40 Fun Facts About The Way to Rainy Mountain

In which state does Rainy Mountain, the Kiowa landmark of N. Scott Momaday's title, stand?

Oklahoma holds the rounded knoll, which stands apart from the main range in Kiowa County. The creek below it was a favoured winter camp because the grass there stayed green.

What was the name of N. Scott Momaday's Kiowa grandmother, who lies buried at Rainy Mountain?

Aho was born in 1880, as the Kiowa golden age was ending, and Momaday made his long journey to her grave in the year she died.

In a legend in The Way to Rainy Mountain, a tree stump rises into the sky to become which landmark?

Devils Tower stood on the Kiowa road south, and the legend made sense of a sight that strange. In 1906 it became the first national monument in the United States.

In The Way to Rainy Mountain, the boy who chases his seven sisters has turned into which animal?

A bear is what the brother becomes, and its claws are said to have scored the sides of the great rock where the girls took refuge. Momaday later titled a whole book after the animal's home.

Through what do the Kiowa enter the world in the origin story of The Way to Rainy Mountain?

A hollow log is the doorway into the world, and the tribe's old name for itself comes from a word meaning coming out.

In the origin story of The Way to Rainy Mountain, who gets stuck and leaves many Kiowa behind?

A pregnant woman blocks the way out, so the people behind her never reach the upper world. The story explains why the Kiowa were always a small tribe.

Which animal speaks to a lone hunter and saves him from his enemies in The Way to Rainy Mountain?

A dog warns the surrounded man and leads him to safety, which is how the Kiowa say they came to keep the animals. Before they had mounts, the tribe used them to carry packs.

Which relative of N. Scott Momaday drew the illustrations for The Way to Rainy Mountain?

His father, the Kiowa painter Al Momaday, drew the line illustrations and also helped him gather stories from the elders, translating from Kiowa.

Which novel won N. Scott Momaday a Pulitzer Prize the year The Way to Rainy Mountain was published?

House Made of Dawn made Momaday the first Native American author to win a Pulitzer Prize. Its success is credited with opening the way for a generation of Native writers.

In The Way to Rainy Mountain, a fine horse turned aside from a charge is said to die of what?

Shame killed the horse, the story says, because its rider had wheeled it away from the enemy line. The tale comes in the book's last section, as Kiowa power fades.

In the legend N. Scott Momaday retells, seven Kiowa sisters carried into the sky become which stars?

The Big Dipper is the sisters' final form, which is why Momaday says the Kiowa have kin in the night sky. A great tree lifted them beyond their brother's reach.

Near the source of which river does the Kiowa migration in The Way to Rainy Mountain begin?

The Yellowstone country of the northern Rockies was the Kiowa homeland before they came down onto the plains about three centuries ago. Momaday began his own trip there.

Which range did the migrating Kiowa hold until the Lakota and Cheyenne drove them south?

The Black Hills were Kiowa country in the 1700s, well before the Lakota held them. One old Kiowa legend even explains how the range came to be.

From which tribe did the Kiowa of The Way to Rainy Mountain take the Sun Dance religion?

The Crow befriended the Kiowa on the northern plains and gave them the religion of the Plains. Tai-me itself reached the tribe through them around 1765.

What kind of sacred object is Tai-me, the heart of the Sun Dance in The Way to Rainy Mountain?

A small doll under two feet long, Tai-me wears a robe of white feathers and was shown only at the yearly ceremony. The rest of the year it stayed shut away in a rawhide box.

Rainy Mountain, the knoll of N. Scott Momaday's title, stands just apart from which range?

The Wichita Mountains are a line of rocky knobs, many capped by granite 500 million years old. Rainy Mountain sits off to their northwest in Kiowa County.

At which army post did the Kiowa of The Way to Rainy Mountain surrender to the US Cavalry?

Fort Sill received the last Kiowa bands early in 1875, ending their wars on the southern plains. The post now houses the US Army's Field Artillery School.

In which Texas canyon were the Kiowa routed in 1874, losing their horses and winter stores?

Palo Duro Canyon is where Colonel Ranald Mackenzie's cavalry seized well over a thousand ponies and shot them. Without mounts or food, the bands could not last the winter.

In each numbered section of The Way to Rainy Mountain, which of the three voices speaks first?

A tribal myth opens every section, followed by a note of history and then one of Momaday's own memories. The pattern repeats twenty-four times across the book.

Which meteor shower of 1833 does The Way to Rainy Mountain recall as the night the stars fell?

The Leonids of November 13, 1833 woke the sleeping Kiowa camp with a night as bright as day. Momaday treats the storm as the start of the tribe's recorded history.

With which tribe did the Kiowa of The Way to Rainy Mountain ally to rule the southern plains?

The Comanche fought the Kiowa at first, then made peace with them around 1790. Their joint raiding parties rode deep into Texas and Mexico.

Which 1867 treaty, signed in Kansas, sent the Kiowa of The Way to Rainy Mountain to a reservation?

The Medicine Lodge Treaty was really three agreements, signed at a place where the tribes held ceremonies. It set aside 2.8 million acres for the Kiowa and two allied peoples.

Which Texas rancher sold the Kiowa a buffalo for their last Sun Dance, the wild herds being gone?

Charles Goodnight kept a small tame herd in northern Texas after the wild buffalo had been wiped out. Momaday's grandmother was about seven years old at the time.

Beside which river did the Kiowa hold their last Sun Dance, just above Rainy Mountain Creek?

The Washita River hosted the dance in 1887, allowed by the Indian agent on the understanding that it would be the last. Three years on, soldiers stopped an attempt on the same stream.

At which California university did N. Scott Momaday earn his doctorate in English in 1963?

Stanford gave Momaday a scholarship after he entered a creative writing contest with his poems, and he stayed for a master's and a doctorate. He later returned as a professor.

What does Tsoai-talee, the Kiowa name given to the infant N. Scott Momaday, mean in English?

Rock-Tree Boy links Momaday to the great stone column of the sister legend, where he was taken as a baby. A Kiowa elder named Pohd-lohk gave him the name.

Which N. Scott Momaday poem opens The Way to Rainy Mountain, ahead of the prologue?

Headwaters opens the book and a second poem, set in the cemetery where his grandmother lies, closes it. Verse frames the whole journey.

Which section of The Way to Rainy Mountain tells of the Kiowa golden age on the southern plains?

The Going On is the middle movement of three, full of arrows, storms and buffalo hunts. It covers the years of Kiowa freedom, roughly 1740 to 1875.

How does the printed page of The Way to Rainy Mountain tell its three voices apart?

Different typefaces mark the three strands, so a reader can see at a glance who is speaking. Some readers prefer to follow one voice at a time right through the book.

In The Way to Rainy Mountain, why does the storm spirit pass over the Kiowa without harming them?

It knows their language, the story says, so the Kiowa speak to the storm when it comes and it leaves their camps alone. The tale sits in the book's middle section.

In a Kiowa story in The Way to Rainy Mountain, the child of the Sun is transformed into what?

A pair of twins results when the boy's own gaming wheel falls and cuts him in two. One of the brothers later became the sacred boy medicine, kept in ten bundles.

In The Way to Rainy Mountain, which creature takes in the orphaned child of the Sun and raises him?

A spider the Kiowa call grandmother takes the boy in after his mother is struck down while climbing back to earth on a rope, and raises him as her own.

Who is the grandfather that shoots the wrong horse in N. Scott Momaday's The Way to Rainy Mountain?

Mammedaty lost his temper and loosed an arrow at a troublesome horse, striking another instead. The family surname is a later respelling of his name.

Which tribe carried off Tai-me from the Kiowa in the massacre of 1833, halting the Sun Dance?

The Osage took Tai-me in the raid the Kiowa call the Cut-Throat Massacre and kept it for two years. No Sun Dance could be held until it came home.

Which ethnologist's 1898 calendar history of the Kiowa informed The Way to Rainy Mountain?

James Mooney published three Kiowa picture calendars for the Smithsonian, each named after the keeper who drew it. Momaday consulted the report for the book's historical voice.

Which 1976 memoir by N. Scott Momaday is often read as an extension of The Way to Rainy Mountain?

The Names tells Momaday's childhood in order, where the earlier book moved by association through fragments of story. It records his early life and his respect for his Kiowa ancestors.

Which honour did President George W. Bush present to N. Scott Momaday in 2007?

The National Medal of Arts honoured work that celebrates and preserves Indigenous oral and art tradition. That same year his home state named him its centennial poet laureate.

N. Scott Momaday's mother, the writer Natachee Scott, traced part of her ancestry to which tribe?

Cherokee was the descent Natachee Scott claimed, beside English, Irish and French roots. Her husband's Kiowa relatives saw her as an unwelcome outsider.

What was the name of the prized Kiowa horse stolen by an escaping Pawnee captive boy?

Little Red was a bay racer counted the finest horse in the tribe, and its loss was bitter enough to mark that winter in the Kiowa calendar.

Which poet and critic supervised N. Scott Momaday's doctoral dissertation and became his mentor?

Yvor Winters secured the young poet a scholarship and later critiqued The Journey of Tai-me, the limited edition that grew into The Way to Rainy Mountain.