The Way to Rainy Mountain 791These particular visitors were using their memo-
ries as well. By rubbing fat on their hair and winding
the braids in their hair with strips of cloth, the late
Kiowa were reminding themselves of who they were
and where they came from.
Always viewing his grandmother with admi-
ration, Momaday talks of her usage of the word,
zei-dl-bei (frightful). He liked her use of this word
because her face would become distorted in an
amusing look of displeasure, and she would click her
tongue in disgust.
Keahdinekeah, Momaday’s great-grandmother,
had impressed Momaday’s father, Al, just as Aho
affected Momaday. As a boy, his father accompa-
nied Keahdinekeah to the shrine of the talyi-da-i (a
special tipi with holy medicine inside). Momaday’s
father was filled with wonder at the mere sight of
this medicine, which would forever be a part of his
human spirit. Touched by the remembrance of this
experience, Al felt the need to pass this story from
his youth on to his son. Upon meeting Keahdi-
nekeah, Momaday clearly remembers the white hair
and blind eyes of his great-grandmother. He recalls
the touch of her skin as soft as that of a baby, and
the sound of her happy tears.
As a young boy, Al Momaday recognized an
older man in braids named Cheney coming to his
house to pay his respects. An arrow maker, Cheney
painted his face and would pray out loud into the
rising sun. The Kiowa held their stories and memo-
ries in such a high regard that once the stories were
passed on, recipients can see and feel the story as if
they were there when it was taking place.
The earliest times Momaday can remember are
the summers on Rainy Mountain Creek. He was liv-
ing in the arbor with his family on the north side of
his grandmother’s house. The light, air, and sounds
of the land are what he loved, and when the seasons
changed and the time came to move back into the
house, everyone felt depressed and confined.
Only once did Momaday come into contact with
Tai-me, the holy Sun Dance doll. After making an
offering of bright red cloth, Aho prayed out loud.
This was such a sacred experience for Momaday
that he remembers the very feeling of the room; he
said it felt as if an old person had just died or a baby
had been born.
After Aho died, all Momaday had left for
comfort was the memory of his grandmother. He
remembers her cooking meat in an iron skillet at
the wood stove on a winter morning, but he espe-
cially remembers her praying. Although he never
learned the Kiowa language, Momaday sensed a
great deal of sorrow in her prayers. A Christian in
her later years, Aho never forgot her heritage, and
after his pilgrimage to Rainy Mountain, neither will
Momaday.
Lauren Wasilewskitradition in The Way to Rainy Mountain
Without tradition, the Kiowa people would never
have been able to succeed in creating a legacy. In the
tribe’s heyday, their world revolved around Tai-me,
the doll of the Sun Dance. The very reason for their
existence and prayer, Tai-me would be stolen by the
Osage. Even though Tai-me was later returned, the
Kiowa were sent into a frenzy of devastation and
panic, practically forcing the tribe to sign their first
treaty with the United States in 1837.
Unfortunately, the passing down of verbal tradi-
tions from generation to generation has weakened
over time. Although the myths and legends are no
longer intact, the basic theory of Rainy Mountain is
the history of man’s idea of himself. Each and every
Kiowa member partakes in his or her own historical,
personal, and cultural journey toward their heritage.
Because this is a time that is gone from the world
forever, each reality must rely on imagination and
the traditions of the Kiowa people, which may now
have become blurry.
One tradition that stretched from the very
beginning until the very end was the buffalo as
animal representation of the sun. When the time
came to sacrifice a victim for the Sun Dance, the
buffalo was crucial. Spirits fell within the tribe when
a herd of buffalo was destroyed, thus proving their
importance.
Aho, N. Scott Momaday’s grandmother, took
part in the well known tradition of the sacred Sun
Dance as a child. Performed annually by the Kiowa
tribe, the tradition and rite was firmly planted in
Aho’s mind and soul. During a Sun Dance in 1861,
held near the Arkansas River in Kansas, a spotted
horse was left tied to a pole in the medicine lodge