Advanced English
《高级英语》
（第三版）
第一册
主编：张汉熙
外语教学与研究出版社
Lesson 11
The Way to Rainy Mountain
by N. Scott Momaday
Teaching Points
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I. Background information
II. Introduction to the text
III. Language points
IV. Text analysis
V. Questions for discussion
VI: Writing assignments
I. Background Information
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1. N. Scott Momaday
2. Historical background
3. The Kiowas (para. 1)
4. the Plains (para. 3)
5. the U.S. Cavalry (para. 3)
1. N. Scott Momaday
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Navarre Scott Momaday (born February 27,
1934) is a Kiowa-Cherokee Pulitzer Prizewinning writer from Oklahoma, New Mexico,
and Arizona.
Momaday’s father Al Momaday was educated at
Bacon College and the Universities of New Mexico
and California. Scott Momaday was a well-known artist,
deeply committed to his Kiowa heritage. His mother,
whose great-grandmother was Cherokee, grew up in a
middle-class family and was educated at Haskell
Institute, Crescent Girls Collage, and the University of
New Mexico. She studied art and journalism and
became a well-known painter and writer. He inherited
both his father’s and mother’s talents. He started out
as a writer, but since 1974 painting and sketching
have become important forms of creative expression
for Momaday.
Momaday belongs to a generation of
American Indians born when most tribal
communities had long ceased to exist as vital
social organizations. His Kiowa ancestors
shared with other Plains Indians the horrors of
disease, military defeat, and cultural and
religious deprivation in the 19th century. Their
only chance of survival was to adapt
themselves to new circumstance.
His parents’ academic background and
their integration into Anglo-American culture
did not sever their ties to their Kiowa and
Cherokee ancestors. Momaday identifies
himself more as Kiowa than as Cherokee.
Mamaday grew up on various reservations in
northern New Mexico. Between 1936 and
1943, Momaday and his parents lived on the
Navajo reservation in New Mexico and Arizona.
During this time, Momaday became familiar
with Navajo culture and learned some of their
language. After the family moved to Jemez
Pueblo in 1946, Momaday became closely
acquainted with Pueblo Indian culture and the
unique landscape of the Rio Grande Valley.
Momaday witnessed the fundamental changes
which took place at Jemez and the cultural and
personal disintegration among his Jemez
neighbors. This is the theme of his novel House
Made of Dawn (1968), for which he received
the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1969.
From 1952 to 1956 Momaday attended the
University of New Mexico, majoring in political
science with minors in English and speech. At this
point he began to be interested in writing. Then he
went to study law at the University of Virginia for
some time. There he met William Faulkner, who was
teaching at the university, and the great writer had a
deep influence on him He graduated in 1958 with a
B.A. in political science. Between 1959 and 1963 he
did doctoral studies in English at Stanford. In 1962
Momaday received an Academy of American Poets
prize for his poem “The Bear.”
From 1963 to 1969 Momaday was an
assistant and later associate professor of
English at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. There he taught American Indian
studies and was very much concerned with
the Indian oral tradition. In 1967 he
published The Journey of Tai-me, an
exploration of Kiowa folklores, which he
enlarge into his best-known book, The Way
to rainy Mountain (1969).
The book is Momaday’s inquiry into his
Indian past in an attempt to determine the
extent to which it has shaped him and the
degree to which he has become detached from
the mythical worldview of his ancestors. The
book is divided into three chapters entitled
“The Setting Out,” “The Going On” and “The
Closing In” with 24 sections, each told by three
different narratives: mythical, historical and
personal.
In his book Momaday explores his ethnic
identity and the history and culture of his
people. He says “None but an Indian, I think,
knows so much what it is like to have existence
in two worlds and security in neither.” His other
work includes two volumes of poetry, Angle of
Geese and Other Poems (1974) and The
Gourd Dancer (1976); The Names: A Memoir
(1976); an autobiographical novel The Ancient
Child (1989);
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two collections of prose and poetry In the
Presence of the Sun (1992) and The Man
Made of Words (1997); and an interweaving
of poetry and painting In the Bear’s House
(1999). In 1992, Momaday received the first
Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native
Writers’ Circle of the Americas. He also won
the 2007 National Medal of Arts awarded by
former President George W. Bush.
N. Scott Momaday (left) receiving the National Medal of Arts
from George W. Bush in 2007.
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In the past years, Momaday has taught
English and given lectures at the University of
California, Berkeley, Stanford University,
University of Arizona, Princeton, and
Columbia. Some of his books have been
translated into Chinese, Russian, Polish,
German, Italian, Norwegian, and Japanese.
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The publication of Scott Momaday’s House
Made of Dawn (1968) and The Way to Rainy
Mountain (1969) is usually regarded as
sparking the beginning of Native American
Renaissance, a controversial term, but one
which acknowledges the richness and variety
of Native American publications produced
since the 1970s in all genres.
2. Historical background
The Trans-Mississippi West was far from empty of
human habitation when the newcomers arrived during
the period of westward expansion. An estimated
360,000 Indians lived in this region in the mid-19th
century. Among the Indians dwelling on the Great
Plains, the introduction of horses by the Spanish at the
end of the 16th century, and of firearms by British
traders in the 18th century, had created the armed and
mounted warrior tribes encountered by 19th century
westward migrants. Commercial and other contacts
with the non-Indian world continued to be important to
the Plains Indians as new settlers moved in.
But beyond these generally positive exchanges,
contact with advancing non-Indians massively
disrupted Indian life everywhere. Disease, which had
devastated Native American since the earlier
European contact, continued its ravages among the
19th century western Indians. All tribes suffered
severely from smallpox, measles, and diphtheria, as
well as other diseases contracted from traders and
settlers. The non-Indian who descended on the Plains
after 1850 had no understanding of traditional Indian
culture and little inclination to respect or preserve the
“savages” ways.
Military defeat, occupational massacres,
forced removal to reservations, and
devastation by disease, alcohol and
impoverishment all bewildered and
demoralized the Plains Indian peoples. By the
1890s relocation to distant, often inferior, and
generally inadequate lands had become the
fate of almost every Indian nation of the Great
Plains.
(Based on Chapter 17 “The Frontier West”
from the book The Enduring Vision edited by
Boyer and others)
As the frontier pressed in from east and west, the
relentless greed of non-Indian settlers drove the
Indian into what was supposed to be their last refuge.
Mounted on horses, perhaps 250,000 Indians in the
Great Plains and mountain regions lived mainly off
the herds of buffalo which provided food and, from
their hides, clothing and shelter. No sooner was the
Jacksonian removal policy complete than the onrush
of migration in the 1840s began to crowd the Indians’
land. Emigrants crossing to Oregon, California, Utah,
and Santa Fe came into contact and often into
conflict with the Native Indians.
In 1851 the chiefs of the principal plains
tribes were gathered at Fort Laramie, where
they agreed to accept more or less definite
tribal borders and to leave the emigrants
unmolested on their trails. The new arrivals
soon found it easier to force one tribes to cede
its lands without arousing the others, for the
Indian could never realize the old dream of a
unified resistance.
From the early 1860s until the late 1870s the
frontiers was ablaze with Indian wars, and
intermittent outbreaks continued through the 1880s.
In 1867, a conference was held in Kansas, and
ended with an agreement that the Kiowa, Comanche,
Arapahoe, and Cheyenne would accept lands in
western Oklahoma. But Indian resistance in the
southern Plains continued until the Red River War of
1874 – 1875.
(Based on Chapter 19 “New Frontiers” of the book
America: A Narrative History by George Brown
Tindall)
3. The Kiowas (para. 1)
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The Kiowa ( /‘kaiəuwɑ:/ ) are a nation of
American Indians and indigenous people of
the Great Plains. They migrated from the
northern plains to the southern plains in the
late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved
to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma.
Today, they are a federally recognized tribe,
the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, with 12,000
members.
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Total population: 12,000 (2011)
Regions with significant populations:
United States, Oklahoma
Languages: English, Kiowa
Religion:
Christianity and Native American
Church
Original Southern Plains territory of the Kiowa
Nation
American Indian Tribe
Indian Camp
Name
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Kiowa call themselves Kaui-gu. Ancient names were
Kwu-da and Tep-da, relating to the myth pulling or
coming out of a hollow log until a pregnant woman
got stuck. Later, they called themselves Kom-pabianta for "people with large tipi flaps", before they
met Southern Plains tribes or before they met white
men. Another explanation of their name "Kiowa"
originated after their migration through what the
Kiowa refer to as "The Mountains of the Kiowa"
(Kaui-kope) in the present eastern edge of Glacier
National Park, Montana, just south of the border with
Canada.
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The mountain pass they came through was
populated heavily by grizzly bear Kgyi-yo and
Blackfoot people. Other tribes who encountered the
Kiowa used sign language to describe them by
holding two straight fingers near the lower outside
edge of the eye and moving these fingers back past
the ear. This corresponded to the ancient Kiowa
hairstyle cut horizontally from the lower outside edge
of the eyes to the back of their ears. This was a
functional practice to keep their hair from getting
tangled as an arrow was let loose from a bow string.
George Catlin painted Kiowa warriors with this
hairstyle.
Language
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Kiowa language is a member of the KiowaTanoan language family. The relationship
was first proposed by Smithsonian linguist
John P. Harrington in 1910, and was
definitively established in 1967. Parker
McKenzie, born 1897, was a noted authority
on the Kiowa language, learned English
when he began school. He worked with
John P. Harrington on the Kiowa language.
He went on to
discuss the etymology of words and
insights of how the Kiowa language
changed to incorporate new items of
material culture. McKenzie's letters are in
the National Anthropological Archives on
pronunciation and grammar of the Kiowa
language.
Government
The Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma is
headquartered in Carnegie, Oklahoma.
Their tribal jurisdictional area includes
Caddo, Comanche, Cotton, Grady, Kiowa,
Tillman, and Washita Counties. Enrollment
in the tribe requires a minimum blood
quantum of 1/4 Kiowa descent.
J.T. Goombi, former Kiowa tribal chairman and first vice-president of the
National Congress of American Indians
Big Tree, a Kiowa chief and warrior
Donna Standing Steinberg, Kiowa-Wichita and Josephine
Parker, Kiowa, with their beadwork
Kiowa parfleche, ca. 1890, Oklahoma History Center
Kiowa beaded moccasins, ca. 1920, OHS
Crow-tribe
Piegan-blackfoot
War Party (北美印第安人的远征队）
Indian Scouts (童子军；侦察兵)
4. the Plains (para. 3)
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The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat
land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and
grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi
River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the
United States and Canada. This area covers
parts of the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas,
Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North
Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and
Wyoming, and the Canadian provinces of
Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
The Canadian portion of the Plains is
known as the Prairies. Some geographers
include some territory of Mexico in the Plains,
but many stop at the Rio Grande. The region
is known for supporting extensive ranching
and agriculture.
Approximate extent of the Great Plains
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Countries： United States, Canada, Mexico
Coordinates：37°N 97°W
Length： 3,200 km (1,988 mi)
Width： 800 km (497 mi)
Area：1,300,000 km2 (501,933 sq mi)
View of the Great Plains near Lincoln, Nebraska
A photo of bison at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in
Oklahoma
Great Plains in North Dakota c.2007, where communities began settling
in the 1870s
Buffalo hunt under the wolf-skin mask, 1832–33
Cattle herd and cowboy, circa 1902
The term Great Plains is used in the United States
to describe a sub-section of the even more vast
Interior Plains physiographic division, which covers
much of the interior of North America. It also has
currency as a region of human geography, referring to
the Plains Indians or the Plains States
The Great Plains are the westernmost portion of
the vast North American Interior Plains, which extend
east to the Appalachian Plateau. The United States
Geological Survey divides the Great Plains in the
United States into ten physiographic subdivisions.
In general, the Great Plains have a wide
variety of weather through the year, with very
cold and harsh winters and very hot and
humid summers. Wind speeds are often very
high. The prairies support an abundant
wildlife in undisturbed settings. Humans have
converted much of the prairies for agricultural
purposes or to create pastures. The Great
Plains have dust storms mostly every year or
so.
History： Original American contact
The first Americans (Paleo-Indians) who
arrived to the Great Plains were successive
indigenous cultures who are known to have
inhabited the Great Plains for thousands of
years, perhaps 10,000 years. Humans
entered the North American continent in
waves of migration, mostly over Beringia, the
Bering Straits land bridge.
Historically the Great Plains were the range
of the bison and of the culture of the Plains
Indians, whose tribes included the Blackfoot,
Crow, Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche,
and others. Eastern portions of the Great
Plains were inhabited by tribes who lived in
semi permanent villages of earth lodges, such
as the Arikara, Mandan, Pawnee and Wichita.
5. the U.S. Cavalry (para. 3)
The United States Cavalry, or U.S. Cavalry,
was the designation of the mounted force of
the United States Army from the late 18th to
the early 20th century. The Cavalry branch
was absorbed into the Armor branch in 1950,
but the term "Cavalry" remains in use in the
U.S. Army for certain armor and aviation units
historically derived from cavalry units.
Originally designated as United States
Dragoons, the forces were patterned after
cavalry units employed during the
Revolutionary War. The traditions of the U.S.
Cavalry originated with the horse-mounted
force which played an important role in
extending United States governance into the
Western United States after the American Civil
War.
Today, cavalry designations and traditions
continue with regiments of both armor and
aviation units that perform the cavalry mission.
The 1st Cavalry Division is the only active
division in the United States Army with a
cavalry designation. The division maintains a
detachment of horse-mounted cavalry for
ceremonial purposes.
Cavalry branch plaque
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Active：17 November 1775–1951
Country：United States
Allegiance：United States of America
Branch：United States Army
Type：Cavalry
Role：Reconnaissance, security, assault
Size：Division, Brigade, Regiment,
Squadron, Troop
II. Introduction to the text
“The Way to Rainy Mountain” first
appeared in Reporter, 26 January 1967.
With few modifications this piece is used as
the introduction to his book The Way to
Rainy Mountain, published in 1969. This
essay is widely anthologized and included
in The Best American Essays of the Century
edited by Joyce carol Oates.
We study this essay for many reasons:
for the author’s special racial identity, the
history of his Kiowa people – the
American Indian elements depicted in
this piece are undoubtedly thoughtprovoking and capable of widening our
knowledge of the Native American – and
above all the pure enjoyment of reading
a wonderful piece of prose.
III: Language points
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1. For my people, the Kiowa … Rainy Mountain.
(para. 1)
Landmark: A landmark is any prominent feature of
the landscape, such as a tree, a hill or a building,
serving to identify a particular locality. Rainy
Mountain is where the author’s grandmother lived
and died. She is buried there with the author’s
grandfather and many other Kiowa warriors.
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2. Great green-and-yellow grasshoppers …
the plenty of time. (para. 1)
The grasshoppers on the plain are large
and everywhere. When a grasshopper hops,
it pops up like the growing corn in the fields,
making a sudden, explosive movement to
sting the flesh. Tortoises crawl abut the red
earth aimlessly in no hurry for they have all
the time to themselves.
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3. Loneliness is an aspect of the land. (para. 1)
Loneliness is a major quality of this
landscape. As we can see, the depiction of
the land is injected with emotions and
imagination, bringing out the spirit of the place.
The author emphasizes loneliness, perhaps
because this quality enables one to
concentrate one’s mind on the earth.
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4. To look upon that landscape … of
proportion. (para. 1)
When you look upon the landscape in the
early morning with the rising sun at your back,
the objects you see may seem larger (or
smaller) than they really are. And the sense of
proportion is about life, creation, etc. and so it
is a philosophical comment, not just about the
physical.
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5. Your imagination comes to life … Creation was
begun. (para. 1)
The landscape makes your imagination vivid and
life like, and you believe that the creation of the whole
universe was begun right here. Different culture and
religions have different myths about how the universe
began.
Creation: With a capitalized “C” and the definite
article. “the,” “the Creation” is a theological term,
meaning the act by God, according to the Bible, of
making the universe, including the world and
everything in it. Here the author capitalizes the word
but omits the article “the,” perhaps to show that he is
talking about the creating of the universe as a Kiowa
imagines. Later in the essay he talks about the
emergence of his people according to the Kiowa myth.
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6. The function of Paragraph 1:
The opening paragraph of the essay is a vivid
description of the author’s ancestral land, which plays
a key role in his exploration of his Kiowa identity. The
land is crucial for Momaday because the migration of
his people took place here. The land witnessed the
tribal history. The old days are gone forever. The
Kiowa warriors are dead. The culture has almost
disappeared. What remains is the land which is the
visible embodiment of their people’s past. By directly
involving himself with the landscape of his ancestors,
the author is able to identify more closely with them
and relive their experiences in his imagination more
vividly.
The descriptions of the land are very pictorial: The
author is good at painting pictures with words. In an
interview with T. Morgan, Jr. in 1975, Momaday said:
“I have always been concerned to see that I’m writing,
and I have a real image of the subject I am treating. I
deal a lot in descriptive writing. I write descriptions of
things. I try to render them to the mind’s eye
accurately. To that extent I would say that my writing
tends to be pictorial. I really want to see things in my
writing, literally, and I want the reader to see what I’m
talking about, to have a visual impression.”
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7. … I was told that in death her face was that of a
child. (para. 2)
In death, she was peaceful and free from all earthly
worries and miseries. Her face looked like that of a
child. Only in death can one return to childhood
innocence and peacefulness.
The word “child” is repeated in the next sentence of
the next paragraph: I like to think of her as a child.
Structurally the two paragraphs are smoothly
connected. In meaning, the author seems to say that
life is but a cycle – one begins as a child and ends
like a child, and in death one returns to where one
begins.
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8. The function of Paragraph 2:
In paragraph 2 the author explains his
purpose of his visit to Rainy Mountain: to be at
his grandmother’s grave. This paragraph
serves as a transitional link between the
description of the land in Paragraph 1 and the
narration of his grandmother’s and his
people’s stories in the following paragraphs.
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9. I like to think of her as a child. (para. 3)
Why does the author like to think of her as a
child? His grandmother was born (around 1880)
at time when the Kiowa were still living in their
golden time or to be more exact, the last
moment of their golden time.
Starting from Paragraph 3 the author links
his grandmother with the history of the Kiowa.
This narrative structure will continue in the
following parts of the essay.
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10. In alliance with the Comanches … Plains.
(para. 3)
They had ruled the whole of the southern
Plains: The Indians of the Great Plains
inhabited two major sub-regions. The
northern Plains, form Dakota and Montana
southward to Nebraska, were dominated by
several large tribes who spoke Sioux
languages, as well as by the Flathead,
Blackfoot, Crow and some other Indian tribes.
The other major concentration of Plains
Indians was in the central and southern
Plains. The so-called “Five Civilized Tribes”
pursued an agricultural life there. In western
Kansas lived the Pawnees. Surrounding
these were the truly nomadic tribes of
western Kansas, Colorado, eastern New
Mexico, and Texas – the Comanche, Kiowa,
and Arapahoe.
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11. But warfare for the Kiowas … rather than of
survival … (para. 3)
Warfare was important for the Kiowa more
because of their militant tendency than because of
their need for survival. The Kiowa often fought just
because they felt that war was sacred because it
could demonstrate their courage and strength,
because they were good warriors, because they
fought out of habit, character, nature, not because
they needed extra lands or material gains for the
sake of surviving and thriving.
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12. … and they never understood the grim …
of the U.S. Cavalry. (para. 3)
Why didn’t the Kiowa understand the grim,
unrelenting advance of the U.S Cavalry?
Wars were common among different Indian
bribes. The cause of war was simple. They
fought either for the simple necessity of
survival or to display their bravery. When one
side won a battle, they would typically stop
advancing upon their defeated enemy but
would celebrate their victory.
Yet, the U.S. Cavalry seemed different. They never
gave up advancing even when they won. This
puzzled the Indians. The truth is that U.S Cavalry
was sent to accompany and protect the non-Indian,
mostly white, settlers. In the 19th century, the
American frontier kept moving westward. This
westward expansion brought constant conflicts
between the native Americans and non-Indian
newcomers. When such conflicts occurred, the U.S
Government and Army would invariable be on the
side of the latter.
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13. My grandmother was spared … military
museum. (para. 3)
Luckily, my grandmother did not suffer the
humiliation of being put into a closure for holding
animals, for she was born eight or ten years after
the event. But she must have heard what had
happened from her parents and grandparents.
Therefore she must have known the great pain and
distress brought by defeat, and she must have seen
how they had kept thinking about their defeat in a
gloomy and hopeless way.
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14. … the last culture to evolve in North America.
(para. 4)
Before the arrival of the European, there had been
numerous native Indian cultures that had existed for
a long, long time in North America. After the Kiowa
migration to the Great Plains from western Montana
three centuries ago, they acquired horses and the
Sun Dance culture. They changed their old ways of
living and developed their new culture gradually. The
author says that this was the last culture to develop
in North America.
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15. … whose language has never been
positively classified … group. (para. 4)
The native Indian languages are classified
mainly geographically, not linguistically.
Perhaps because of the migration of the
Kiowa, their language has never been
definitely classified in any major group of the
Native Indian languages.
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16. It was a long journey toward the dawn …
golden age. (para. 4)
Dawn: the word “dawn” has two meanings:
the beginning of daylight; daybreak and the
beginning of something. Both meanings suit
the context here in that the Kiowa people
not only moved toward the sun from a
sunless mountain area, but also toward the
beginning of a new era in their history.
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17. Along the way the Kiowa were
befriended by the Crows …(para. 4)
Indian wars were frequent in history. Yet, in
the process of their migration, the Crow
helped the Kiowa by giving them horses and
introducing them to the religion of the Great
Plains, both of which were essential for the
transformation of the Kiowa from a mountain
people to a plain people.
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18. … and their ancient nomadic spirit was suddenly
free of the ground. (para. 4)
As a nomadic people, they had no permanent
home and were constantly on the move. When they
lived in the mountain in Montana, they had no
horses and therefore they had to walk on foot all the
time. In a sense they were tied to the ground. Now
they were able to gallop on horseback. This gave
them a new freedom of movement, thus completely
liberating their ancient nomadic spirit.
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19. They acquired Tai-me … the divinity of the sun.
(para. 4)
They came into possession of Tai-me, the object
and symbol of their worship – the Sun Dance
religion. This object was worshiped by all tribe that
regarded the sun as deity.
1) Tai-me: Tai-me is the sacred object of worship
in their Sun Dance religion. It is also referred to as
the Sun Dance doll or fetish. In other places in his
work Momaday describes it as a bundle of medicine,
which has great healing power.
2) Sun Dance: The Great Plains Indians
worshipped the sun as their god. The Sun
Dance was their religious ceremony. The
dance was attended with symbolic rites. One
of the rites was to hang Tai-me, the Sun
Dance fetish, from a tree. That was the only
time when it was exhibited to view. The Sun
Dance period took place in mid-summer and
was considered to be very festive and sacred.
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20. According to their origin myth, they entered … a
hollow log. (para. 4)
According to the myth about where hey originally
came from, they believed they entered the world from
a hollow log. In the first chapter of his book The Way
to Rainy Mountain, Momaday writes, “Yon know,
everything had to begin, and this is how it was: The
Kiowas came one by one into the world through a
hollow log. There were many more than now, but not
all of them got out. There was a woman whose body
was swollen up with child, and she got stuck in the
log. After that, no one could get through, and that is
why the Kiowas are a small tribe in number. They
looked all around and saw the world. It made them
glad to see so many things. They called themselves
Kwuda, ‘coming out.’”
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21. The main idea of Paragraph 4:
Paragraph 4 is about how the Kiowa
migrated from western Montana and how
the migration transformed the Kiowa. Like
Paragraph 3, this part uses the author’s
grandmother’s story as a focal point, but
quickly moves on to the story of the Kiowa
people. The use of words like “she belonged
to the last culture” and “her forebears”
smoothes the transition.
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22. I wanted to see in reality … my pilgrimage. (para.
5)
1) in the mind’s eye: in imagination. Aho had never
been to places like the Black Hills, but she had seen
the place quite well in her imagination, for she had
heard so much about it from the older generations. It
is through the oral tradition that the Kiowa cultural
heritage has been handed down from generation to
generation.
2) pilgrimage: a journey to a place of historical
interest. For Momaday, the journey is indeed aimed at
a holy place, a place where his ancestors lived and
thrived in their golden age.
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23. The Kiowas reckoned their stature by the
distance … wilderness. (para. 6)
As hunters, it was very important for the
Kiowa to be able to see long distances. So if a
Kiowa could see a long way, he would be
respected by his fellow Kiowa. In other words,
their stature was measured by the distance
they could see. Yet, because of the dense
forests, they could not see very far, and they
could hardly stand straight. Thus the author
says “they were bent and blind in the
wilderness.”
bent and blind: Note the repetition of the
initial sound /b/ in “bent and “blind.” Beside
alliteration, here the author also employs the
rhetorical devise of hyperbole to make the
description more vivid and effective.
Hyperbole is exaggeration for effect and not
meant to be taken literally. Although they felt
a sense of confinement, they were certainly
not bent and blind.

24. The earth unfolds and the limit of the land
recedes. Clusters of trees and animals … to
build upon the mind. (para. 7)
The earth unfolds and the limit of the land
is far in the distance, where there are clusters
of trees and animals eating grass. This
landscape makes one see a long way and
broadens one’s horizon. Remember that they
could not see far into the distance in the
forest-covered mountains.

25. The sun follows a longer course in the
day … beyond all comparison. (para. 7)
Why does the sun follow a longer course in
the day? Because of the low horizon, the sun
rises early and sets late, thus making the day
longer and night shorter than in the
mountains.

26. The great billowing clouds that sail …
dividing light. (para. 7)
Clouds swell like large waves and move
like sails upon the sky, casting shadows on
the grain fields. As the clouds move, the
shadows move too, making some patches of
land brighter and some darker.
Note the figures of speech connected with
water – billowing, sail, like water. When you
use an extended metaphor, stick to the same
metaphor and avoid using mixed metaphors.

27. Not yet would they veer southward to the
caldron … in their view. (para. 7)
They would not yet change the direction
southward to the land lying below which was
like a large kettle, implying the idea of heat
as well as the bowl shape. First, they must
give their bodies some time to get used to
the plains. Second, they didn’t want to lose
sight of the mountain so soon. Note the
inversion of the sentence order.
wean: The word “wean” originally means to
withhold mother’s milk from the baby or the
young mammal and substitute it with other
nourishment. It is used here metaphorically.
The Kiowa paused on their way, not in a hurry
to go on toward the southeast because they
wanted to give their bodies some time to get
accustomed to the change of weather and
other physical conditions.

28. The main idea of Paragraph 7:
This paragraph is a depiction of the
landscape which they came upon when
they got out of the highlands in Montana.
The new landscape is open, limitless and
sunlit, allowing them a new vision into
unknown distances. This forms a sharp
contrast with the sunless mountain
landscape of Yellowstone. The sense of
confinement and limitation in the
mountains gave way to a sense of
freedom in the plains.

29. At the top of a ridge I caught sight of Devil’s
Tower … was begun. (para. 8)
1) Devil’s Tower: The rolling hills of the 1347 acre
park covered with pine forests, woodlands, and
prairie grasslands. Deer, prairie dogs, and other
wildlife are abundant. It was proclaimed in 1906 as
the first national monument by President Theodore
Roosevelt. Millions of people will recognize the
shape of Devil’s Tower from the movie Close
Encounters of the Third Kind, which featured the
Tower as the landing spot of the awesome Mother
Ship. Devil’s Tower is one of the legendary place in
American Indian cultures. There are different
versions of the origin of the Tower. Some tribes call it
Bears Lodge.
It is an important place in Kiowa history. When
Momaday was a baby his parents made a trip
to the Black Hills with him. There, Momaday
was given a Kiowa name – Tsoaitalee –
meaning “Rock Tree Boy” in English, which
was derived from the Kiowa story about Devil’s
Tower.
2) and the motion of the world was begun:
Everything in the world was made to move.
The use of the passive voice suggests that
there was a force that began the motion of the
world.

30. “Directly there was a bear where the boy had
been.” (para. 8)
The boy had turned into a bear. Why did he
become a bear, not some other animal? In the Kiowa
culture, the bear is regarded as the most powerful of
all animals. In an interview with Bettye Givens in
1982, Momaday said. “Bear are wonderful creatures.
They are human-like, adventurous, powerful, curious,
extremely confident in their elements. If you took a
lion and you pitted him against the bear, I would bet
on the bear. Bears are powerful.” He also said, “I
identify with the bear because I’m intimately
connected with that story. And so I have this bear
power. I turn into a bear every so often. I feel myself
becoming a bear …
The boy who turns into a bear, what does that mean?
What is the metaphor? What is the symbolism there?
I suspect it is that part of man which is subhuman.
Primitive. Most people cannot recover nature. At
one time, we lived in nature. But somewhere along
the way, we were severed from nature. And we
cannot any longer comprehend the creatures of
nature. We don’t know about them as we once did.
But this boy is an exception. He turns into a bear;
that means that he reconstructs that link with nature.”

31. From that moment, and so long as the
legend lives … night sky. (para. 9)
What is the symbolic meaning of this legend?
In the legend the seven sisters are
immortalized. With this legend, the Kiowa
established a kinship with the stars. They were
already allied with the sun through Tai-me.
Now that they were related to the Big Dipper
through the myth of Devil’s tower, they stood in
good relation to the universe. The sun and the
stars protected them day and night. This
prepared them for the coming of their golden
age.

32. Before the dance could begin … to disperse the
tribe. (para. 10)
The orders came from the U.S government.
Judged by the values of Christianity and European
civilization, the Native American cultures appeared
to be inferior and backward. The U.S. government
perceived the Sun Dance as idolatry and therefore
abolished it by force. For the Kiowa people, the Sun
Dance was their holiest religious ceremony.
Forbidden to practice their own religion, they were
cut off from the life-sustaining power of the sun.

33. Forbidden without cause the essential
act … from the medicine tree. (para. 10)
They were forbidden to perform the most
important part of their religion and no reason
was given for abolishing the Sun Dance
religion. The white new comers and
merchants killed buffalo in large numbers for
commercial purposes, mainly for the hides. So
after killing the animals, they would leave the
dead bodies rotting on the ground.

34. Without bitterness, and for as long as
she lived … of deicide. (para. 10)
deicide: the killing of a god
-cide: a suffix forming nouns, meaning
i. a killer e.g. pesticide, fungicide
ii. a killing e.g. suicide, genocide

35. Paragraph 4 to 10:
We can see that in para. 4 to 10 the author,
by involving himself with the landscape,
explores the three stages of the Kiowa --emergence, evolution and decline. His
grandmother serves as a focus or a link by
which the author moves his narrative from one
stage to another.

36. Now that I can have her only in memory … came
upon her, praying. (para. 11)
This is a long sentence with several participle
phrases portraying the different postures peculiar to
his grandmother. Each posture is described in precise
detail.
The method the author uses here is similar to
montage, a technique often employed in films as well
as in literature and music. Montage is the art or
process of selecting, editing, and piercing together
separate sections of cinema or television film to form
a continuous whole; the technique of producing a new
composite whole from fragments of pictures, words,
music, etc.

37. I was never sure that I had the right … mere
custom and company. (para. 11)
The grandmother was praying privately and her
prayers did no follow any customary way of praying,
and she did not want anyone else to hear them. So
the author was not sure that he had the right to hear
her prayers.
custom and company: alliteration. “Custom”
means a usual practice, a habitual way of behaving;
habit. “Company” means companionship, a group of
people gathered for a social purpose, etc. “Mere”
indicates how much less important custom and
company were than her prayers.

38. The last time I saw her she prayed standing … like
a shawl. (para. 11)
Unlike the first sentence of this paragraph, which
juxtaposes several postures together, these two
sentences focus on only one posture of his
grandmother – praying by the side of her bed at night.
Here the author uses the technique of close-up ( a
photograph shot at a very close range) instead of
montage. With words he creates a memorable portrait
of his grandmother. As an artist, he clearly knows how
to use light in painting a portrait. This is a fine example
demonstrating the author’s ability to create a visual
impression.

39. The main idea of Paragraph 11:
For the first time, the author concentrates
only o his grandmother’s story rather than
mixing it with the history of the whole Kiowa
tribe. Also for the first time, the author shifts
the focus of depicting the landscape to
describing a person – his grandmother Aho
as an old woman.

40. The main idea and function of Paragraph
12:
Paragraph 12 is about the old houses at
Rainy Mountain, in which the author’s
grandmother and other Kiowa used to live,
but which are now empty. This paragraph
serves as a transition between the depiction
of Grandma Aho and the reunions at her
house in the past.

41. The women might indulge themselves … of
their servitude. (para. 13)
The women, who usually stayed and served
their men, now could make good use of these
gatherings with other women and do what they
like to do or what they normally couldn’t do,
such as gossiping, making loud and elaborate
talk among themselves, joking, etc. Gossip
revealed their position as servants of men and
was also a reward for their servitude. Only on
such occasions could they have a chance to
gossip with other women.

42. Paragraphs 12 to 14:
Paragraphs 12 to 14 describe the reunions
that were once held at the grandmother’s
house when the author was a child. After
depicting his dead grandmother’s old house,
he brings to life the joy and activity that once
filled it. As a child Momaday took part in those
events. By re-creating those scenes, he
reminds himself of whom he is.

43. It had gone there, I thought, to live and
die … eternal. (para. 15)
The cricket is a small insect with nothing
special about it. But if it could go to live and die
on the moon, the small meaning of its existence
would become larger and eternal. Here the
author has created an impressive image of the
cricket against the moon. As readers we will ask,
“What does the image mean? What does the
cricket represent?” Different people may have
different interpretations. One may see the
cricket as symbolic of the Kiowa culture.
The Kiowa culture may seem small in definition, but its
significance depends on how you look at this culture,
or on the angle from which you view it. Maybe the
cricket has a deeper meaning than that. In his essay
“Poems of Frederick Goddard Tuckerman” Momaday
discusses the symbolic meaning of the cricket in
Tuckerman’s poems “The Cricket.” He says, “The
ubiquity of Tuckerman’s cricket is the ubiquity of death.
Unlike man, who has severed his existence from
primitive nature, the cricket is an integral part of
nature. And, like death, it has absolute existence in a
dimension incomprehensible to man. Therein lies the
validity of man’s quest to know the meaning of death.”
These words way throw light on our interpretation of
the image.

44. Looking back once, I saw the mountain
and came away. (para. 16)
The last two actions of the narrator are
significant. Looking back means remembering
the past. Out of his exploration into the past
grows an attitude of acceptance and a desire
to hold on to cherished memories. Coming
away indicates a determination to start afresh
from Rainy Mountain with a rich heritage that
will continue to have a powerful influence on
the life of modern Kiowa people.
IV. Text analysis:


(1)Genre: This text is an essay
(2)Theme:
This essay allows us to share with Momaday when
he concentrates his mind upon his remembered
earth. By exploring the Kiowa history and culture, the
essay reconstructs the link between humans and
nature, which should be close, interdependent and
harmonious. One may not be very interested in the
Kiowa history, or Tai-me, or the Sun Dance, yet
trying to understand nature, love nature and seek
harmony with nature ought to be efforts shared by all
human beings.




(3)The organization:
Para. 1: The opening paragraph of the essay is a
vivid description of the author’s ancestral land,
which plays a key role in his exploration of his
Kiowa identity.
Para 2: The purpose of his journey: I wanted to be
at her grave.
Para 3: Linking his grandmother with the history of
the Kiowa. This paragraph sums up the history of
the Kiowa as a Plains Native tribe – the golden time
and the decline in their history.




Para 4: About how the Kiowa migrated from western
Montana and how the migration transformed the
Kiowa.
Para 5: Explaining the purpose of the author’s journey
to places where his ancestors lived.
Para 6: Description about the Yellowstone: But,
beautiful as it is, one might have the sense of
confinement there.
Para 7: A depiction of the landscape which they came
upon when they got out of the highlands in Montana.
The new landscape in open, limitless and sunlit,
allowing them a new vision into unknown distances.




Para 8: A legend about Devil’s Tower.
Para 9: The Kiowa had been completely transformed
into a plains people.
Para 10: About the last days of the Sun Dance
culture by using his grandmother as a witness.
Para 4 – 10: The author, by involving himself with
the landscape, explores the three stages of the
Kiowa culture – emergence, evolution and decline.
His grandmother serves as a focus or a link by which
the author moves his narrative from one stage to
another.




Para 11: For the first time, the author concentrates
only his grandmother’s story rather than mixing it with
the history of the whole Kiowa tribe. Also for the first
time, the author shifts the focus of depicting the
landscape to describing a person – his grandmother
Aho as an old woman.
Para. 12: About the old house at Rainy Mountain, in
which the author’s grandmother and other Kiowa
used to live, but which are now empty.
Para. 13: Descriptions about the reunions of the
Kiowa.
Para. 14: Descriptions about the prayer meetings and
great nocturnal feasts.



Para 12 – 14: Paragraph 12 – 14 describe the
reunions that were once held at the grandmother’s
house when the author was a child. By re-creating
those scenes, he reminds himself of whom he is.
Para 15: Looking at the room, the author thought
about the meaning of death.
Para 16: Looking back means remembering the past.
Out of his exploration into the past grows an attitude
of acceptance and a desire to hold on to cherished
memories. Coming away indicates a determination to
start afresh from Rainy Mountain with a rich heritage
that will continue to have a powerful influence on the
life of modern Kiowa people.


(4) Writing skills
a. One of its striking features is the weaving of an
individual’s life with the story of a people.
Here Modaday not only tells the story of his
grandmother, but also explores the history of his
Kiowa ancestors and thus his own racial and cultural
heritage. In tracing the three stages of his people’s
history – emergence, evolution, and decline – the
author conveys complicated feelings of nostalgia,
belonging, and pride, mixed with a sense of loss and
a light touch of sadness. Our cultural or ethnic
heritage may differ, yet a light touch of sadness. Our
cultural or ethnic heritage may differ, yet seeking
one’s roots is a common human experience.

b. Momaday also blends a moving narrative of the
stories of the Kiowa with a lyrical and pictorial
description of the landscape where his ancestors
once ranged in their golden age and where he has
returned in order to know where he came from and
who he is. In his pictures of his ancestral home, the
land, the sun, the moon, the hills, the trees and
everything else there are all portrayed with both
visual precision and powerful imagination. One
cannot fail to be impressed by the author’s close
involvement with the land.
Momaday says: “Once is his life a man ought to
concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth, I
believe. He ought to give himself up to a particular
landscape in his experience, to look at it from as
many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell
upon it. He ought to imagine that he touches it with
his hands at very season and listens to the sounds
that are made upon it. He ought to imagine the
creatures there and all the faintest motions of the
wind. He ought to recollect the glare of noon and all
the colors of the dawn and dusk.”
Transition device:

Repetition:
At the end of para.2: …that in death her
face was that of a child.
At the beginning of para.3:I like to think of
her as a child.
V . Questions for Discussion



1. How is the essay organized? How does the author
combine the telling of his grandmother’s story with
his exploration of his Kiowa ancestors?
2. How do the descriptions in the piece serve the
purpose of the writing?
3. How is nature presented in this essay? What is
the relationship between the Kiowa and nature?
VI: Writing assignments:

A composition with the title: The history and
culture of the Kiowa people