790 Momaday, N. scott
Tracing back to the very beginning, the tribe
was first named Kwuda, which means “coming out.”
Coming one by one through a hollow log into the
world, one woman was pregnant and became stuck.
No one after her made it to the other side of the
log, which explains the small number of people in
the tribe.
Before the tribe owned horses, dogs and sleds
were the necessities; to the Kiowa, the dog is an
extremely primitive animal. Momaday is able to
identify with this by recalling how dogs were
always roaming about his grandmother’s house.
Although the dogs were not named and were paid
little attention by the old people, Momaday still
felt they were sad to see the dogs pass away. The
term “ownership” did not apply to the arrangement
at Aho’s house. In a sense, it seemed the dogs lived
a life of their own.
The Kiowa have never been farmers or taken
any part in agriculture. Hunting was what the tribe
was passionate about. Momaday states that even
to this day they are meat eaters. He states that his
grandfather, Mammedaty, always worked hard to
make wheat and cotton grow on his land, but to no
avail. Momaday even remembers seeing a young boy
holding a freshly slaughtered calf ’s liver in the palm
of his hand, eating it ravenously. That particular
memory of Momaday’s identifies with the myth of
how old hunters of the Plains placed the raw liver
and tongue of the buffalo above anything else as a
delicacy.
The policy of the Kiowa people is to never repeat
a man’s name after he dies. He takes his name out
of the world with him when he goes, and to repeat
it is a sign of disrespect. According to Momaday,
Aho always chose to use the word zei-dl-bei, which
means “frightful.”
During his stay at Rainy Mountain, Momaday
identifies spiritually with the 1872–73 burning
of the once significant heraldic tipi, Do-giagya
guat (tipi with battle pictures). This identification
occurs when Momaday is walking around the Rainy
Mountain Cemetery. For a few moments, there is a
deep silence where nothing moves and there seems
to be a subconscious rule to stay completely still.
Only the jolting call of a bobwhite brings the world
back to reality.
The Way to Rainy Mountain is written straight-
forwardly, with Momaday telling the reader the
myths of the Kiowa, and then telling of his own
personal identification with the past of his people.
The pride Momaday possesses for the history of
his family is not hard to see, and the stories of his
grandmother’s life have guided Momaday to identify
that history with himself as well.
Lauren Wasilewskimemor y in The Way to Rainy Mountain
The theme of memory is crucial to The Way to Rainy
Mountain, as the story is based on the stories told to
Momaday by his grandmother, Aho. These stories
help Momaday reminisce about growing up with a
grandmother born into the last true generation of the
Kiowa. The stories passed down to Momaday from
Aho are memories from Aho’s childhood. The very
beginning of the prologue talks about how there are
so many things upon which to reminisce and dwell.
Momaday speaks of his grandmother living in
the shadow of Rainy Mountain, and how the spe-
cific landscape of the mountain was forever laid like
memory in her blood. Most of the legends that Aho
passed on to Momaday were from the very begin-
ning of the Kiowa tribe’s existence, although Aho
would not be born for several more years. What
impressed Momaday was how Aho had the ability to
tell of the Crow whom she had never laid eyes upon
and of the Black Hills where she had never set foot.
This is precisely the motive for Momaday’s traveling
to Rainy Mountain, to experience in person what
Aho had experienced in the mind’s eye.
When Momaday seeks the Great Plains in late
spring, he remembers the meadows full of blue and
yellow wildflowers, and that moment will forever be
planted in his memory, for that is when he realizes
he will never see the world as he did the day before.
As a young boy, Momaday remembers a great
deal of sound in Aho’s house. From coming and
going to eating and talking, Kiowa were always fre-
quenting his grandmother’s house. Since the Kiowa
are known as being “summer people,” summertime
at Aho’s was especially fun and made for plenty of
reunions. Momaday remembers these visitors right
down to their big black hats, and bright shirts that
shook when the wind hit.