Documented most fully among the Lakota as hanbleceya, crying for a vision: purification, isolation, fasting, prayer, then interpretation by elders. Related rites existed across many Native nations with their own names and rules; it was a tribal institution, not a generic technique.
The New Age version blends Lakota fasting, Hopi symbolism, and generic shamanism into one marketable quest. Native organizations have protested the commercialization for decades, and some nations restrict ceremonies to enrolled members precisely because of it.
The anthropological constant beneath: liminality, van Gennep's threshold, wilderness isolation appears in monastic deserts, Aboriginal walkabout, and ordeals worldwide. The vision quest may be less a technique than a default human instrument, which explains both its power and its persistent theft.
When a sacred practice becomes a retreat package, what is left in the box?