It is a world haunted by isolated warriors who seem to be without their communities  save for a few distant blue figures who now and then appear in the far space of the paintings. Their very presence, remote as they are, increases the warriors  isolation rather than mitigating it. Sometimes there are two warrior figures, dancing or fighting, rituals which separate as much as they engage. Hood realized his ultimate direction upon reading John Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks and finding that many of Black Elk s visions corresponded exactly to those his grandfather had related to him. Black Elk, the revered Oglala Sioux medicine man, saw both Custer's death and the slaughter at Wounded Knee. In one of his greatest visions Black Elk leads his people through four ascents, representing the four generations he will live to see. The first three ascents show happier times, but at the fourth the vision becomes terrible: Then when the people were getting ready to begin the fourth ascent, the Voice spoke like someone weeping, and it said Look there upon your nation.