To what extent was the narrative created and perhaps manipulated by Neirhardt?

Later critics have not been quite so kind to Neihardt's methods. G. Thomas Couser in particular leveled numerous criticisms at the book; in his 1989 essay "Black Elk Speaks With Forked Tongue," he argues that Black Elk's testimony in the book is inauthentic because "we see Black Elk not face to face, but through the gloss of a white man—a translation whose surface obscures Black Elk by reflecting the culture of his collaborator." The Bison Books edition of Black Elk Speaks, perhaps in an attempt to respond to such criticisms, includes an appendix comparing a passage from Black Elk's original translated transcript to Neihardt's handwritten draft of the same passage. In any case, such criticisms only call into question the book's standing as a genuine memoir and do not diminish its status as an illuminating piece of literature.