The colonization of America began in 1492 when Christoph Columbus first landed on various

Carribean island and his discovery made many other sailors and adventerous from Europe to cross
the Atlantic ocean and try to settle in the new found world. However that world was already
inhabitated by people. The Native Americans or Indians. The colonization of Northern America by
Europeans soon followed. Between the 16th and 19th century the population of native americans
declined drastically due to epidemics, violence and warfare either with the Europeans or even other
Native Americans, enslavement and high rate of intermarriage.

Indian removal act

Signed by president Andrew Jackson in 1830. The law authorized the president to negotiate with
southern Indian tribes for their removal to territory west of the Mississippi river. The act enjoyed
support from people from the South but was met with resistance from Native Americans. Especially
the Cherokee tribe. However all attempts to keep their land was futile and the native americans
were eventually forced to move westwards.

Indian appropriation act

There were 4 of them

1. 1851 – allocated funds to move western tribes into reservations. Reservations were protected and
enclosed by the US government. They were created in order to protect Native Americans from
Whites who were increasingly moving westwards. The act set the precedent for modern-day native
american reservations.

2. 1871 – A group of Indians was no longer recognized as an independent nation. declared that
“hereafter no Indian nation or tribe” would be recognized “as an independent power with whom the
United States may contract by treaty.”

AUTHOR

N. SCOTT MOMADAY is one of the most profilic american indian writers of the 20th century. He
grew up in several different Indian reservations. He first lived with his grandparents in Kiowa
reservation and later moved to Arizona where his parents worked as teachers in Indian reservations.
Momaday was exposed to the traditions of his Kiowa ancestry as well as other tribes (Apache,
Pueblo, Navajo).

KEY FACTS:
Full title: The Way to Rainy Mountain
When written: 1969
Literary Period: Native American Renaissance
Genre: Memoir
Setting: Kiowa lands in Oklahoma
Kiowa ancestral lands between Oklahoma nd Montana.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT: Tells the story of many true events: The Kiowa migration (17th-19th century),
the surrender of Kiowas to U.S forces in 1875, disappearance of buffalo herds from plains and final
Kiowa sun dance.
NARRATIVE VOICE:

The voice of tribal lore (ancestral voice) – tells about the Kiowa by using oral traditions and myths.

historical commentary

Momaday’s own first person memories.

PLOT SUMMARY

The book is divided into three sections: “The Setting Out,” “The Going On,” and “The Closing In.”
These sections loosely track the major arc of Kiowa history: the Kiowas begin to migrate towards the
southern plains from western Montana, the Kiowas become rulers of the southern plains and
experience a golden era, and the Kiowas are defeated by the U.S. military and their culture goes into
decline. While the content of each section does not simply narrate each of these historical periods,
the stories and memories that are told in each section relate thematically to the period of Kiowa
history that each section loosely depicts.

Preface
The Way to Rainy Mountain begins with a three-paragraph note written 25 years after the book's
publication. Momaday explains the text is told in a trio of voices (ancestral, historical, and
personal) and that his father "told the stories, he drew the illustrations."

Prologue
In the prologue, Momaday says the Kiowa story was a "struggle, and it was lost." He further
notes the Kiowa story has within it the story of Tai-me, and the story of migration.

Introduction
This section of the book relates the story of Momaday's journey to Rainy Mountain upon the
death of his grandmother.

The Setting Out

Each segment of the three main sections of the book is told in three voices: ancestral, historical,
and personal. These are typically only one paragraph long each. In the first segment, the
ancestral voice begins with the story of creation. In this story, the Kiowa came to this world
through a hollow log. Subsequent segments relate the story of the child who was taken into the
sky to be the wife of the sun. She had a child, and when she left the sun in anger, the sun killed
her and their child fell to the earth. The child was raised by the grandmother spider. In the
following stories, the child is split into two twins. The twins trick a giant, and they kill a snake
without knowing it was their grandfather. After the grandfather snake's death, the grandmother
spider dies. The last two segments of this portion of the book tell of the Kiowas finding Tai-me
(the Sun Dance doll) and of two brothers who were hungry. When one brother ate a mysterious
gift of meat, he was transformed into a water beast. Each segment here, as well as in the other
two main sections, is paired with historical information and personal recollections, most of which
flesh out or relate to the story the ancestral voice tells.

The Going On
Here the ancestral voices tell vignettes rather than continuous stories as in the previous section.
The first two deal with overcoming enemies, and the third deals with the threat of the plains
weather (storms). The next two deal with brave warriors, including one who faces a steel buffalo.
The following segment concerns "bad women." A woman lies to her blind warrior husband and
she is "thrown away" when she is caught. The last story in the ancestral voice tells of following
the sun far away to a land where there are small men in the trees with tails. All of these stories
depict a type of strength, bravery, or adventurous spirit.

The Closing In
In this section, the lines between the three types of voices are more blurred. The ancestral voice
begins with a tale of two brothers captured by the Utes (another tribe). Three of the first four
segments focus on horses: the brothers ride away; a man sacrifices a horse to Tai-me to spare
his family; and a captive Pawnee boy runs away, stealing a horse. The ancestral voice in the
third and fourth segments tells about Mammedaty (the author's grandfather). Elsewhere,
Mammedaty appears in the historical or personal recollection paragraphs. Here we learn
Mammedaty saw four "remarkable things." He also attempted to shoot a horse that was causing
trouble. Aho, the author's grandmother and his reason for the journey to Rainy Mountain, is
featured in the next ancestral voice section. She once saw the Tai-me bundle fall to the ground
for no reason. This segment also features Aho in the personal recollections, as the speaker
recalls an iron kettle outside her house. In the final segment, the historical voice describes her
beaded moccasins.

Epilogue
In the epilogue, the author recalls several significant events in the history of the Kiowa people,
highlighting the Leonid meteor shower, the theft of Tai-me, and the treaties with the United
States. He closes the book with Ko-sahn, who "spoke of many things." She sings and speaks of
the Sun Dance. She is the living voice of the people, as well as a reminder of how brief their time
is. At 100 years old, she recalls much of the tribe's history. The book ends with a poem by the
author about the cemetery at Rainy Mountain.

RELATIONSHIP WITH NATURE

Nature, landscape, animals are just as important to Kiowa and their history as people. They didn’t
really distinct between nature and people. There are blurred lines between animals and humans.
Man turns into a water beast, boy into a bear. Spiders can be grandmothers, redbirds can be fathers
or husbands.

Humans can shape nature (by killing the buffalo) and nature shapes huamsn in return.

‘‘To look upon that landscape is where creation was begun‘‘

‘‘The landscape of the continental interior lay like memory in her blood‘‘

Landscape made Kiowa who they are.

IMPORTANCE OF BUFFALO

The buffalo was the animal representation of the sun, the essential and sacrificial victim of the Sun
Dance. When the wild herds were destroyed, so too was the will of the Kiowa people; there was
nothing to sustain them in spirit. But these are idle recollections, the mean and ordinary agonies of
human history. The interim was a time of great adventure and nobility and fulfillment.
This passage also emphasizes the importance of the buffalo. The buffalo are seen, even, as a proxy
for Kiowa culture; once they disappeared, the Kiowas lost their will and spirit. This shows the deep
interrelation between Kiowas and the natural world. Though the Kiowas are, throughout the book,
notably adaptable to changing circumstances, the disappearance of the buffalo is an exception.
Without this element of the natural world, the Kiowas are unable to be their true selves.

HORSES

Before the Kiowashad horses, their lives were hard. Their nomadic nature could not be honored
because travel was too difficult, and hunting was arduous, which meant that food could sometimes
be scarce. When the Kiowas discovered horses it set them free from their most persistent hardships
and made it possible to fulfill their destiny of being nomadic warriors and skilled hunters. Horses,
then, represent for the Kiowas the defining characteristics of the tribe and the best of the Kiowa
people.

Horses connect people to nature, which is evident in Momaday’s loving description of riding his
horse through the New Mexico landscape and knowing nature more intimately than ever before.

RELIGIOUS BELIEVES

their religion—borrowed from the Crows—was centered on the sun

The Sun dance - was a four-day ceremony of dancing, feasting, and prayer held in mid-summer when
the corn was in silk. The event was held in a newly built, circular, enclosed arbor partially open to the
sky. A tree was ritually cut down and placed in the center of the circle as a pole. Among the Kiowa,
an individual, prompted by a vision, pledged the dance. The quest for a personal vision was often the
dancer's goal. The individual danced around a sun dance pole, which had a bison skull affixed to the
top. After fasting, self-torture, and denying himself water, the dancer anticipated that he would
become unconscious and receive a vision. The Kiowa held sun dances as early as 1860, with the
purpose of replenishing the bison and the Kiowa people.

Tai- Me: Tai-me is the central figure of the Kiowa Sun Dance, which is the ritual that was the
centerpiece of Kiowa spiritual life until its discontinuation in the late nineteenth century. Taime is a
small doll, about two feet tall. It is a human-like figure with feathers and the feet of a deer. Kiowas
make offerings to Tai-me for good luck, and the Tai-me bundle is safeguarded by a Kiowa who makes
sure it never sees the sun outside of the Sun Danc

The crows are a tribe of Indians who helped the Kiowas during their southward migration from
Montana. Their historical lands are in the Yellowstone River Valley in Montana, Wyoming, and North
Dakota. As the Kiowas moved through Crow lands during their migration to the southern plains, they
formed an alliance with the Crows and their culture became deeply influenced by Crow culture. It
was from the Crows that the Kiowas inherited their religion—the Sun Dance and Tai-me are Crow in
origin

Context

Kiowa
N. Scott Momaday explores the folklore and history of the Kiowa Tribe, as well as his own
personal recollections of his experiences as a Kiowa man. The Kiowa were a small tribe,
numbering about 3,000 people in the 1700s when they migrated to the southern Great Plains.
This migration was led by the Crow and joined by a southern Apache tribe.

After skirmishes with the Comanche, the Kiowa created an alliance with them between 1790 and
1806. This was followed by alliances with other tribes as well. The Kiowa had peaceful
relationships with the Comanche, Arapaho, Lakota, Osage, and Southern Cheyenne, all plains
tribes. These tribes were among the final Native American tribes to surrender to the U.S. cavalry.

Although many Native Americans accepted the option of reservation lands granted in the
Medicine Lodge Treaty (1867), others resisted. The treaty granted the Plains tribes of Native
Americans, who were often nomadic, swaths of land. Had they not accepted this offer, the
government was willing to use force. The government wanted to clear them from the path of
westward expansion and out of the path of the railroad. The treaty was followed by the attempt to
decrease tribal lands, and other broken promises to the Native Americans.

Numerous raids by Native Americans on settlers led to outcries to the U.S. government. The
imprisonment of Kiowa leaders Big Tree and Satanta in 1871—and of 124 Comanche women
and children in 1872—slowed raids, but the prisoners' release in 1873 precipitated another
increase in raids. This and other factors led to the Red River War (1874–75). The war ended in
1875 when Quanah Parker and his Comanche band surrendered. The Kiowa, Comanche, and
Apache were assigned the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation lands that were then sold to
white buyers beginning in 1901.

Originally—prior to being forced onto a reservation—the Kiowa were nomadic. They were an
equestrian culture with a focus on bison hunting. "The Kiowas set out on foot and on horseback
—men, women, and children—after game," writes Momaday. The importance of the horses is
highlighted in The Way to Rainy Mountain when Momaday describes nearly 3,000 horses.
Presumably, there were more than 3,000 Kiowa by this time, but the number of horses nearly
matches that of the people. They were rich in horses and dependent on their animals to hunt for
buffalo, which provided them with both food and shelter, as their tipis were crafted of buffalo hide.

The Kiowa, like the Comanche, were practitioners of peyotism. Peyote buttons (parts of the
cactus that resemble discs) contain mescaline, which can cause hallucinations. The use of
peyote was also practiced in pre-Columbian Mexico "to induce supernatural visions and [serve]
as a medicine." These two tribes, the Kiowa and Comanche, were the most avid promoters of the
Native American Church, which uses peyote in religious ritual.

In fact, peyote religion was practiced by the author's grandfather, Mammedaty. Momaday writes
that he was a "peyote man" who carried "a fan made from the feathers of a water bird." In The
Way to Rainy Mountain, Momaday details the peyote ritual. A fire is made within an altar at the
center of the tipi. Momaday notes, "On the top of the altar there is a single, sacred peyote."
There are songs and prayers while the peyote is taken. This religious experience has been
plagued with controversy and misunderstanding.

Tai-me and the Sun Dance

Tai-me, the Sun Dance doll, is also a central element in Momaday's texts. He wrote of Tai-me in
The Journey of Tai-me (1967). The Sun Dance doll figures in his novel House Made of Dawn as
well. As with the Kiowa people as a whole, Tai-me is personally important to Momaday, and this
is repeatedly reflected in The Way to Rainy Mountain.

According to a chapter entitled "Notes on the Kiowa Sun Dance" from Anthropological Papers of
the American Museum of Natural History (1921) by Leslie Spier, Tai-me is
 less than 2 feet in length, representing a human figure dressed in a robe of white feathers, with
a headdress consisting of a single upright feather and pendants of ermine skin, with numerous
strands of blue beads around its neck, and painted upon the face, breast, and back with designs
symbolic of the sun and moon.

This doll is kept safe. In fact, it is "preserved in a rawhide box in charge of the hereditary keeper,
and is never under any circumstances exposed to view except at the annual sun dance." At that
time it is "fastened to a short upright stick planted within the medicine lodge, near the western
side." This fetish (revered object) is, according to the Kiowa, a powerful medicine. It contains
what some people not of Native American faith would dismiss as "magic." In The Way to Rainy
Mountain, Momaday portrays ancestral voices and history as being a part of the process of
understanding the Kiowa people and their culture. To understand the Kiowa is to understand the
Sun Dance, and to understand the Sun Dance is to know of the regard for Tai-me. As Momaday
quotes in his epilogue, "It was all for Tai-me, you know, and it was a long time ago."

The Sun Dance was both a ritual and a time of gathering. It reaffirmed religious beliefs by way of
ceremony, dance, and community. In many tribes it was an annual event, held in conjunction with
the gathering of bison in late spring and early summer. The Sun Dance was practiced by
numerous plains tribes, including the Kiowa.

Typically there was a structure with a central pole to represent the people's connection to the
sun. Preparations could take up to a year prior to the dance, and those who partook in the dance
were often those seeking spiritual insights and strength. Some tribes required fasting. According
to Spier's Notes on the Kiowa Sun Dance, "Horses were also painted and placed, together with
blankets and similar valuables, on high hills as sacrifices." However, Spier further notes the
"Kiowa never suspended their dancers, as in the self-torture dance of other tribes."

The Sun Dance, an expression of tribal religion, was made illegal by the U.S. Secretary of the
Interior in 1883. Despite being a violation of the United States' policy on freedom of religion, the
restriction was renewed in 1904. The restriction was finally removed in 1934. However, during
this period of religious and cultural persecution, the Sun Dance was not entirely abandoned.
Tribes continued to practice the Sun Dance, and the knowledge was not lost.

Native American Folklore and Legends

All cultures have folklore and legends, and these oral traditions are as fluid as their tellers and
audiences. The Way to Rainy Mountain recounts a number of Kiowa myths. Chief among these
myths and legends are the stories of creation, of Tai-me, and of assorted heroes and monsters.

In their book When They Severed Earth from Sky (2004), folklorists Elizabeth Wayland Barber
and Peter T. Barber address the role of folklore in cultures. One aspect is that "properly encoded
information has passed unscathed through the oral pipeline for one to ten thousand years." The
Way to Rainy Mountain is doing this work. It collects and passes on the folklore and myths of the
Kiowa people to readers both Kiowa and not. One way it achieves this is by framing it with both
history and personal information. Barber and Barber note that for information to "stay intact," it is
best if the information is "embedded vividly" so remembering is easier, or "encoded in the story
multiple times (so there is a back-up)."

The most significant folklore in the text is that of Tai-me. This particular aspect of the Kiowa story
is told in numerous ways, with vivid details, and framed in oral recounting by the author and the
people he quotes. Preservation of any culture's oral tradition is complicated by the very thing
Momaday notes when addressing the person of Ko-sahn in the epilogue: the person will die, and
with her the collective memory and experience. What Momaday has done in The Way to Rainy
Mountain, then, is to take the Kiowa ancestral voices (like Ko-sahn's) and contain and preserve
segments of their stories for readers.
Main Ideas

Horses as Part of Identity

While there were numerous equestrian Native American tribes, the role of the horse in the Kiowa
experience is critical. As Momaday writes, "Of all the tribes ... the Kiowa owned the greatest
number of horses per person." These horses allowed hunters the ability to provide for the family
in a significantly shorter time. They enabled great range, speed, and agility. As such, when the
U.S. cavalry took almost 3,000 of the horses from the Kiowa people, it was a tragedy as well as a
blow to their identity and way of life. Momaday notes, "Nearly 800 horses were killed outright; two
thousand more were sold, stolen, given away." The theft and slaughter of these animals limited
the mobility of the people as well as their ability to find food. The Kiowa were not an agrarian
society at all. They were hunters.

The regard for the horse as part of the Kiowa identity comes through in other aspects of the text
as well. In recalling the bones of a fine horse that had been kept in a box in the barn of
Momaday's relatives, he thinks of how at times he has perhaps been able to understand why "a
man might be moved to preserve the bones of a horse." The horses also figure into other stories
throughout the book. One such story is of another "fine hunting horse" that was "afraid of
nothing." That animal "died of shame" because its owner turned it off course. In another story,
the historical account of the 1861 Sun Dance, a valuable horse was offered as a sacrifice. This
highlights not only the value of a horse to the Kiowas of the time, but how sincerely the sacrifice
to Tai-me was regarded, that such a valuable creature would be destroyed.

Women as Having Lesser Value

Momaday writes, "There is graphic proof that the lives of women were hard." From the onset of
the text, the treatment of women in the folklore stories is notably unequal. In the Kiowa creation
story, a woman who was swollen with child got stuck in the log through which they came into the
world, and then "no one could get through." Her fate is not addressed, and although the blame is
not belabored, it is implied. The Kiowa people were few in number because no more of them
could travel to this world—because of a pregnant woman.

The sun kidnapped a beautiful girl by tricking her into climbing into the sky, where she was made
his wife. Over time, the sun's wife "grew lonely." When she argued with the sun and left with her
child, he threw "a ring, a gaming wheel" at her in his anger. The legend does not address her life,
her imprisonment, or her death, instead focusing on her child. The child's caretaker—the
grandmother spider—is another female figure who functions only in regard to either a spouse or
a child. She cares for the sun's child, and when the "grandfather snake" is killed, the
grandmother spider also dies.

Other representations of women in both the ancestral and historical voices include an unfaithful
wife who leaves with another warrior, a lying wife who is "thrown out" for being a bad woman, a
wife who is stabbed for accepting an invitation from the chief (a man who would be hard to
refuse), and a woman left outside until her feet are frozen. However, the women Momaday
describes in the personal voice are treated with reverence. These include Aho, the author's
deceased grandmother; Kau-au-ointy, Mammedaty's grandmother, a captive who rose to
influence; Ko-sahn, a 100-year-old woman who is knowledgeable about tribal history; and the
author's great-grandmother, Keahdinekeah. Each of these women has a personal tie to the
author. Overall, though, the heroism in the text is male, and it does not put any focus on the
deaths or injuries of women.

Age and Experience Matter

Throughout the text, the importance of age and experience is repeatedly referenced. Momaday
reveals his regard in the way he speaks of Aho, his grandmother. He describes her as timeless:
"Transported so in the dancing light ... she seemed beyond the reach of time."

This idea is not limited to the reverence of a lost family member, though. In the ancestral stories
within the text, age and experience are important. Momaday points out that "old men were the
best arrow makers, for they could bring time and patience to their craft." Young warriors
understood this, acknowledged and appreciated it, and they would pay dearly for these well-
crafted arrows. This is true, too, in matters of wit and wisdom. The author recounts the story of a
man who realizes there is an enemy outside his tipi. He is not hasty, and he is not foolhardy,
either. Instead, he calls out, "If you are Kiowa, you will understand what I am saying, and you will
speak your name." When no answer is given, he knows the man outside is an enemy. He uses
his wit to answer the question of whether the man was Kiowa, and then he uses his skill as a
craftsman and warrior to fire an arrow "straight to the enemy's heart."

Perhaps the clearest indication of the idea that age and experience matter is seen in the figure of
Ko-sahn. This 100-year-old woman sang to Momaday and told him of the history of their people.
To the author, Ko-sahn was both a "living memory and verbal tradition," personified. She was the
physical embodiment of both age and experience, and he wrote of the things she shared—and
lamented that she, too, had passed on.