What occurs when the people receive the 4th ascent? What role does Black Elk play?

In the fourth ascent, the people are metamorphosed from animal form back to people again, but starving people; the terror is almost unbearable, the holy tree has disappeared; seen from the fourth ascent on the north side of a camp in the third ascent, Black Elk sees a man painted red who changes into a bison near which a sacred four-rayed herb springs up.