The Crying for a Vision is at once a dramatic account of the rise and fall of the Lakota Indians, and an absorbing allegorical saga of the Lakota orphan Waskn-Mani-Moves Walking. The Crying for a Vision vividly describes Moves Walking's conflicts with the all-powerful, one-eyed warrior, Fire Thunder, whose rise to power eventually leads to the spiritual destruction of the earth and its people. In the end, it is up to the gentle, nature-conscious Moves Walking to save the world and heal its "elemental sorrow-the anguish of living things when the sacred hoop is broken," and to do so he must make the greatest sacrifice of all.