The Way To Rainy Mountain Essay

Upon the arrival of Columbus to the New World, there were approximately ten million Native Americans indigenous to North America. Today, only three million remain. This compounded deterioration of Native populations has left many tribes and nations behind in forgotten history. N. Scott Momaday, and award winning poet, novelist, and environmentalist, connects to his Native American culture by reminiscing about the traditions of the Kiowa tribe through the remembrance of his recently deceased grandmother. In his essay "The Way to Rainy Mountain," Momaday addresses educated US citizens about preserving a rich, yet rapidly dying Native American, specifically Kiowa, culture. Momaday engages the reader in his experience of traveling to the numerous territories of the Kiowa, such as Yellowstone, by employing a nostalgic, reflective tone, reminding them of the importance of preserving culture....show more content... He starts with a paradox "... going nowhere in plenty of time...," describing a tortoise's slow movement across the earth. This creates harmony among two very different motions as compared to the earlier mentioned popping tall grass. Furthermore, Momaday employs anaphora by stating "...isolate... but one hill or one tree or one man," which distinguishes the loneliness on the plains. This conveys a message of a lack of association that the Kiowa had with other native tribes. However, it can also can be interpreted as isolation with peaceful and calm connotation as people who visit there can be closer with nature and their creator. He also uses personification claiming that on the plains "[y]our imagination comes to life." This introduces religious imagery through second person which directly draws readers in. This is important because it directly

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Analysis of N. Scott Momaday's The Way to Rainy Mountain

The Way to Rainy Mountain has a distinct pattern in its form. In each section, it has three parts, each of whose separateness is clearly marked by its own place in each page and its own typeface: the legend, the history, and the personal memory. The pattern, however, never makes it simple for the readers to understand the novel. Rather, it confuses and bothers the readers by placing them where the double edges of reality meet. On the one hand, there is a reality as the result of the dominant ideology, which has become a priori in many cases, and which has hidden that there is another reality (or possibly, multiple realities). On the other hand, there exists another...show more content...

In the middle of "nothing but the land itself," he begins to see the smallest things, each of which "has perfect being in terms of distance and of silence and of age." Then, he confirms that he sees the earth as it "really" is. The "real" things that he sees can be distant, silenced, or aged like the stories he has heard from his grandmother. Yet, they are real. He places himself as a seeker of the memories, most of which have been ignored by the official history and forgotten in cultural inappreciation. He also shows an individual account of the collective memory, which is represented by the legend. The legend tells how they came out into the world through a hollow log; if it is telling about the collective struggle to come out upon the Great Plains, the narrator's experience of coming out upon the plain may represent how an individual Kiowa might have felt when they saw the plain first time.

In the eighth section, the narrator recollects how his grandmother used to say, "zei–dl–bei," in the face of "evil and the incomprehensible." The narrator extends the personal memory to the generalization of the power of language, in which the themes of the three accounts can be closely connected. He interprets the grandmother's act as "an exertion of language upon ignorance and disorder," which is reverberating what is said in the second part: "A word has power in and of itself.... It

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10.4.1 Journal: Respond to the Reading Journal

English III (2013) (S2453406) Sierra Turner

Points possible: 20 Date: ____________

This is your journal activity. Complete the prewriting steps below before moving on to the journal response. Read and Paraphrase

Read the text below from The Way to Rainy Mountain byN. Scott Momaday:

Great green and yellow grasshoppers are everywhere in the tall grass, popping up like corn to sting the flesh, and tortoises crawl about on the red earth, going nowhere in plenty of time. Loneliness is an aspect of the land. All things in the plain are isolated; there is no confusion of objects in the eye, but one hill or one tree or one man. To look upon that landscape in the early morning, with...show more content...

5)

Notes: What colors did you mark? What other descriptive words did you mark? Do these words help create a sense of how the narrator feels about his setting?

Green, yellow, and red. Tall, popping, sting, crawl, one hill, one tree, one man. The use of descriptiveword help create the wonder and magical feeling the narrator is experiencing.

Write the Response

Journal Question: How does Momaday use adjectives and descriptive phrases to show profound respect for Rainy Mountain?

Using your paraphrase and notes of the text, write a four– to six–sentence journal entry. Write your own topic sentence. Then provide two supporting examples and a closing sentence to back up the topic sentence.

Topic Sentence: Momaday uses well written descriptive phrases and words to express his feelings of respect and wonderment for Rainy Mountain.

Example #1:

Momaday uses a colorful description to explain what he sees while he's visiting Rainy Mountain. These descriptions paint a bright image in the

readers mind.

Example #2:

Momaday also uses descriptive words that help explain the magnificence of the simplest things. He describes grasshoppers as great, yellow and green. Momaday brings the brightest imagery to mind with his descriptions.

Closing Sentence: Momady used very deep descriptions of the things he saw around him. This gave the readers a better picture of what he was seeing.

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Summary: The Way To Rainy Mountain

The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday is uniquely written in a brief but comprehensive way for the audience. It includes an unorthodox yet straightforward structure; that is, each chapter is comprised of three distinct sections with three different voices explaining the Kiowa tradition and history. Although this book's main focus was culture, the story has a great deal of importance with theconcept of wittiness and making the right choices. Recognizing this separate theme has influenced me to revisit my own development of having an appropriate mindset that benefits my own character. Similarly to The Way to Rainy Mountain, one tale that also inspired my personal development is a favorite film of mine, I Am Legend.

The movie I Am Legend...show more content...

The idea of having the cure to cancer be transform to the bane of mankind is ridiculous but terrifying. Unlike most post–apocalyptic movies, I Am Legend actually used a something different from the common global warming phenomenon which I appreciate. Although movies like The Day After Tomorrow, or 2012 has it's positives, It can become repetitive through its predictable natural disasters like tornadoes or earthquakes. Instead, I Am Legend uses a mix of horror and action through the concept of a deadly plague associated with a zombie–esque theme. Zombies or cannibalistic humanoids are popular among the horror genre of myths and legends. As a result, they have became dominant in the pop culture with their appearance in numerous iconic films and shows. Within these legends, stories or films, zombies have been depicted in different versions. They can either be quick and cunningly vicious or slow and mindless. Some stories even portray them having a smart efficient society where they utilize a strange sense of teamwork. Although all of these versions have its comparisons, zombies always end up having a relation to the infamous virus that infects

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Throughout history, the resilience of Native American tribes through the gentrification of their culture at the hands of the U.S. government is exceptional. In an excerpt from his award–winning autobiography, The Way to Rainy Mountain, author N. Scott Momaday journeys to the Rainy Mountains to visit his grandmother's grave, emblematic of the spiritual pilgrimage to bring his ancestral roots to light. Momaday, a knowledgeable author, educator, and artist, addresses his fellow intellectuals in his . Through the use of stylistically different modes of rhetoric in his writing, he conveys a ruminative, nostalgic tone, appealing to pathos and evoking sentiment in his readers. The Way to Rainy Mountain is a composite of poetic wisdom derived from Momaday's culture, in which he links the survival of his people to the ability to preserve and pass on stories of their past. Momaday introduces the distinct landscape of the Kiowa's origin with rhythm and beauty, demonstrating his passion for his culture. Through powerful imagery and rhetoric he connects his readers to the poetry and wisdom that come with his culture's land, history, and customs. In specific, as he is describing the landscape, he uses an anaphora when he says "...but one hill or one tree or one man..." to show just how isolated that the planes of Oklahoma can truly be. However, the connotation can be taken positively, as the peacefulness of isolation within nature can connect people back to their creator. Moreover, Get

Overall summary of the entire essay

In N. Scott Momaday's essay "The way to Rainy Mountain," He shares his experience of returning to Rainy Mountain after his Grandmother, Aho passes away. He learned that during her death she had the face of a child, this him made remember the time period she was born. Around the time his Grandmother was born, his people, the Kiowas were experiencing the last moments of their rich history. He shares the story of the lastKiowa warriors who surrendered to the U.S cavalry at Fort Sill. Momaday goes on to tell the history of his people and that they originated from Montana three centuries ago, speaking a language that has never been positively identified. The Kiowas became close friends with the Crows, who showed

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Literary analysis: The Way to Rainy Mountain, N. Scott Momaday Novarre Scott Momaday's book The Way to Rainy Mountain is both a personal and anthropological exploration of the ways of the Kiowa Indian tribe. Momaday was raised on a Navajo Reservation, but was educated within the 'white' university system, where he first gained a reputation as a poet. His work straddles the borders of the genre of autobiography and ethnography. The book is the story of a tribe, a chronicle of both history and myth. "There are on the way to Rainy Mountain, many landmarks, many journeys in the one" (Momaday 4). Although about a people whose lives have been displaced and forever changed as a result of colonialization, the book functions less as a political critique and polemic and more as an internal spiritual journey. "Rather, it describes a process: a people, one person and one family at a time, preserves essential aspects of its heritage, connects through imagination to that heritage, and in so doing, assures its survival" (Charles 66). Momaday's book collapses conventional divides between myth and history: by fusing the two he suggests that the conventional white conception of history as an enclosed and protected category is inherently suspect, and without speaking of politics makes a claim for other, equally valuable ways of knowing. However, in this sense his method of storytelling is political, because he suggests that the Indian ways of interpreting experience are just as valid as

In The Way to Rainy Mountain N. Scott Momaday was very impacted by his grandmother throughout the whole story even though she had died. The story starts off with him coming back home to where his grandmother had lived, he had very vivid memories and a lot of love for her. During the story he decided to travel to all the places that his grandmother had seen so vividly in her mind before because he wanted to see it all for himself. While he was at Devil's tower he had remember the legend his grandmother had told him that the Kiowas had made at the base of this rock. He continues to go on saying that he sees his grandmother is several different "postures that were peculiar to her." Throughout the entirety of the story he is heavily impacted by

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Environmentalist Aldo Leopold once wrote, " We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect." This refers to us that land gives the power to stay safe and secure; we should also love our land. Although we practise to use it as we trait for it, but there would have been no action without land. We deal with the land as per our own way. Notably, indigenous people around the world often have very different sets of beliefs and traditions, a special bond with the land is a common factor. Indians tribe Mandan respect their the cultural hero. Whereas Momaday's return back to home reminds him of his grandmother's identity on that land....show more content...

According to the information of Lewis and Clark, A sacred cedar post stood at the center of the Mandan village, symbolizing the tribe's primary cultural hero. The post was surrounded by an open plaza, and at the north end of the plaza was the village's primary medicine lodge. Forty or fifty additional lodges populated the plaza. The more powerful a family was, or the more significant that family's ceremonial duties were, the closer its lodge would be to the center. Throughout most of the year, the Mandans lived in these permanent lodges. But in the winter, to avoid brutal storms, they constructed temporary lodges in wooded, low–lying areas adjacent to the river. Indeed Mandans becomes more closer when they are powerful. They also moves together in any situation. People lives in different lodges but yet supported each other because religion hold them together. There is also a class divided due to the power fact. It might differentiate them but in both ways they come closer to the sacred cedar post. This shows the relationship of sacredness puts them together to function as an

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Big Question: The Way to Rainy Mountain Why did N. Scott Momaday choose to take this journey? It was very important for him to be able to share and reflect on the stories, experiences and lessons of his Kiowa ancestors. In the introduction to the book, Momaday described memories of his grandmother and the stories she would share about the Kiowa's path through the western region from Canada down to Oklahoma and Rainy Mountain. She told Momaday the story of Devil's Tower and the Kiowa Legend of the bear and fleeing children, climbing up for safety and becoming the stars of the Big Dipper (Momaday 8). As readers progress through the book, we are brought with on a journey through Kiowa history and legends. The way Momaday takes this journey,

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Stories never told. Songs never sung. Dances never performed. Such was the crippling reality N. Scott Momaday faced with his grandmother's death. Her culture, her customs, her traditions, were gone and lost to the world. Yet the memories were still alive. In The Way to Rainy Mountain, Momaday writes about his grandmother's past, the Kiowa tribe and his experience with its tradition, and his journey to the Rainy Mountain. Through the use of strong sensory detail, figurative language, and unique word choice, Momaday both displays the nuances of the Kiowa tribe and culture, and reconnects back to his ancestry.

After introducing the setting of the essay, Momaday quickly describes the history of his tribe and people, reminiscing on their migration,...show more content...

To Momaday, learning about his ancestors' own culture was both important for giving remembrance to his grandmother, and to him, a moral obligation he ought to follow. Alongside his descriptions of Rainy Mountain lies the personification of "foliage [that] seems to almost writhe in fire." By giving the foliage humanlike qualities, Momaday further stresses and reminds the audience of the importance and personal connection the Kiowa have to nature. Personification continues on throughout the passage, describing the sun as it "follows a long course." The phrase carries extra meaning because Kiowa culture holds reverence for the sun; thus, Momaday further ingrains in the reader the importance of nature, and also adds spiritual significance to his pilgrimage. In addition to personifying the sun, Momaday directly compares sun to a god, stating that it has "the characteristic of a god" in the mountains. In stating such, Momaday adds religious significance to his journey, and explains the root of the Kiowa's reverence of the sun. Momaday, through his pilgrimage, gained an understanding of Kiowan culture and its many aspects, including a connection to nature and the sun, thereby fulfilling his purpose to both retell and remember his

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N. Scott Momaday travels to Oklahoma to visit his grandmother's grave. In one of his chapters, "The Way to Rainy Mountain," he describes the moments he had while he was young. For example, how his mother use to pray, the parties held at his grandmother house, and the nights he spent with his grandmother. Also, Momaday illustrates, the land, the history of the Kiowas, the life his grandmother live, and the journey to his grandmother's grave. "...to see in reality what she had seen more perfectly in the mind's eye" (1), as Momaday demonstrated. According to Momady, theKiowa landscape is stunning, however, its weather is unpleasant. He describes that, "winter brings blizzards, hot tornadic winds in the spring, and in summer the prairie is...show more content...

Although, that wasn't the only thing that was part of history. They also had spiritual beliefs about the Big Dipper and their own way of doing their hair. Momaday states, "They acquired the sense of destiny... courage and pride" (1). Which means that, during the time they were traveling, they became hopeful and fearless. He also describes, "...the Kiowas have Kinsmen in the night sky" (2). What he is trying to illustrate, is that there Godly figure is made up of the night stars, which forms the Big Dipper. Furthermore, he writes, "... rubbed fat upon their hair... wound their braids with strips of colored cloth" (3). "Fat" was a type of hair gel the used to do their hair, and "wound" means to tie something up with something else. Which is type of hair care product they use, while tying their hair with color. Momaday grandmother is a Kiowa, who migrated to the southern Plains with the others. "Aho," was the name of his grandmother. Yet, she had gotten sick over time. He explains that, "She had lived to be very old and at last infirm" (1). In other words, she was sick and that he knew that she wasn't going to make it to a certain Get more content

The Way to Rainy Mountain is by no means a normal novel. It does not have the same cookie cutter formation as most books, where the plot goes from beginning to end in neat little chapters. It is not just a simple book, it is a book that has meaning, and it is a book that makes its readers think. It is a book about connections from the past. These connections are like puzzle pieces that the main character, N. Scott Momaday, has to put together in his journey to truly understand his heritage. Through the past, Momaday finds a way to honor his grandmother's memory and to connect with his Kiowa culture. The past comes in many different forms; it could be the way distant past spanning hundreds of years ago or simply just a minute ago. Momaday...show more content...

This Mountain is where much happiness and contentment was felt for the Kiowas, it is where Momaday's origins began, and it is the place where tragedy struck the tribe. This tragedy came in the form of soldiers. One example of this is when the Kiowas were going to perform a ceremonial Sundance, "Before the dance could begin, a company of soldiers rode out from Fort Sill under orders to disperse the tribe" (Momaday 10). These soldiers ripped the Kiowas of their land and eventually placed them in reservations. This is where Momaday grew up, and this is where the barrier between the older generation and the younger generation began. This history of the Kiowa culture is a very important part of the novel because it explains where the gap between generations began, and in Momaday's point of view, it explains the gap between him and his grandmother. Momaday's grandmother was part of the last generation of the Kiowas that were in a sense traditional. Her generation experienced the true Kiowa customs and language. When Momaday's grandmother died, all he had left was her memory and the wisdom that she left embedded in his mind. Upon returning to his grandmother's house Momaday stated, "Now there is a funeral silence in the rooms, the endless wake of some final word" (Momaday 12). This event is what brought Momaday back to his origins; it is what started his journey to bridge the gap between his grandmother and himself. His Get more content

The Kiowa's relationship with nature in The Way to Rainy Mountain N. Scott Momaday is the author of the memoir The Way to Rainy mountain. The Way to Rainy Mountain is about Momaday recollecting and remembering his childhood and culture memories while he is on his journey to a ridge that is located northwest of Wichita Range in Oklahoma that his people gave the name "Rainy Mountain" (Momaday 5). His people were the Kiowa people and they are a Native American tribe. The Kiowa people believed "that they entered the world through a hallow log" (Momaday 3). They are also a small tribe because "there was a woman whose body had swollen up with child, and she got stuck in the log", so no one else could exit the log and enter the world (Momaday 16). Long before the Kiowa people began to reside in Oklahoma they resided near Canada. Momaday tells the story from a mythical view, historical view, and a personal view. Through the mythical view Momaday's father is telling the myths of his people. The historical view are historical commentaries. In the personal view he tells the memories of his childhood and relates them to the myth his father has told. Animals, landscape and the seasons of the year kindle the Kiowas relationship with nature in which in turns helps the reader better understand and respect the Kiowa culture.

In The Way to Rainy Mountain the buffalo appears several times throughout the memoir as an animal and as a spiritual symbol for the Kiowa people which helps the Get more content

The Way to Rainy Mountain is an autobiographical work written by Pulitzer Prize Winner N. Scott Momaday in 1969 during the Native American Renaissance. It depicts the journey of Momaday's Kiowa ancestors from their their emergence to decline as a Plains Indian Culture. This work combines tribal, personal, and familial stories about the Kiowa Indians. These stories are told in three distinct voices. The first voice is the voice of the Kiowa oral tradition. This voice illustrates the Kiowa myths to the reader. The second is the voice of historical commentary which gives the reader insight in to Kiowa history. The final voice is that of personal reminiscence which is Momaday's personal voice. This autobiography is written right after to death...show more content...

The style in which Momaday depicts his journey and how detailed his work is makes it interesting to me. Momaday uses factual information to supplement the personal stories he tells. For example, Momaday stops at historical markers like Devil's Tower during his fifteen–hundred–mile trip, and at these markers Momaday tells stories originally told by his grandmother that correspond with the Kiowa journey and its hardships at that point. It is in these stories that Momaday illustrates the resiliency the Kiowa had, and the lessons they learned during these hardships. These transparent potrayls make me as the reader feel like I am essentially living vicariously through Momaday's grandmother. This just further roots my interest into this story because of the way it connects me into the story. Also, I am sort of a history buff, and I love to learn new unseen history. Due to this fact, it is interesting to me that I am able to essentially see into the lives of people during this journey, and I am able to see the historical side of this group of people. This autobiographical work shows what it was truly like for an indigenous person during this Get

The author shows great adventure, nobility, and fulfillment. He uses a lot of imagery and description in order to help the reader to better understand what is going on. While the author seems to have always known about his ancestry, the death of his grandmother encourages a deeper and more personal exploration of his family background. The author returns to his Grandmother's house where the spirit of the Kiowa tribe is very strong. He does this to get closer to his roots. Each story is followed by a short account of the factual events. Together the stories and the facts work to create a complete picture of the Kiowa way of life. The stories explain the world as the Kiowa saw it. The author historic journey is a process of self–discovery, integration, and finding harmony in life. His nobility in his journey is expressed when he follows his vision to better understand his people. Throughout the story he endures many things with nobility in his heart and mind....show more content...

The author shows fulfillment in "The Way to Rainy Mountain." He states," Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth....He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it." He doesn't forget that happiness and satisfaction is

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Oral tradition is an important factor to storytelling in Native American cultures as it allows the story and its interpretation to be altered as needed with the changing times. In The Way to Rainy Mountain, N. Scott Momaday seamlessly incorporates the oral tradition with historical views and personal connections to tell the journey of the Kiowa peoples. Throughout the three sections–The "Setting Out," "The Going On," and "The Closing In"–Momaday fluidly connects the multifaceted views that display the sacrifices and importance of religious meaning and objects in the culture of the Kiowa people during their rise, domination, and fall in the Plains.

"THE SETTING OUT" Momday's "The Setting Out" is centered on the creation of the Kiowa nation...show more content... Later, smallpox broke out among the tribe. In exchange for him and his family to be saved from the sickness, he sacrificed one of his best horses. In an account from Momaday, he reflects on the historical account of the horse during the 1861 Sun Dance. The author believes he knew what was going on in the man's mind when he decided to sacrifice one of his best horses: "If you will give me my life and the lives of my family, I will give you the life of this black–eared horse" ("The Closing In" 71). These sections may seem harsh because a valued animal was left to starve and die and another was sacrificed. On the other hand, this account demonstrates how desperate the people of this tribe were in the epidemic and how much horses meant to them. They were sacrificing one of the most valuable resources to their livelihood in order for Tai–me to spare them. Momaday further reflects by stating he knew how much the man loved the horse ("The Closing In" 71) and how difficult it must have been to go through with the task. Nothing was being killed in vain or for sport, but for the livelihood of this man's family. In connection to the oral story, the Kiowa peoples were facing difficulties after becoming more advanced and were beginning to lose the life they knew. The culture–and people from sickness–were slipping through their hands and there

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The Way to Rainy Mountain was written by N. Scott Momaday. N. Scott has spent his life telling the tales and history of his people. Therefore, this essay is about his people, the Kiowas, and the journey his Grandmother embarked on she was younger. His Grandmother had passed, therefore, he was returning to Rainy Mountain to visit her grave. His grandmother, Aho, lived in a time when the U.S. Cavalry compelled them out of their lands. In addition, they were unable to concede in their traditions. The Kiowas migrated from North America to the southern and eastward plains. They gained horses, Tai–me, the sacred Sun Dance Doll, a symbol of their worship and therefore courage and pride. In that time they evolved into fighters, thieves and hunters.

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