The Way to Rainy Mountain
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40 free The Way to Rainy Mountain trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
N. Scott Momaday's The Way to Rainy Mountain is a short book that holds a great deal: the memory of a people, the record that outsiders kept of them, and one man's return to the country his family came from. It follows the Kiowa from the far north down onto the southern plains, and it is taught in classrooms across the United States as a first meeting with Native American literature. This quiz covers the whole of it. There are questions on the origin story and the legends, on the landmarks along the migration route, on the ceremonies and the wars that ended the old way of life, and on how the book itself is built. A few ask about Momaday, his family and the other books that grew from the same material. It is written for students checking their reading before a class or a test, for teachers who want ready questions, and for anyone who has just finished the book and wants to see how much stayed with them. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which state does Rainy Mountain, the Kiowa landmark of N. Scott Momaday's title, stand?
Oklahoma
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.
Q 02What was the name of N. Scott Momaday's Kiowa grandmother, who lies buried at Rainy Mountain?
Aho
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.
Q 03In a legend in The Way to Rainy Mountain, a tree stump rises into the sky to become which landmark?
Devils Tower
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.
Q 04In The Way to Rainy Mountain, the boy who chases his seven sisters has turned into which animal?
A bear
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.
Q 05Through what do the Kiowa enter the world in the origin story of The Way to Rainy Mountain?
A hollow log
A hollow log is the doorway into the world, and the tribe's old name for itself comes from a word meaning coming out.
Q 06In the origin story of The Way to Rainy Mountain, who gets stuck and leaves many Kiowa behind?
A pregnant woman
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.
Q 07Which animal speaks to a lone hunter and saves him from his enemies in The Way to Rainy Mountain?
A dog
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.
Q 08Which relative of N. Scott Momaday drew the illustrations for The Way to Rainy Mountain?
His father
His father, the Kiowa painter Al Momaday, drew the line illustrations and also helped him gather stories from the elders, translating from Kiowa.
Q 09Which novel won N. Scott Momaday a Pulitzer Prize the year The Way to Rainy Mountain was published?
House Made of Dawn
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.
Q 10In The Way to Rainy Mountain, a fine horse turned aside from a charge is said to die of what?
Shame
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.
Q 11In the legend N. Scott Momaday retells, seven Kiowa sisters carried into the sky become which stars?
The Big Dipper
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.
Q 12Near the source of which river does the Kiowa migration in The Way to Rainy Mountain begin?
The Yellowstone
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.
Q 13Which range did the migrating Kiowa hold until the Lakota and Cheyenne drove them south?
Black Hills
Q 21With which tribe did the Kiowa of The Way to Rainy Mountain ally to rule the southern plains?
The Comanche
The Comanche fought the Kiowa at first, then made peace with them around 1790. Their joint raiding parties rode deep into Texas and Mexico.
Q 22Which 1867 treaty, signed in Kansas, sent the Kiowa of The Way to Rainy Mountain to a reservation?
Medicine Lodge
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.
Q 23Which Texas rancher sold the Kiowa a buffalo for their last Sun Dance, the wild herds being gone?
Charles Goodnight
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.
Q 14From which tribe did the Kiowa of The Way to Rainy Mountain take the Sun Dance religion?
The Crow
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.
Q 15What kind of sacred object is Tai-me, the heart of the Sun Dance in The Way to Rainy Mountain?
A small doll
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.
Q 16Rainy Mountain, the knoll of N. Scott Momaday's title, stands just apart from which range?
Wichita Mountains
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.
Q 17At which army post did the Kiowa of The Way to Rainy Mountain surrender to the US Cavalry?
Fort Sill
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.
Q 18In which Texas canyon were the Kiowa routed in 1874, losing their horses and winter stores?
Palo Duro
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.
Q 19In each numbered section of The Way to Rainy Mountain, which of the three voices speaks first?
A tribal myth
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.
Q 20Which meteor shower of 1833 does The Way to Rainy Mountain recall as the night the stars fell?
The Leonids
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.
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.
Q 24Beside which river did the Kiowa hold their last Sun Dance, just above Rainy Mountain Creek?
Washita
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.
Q 25At which California university did N. Scott Momaday earn his doctorate in English in 1963?
Stanford
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.
Q 26What does Tsoai-talee, the Kiowa name given to the infant N. Scott Momaday, mean in English?
Rock-Tree Boy
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.
Q 27Which N. Scott Momaday poem opens The Way to Rainy Mountain, ahead of the prologue?
Headwaters
Headwaters opens the book and a second poem, set in the cemetery where his grandmother lies, closes it. Verse frames the whole journey.
Q 28Which section of The Way to Rainy Mountain tells of the Kiowa golden age on the southern plains?
The Going On
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.
Q 29How does the printed page of The Way to Rainy Mountain tell its three voices apart?
Different typefaces
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.
Q 30In The Way to Rainy Mountain, why does the storm spirit pass over the Kiowa without harming them?
It knows their language
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.