Campbell.