The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Momaday (TextTOW#23)

       The way to the Rainy Mountain is the way to the Native American culture, a culture recalled by the wistful description of Momaday, a culture that is struggling for survival.

       Receiving a PhD from Stanford in both English literature and Native-American culture history, Momaday, a descendent of the Kiowas tribe, is extremely active in preserving and romanticizing the Native-American past. “The Way to Rainy Mountain”, one of his characteristic text, illustrates his nostalgic reflections of the associations between his grandmother and his tribe’s culture after his grandmother’s death. As he walks up the sacred Rainy Mountain, where his grandmother and ancestors is buried, his mind travels through centuries.

       Aimed primarily toward an understanding but non-Native American audience, Momaday wants his readers to comprehend the richness of Native-American culture and the sadness of his people’s exile, especially through the use of imagery and a nostalgic tone.

       With a detailed description of the Kiowas people and its culture, Momaday not only shows the uniqueness of one tribe’s culture, but all cultures of his people. When describing the Kiowas as extremely summer-loving people, he recalled how some elders “rubbed fat upon their hair and wound their braids…talked loud and elaborate full of jest and gesture”(Oates 317). When he detailed the sacred Sun Dance and lamented the white’s hostility, Momaday described specific scenes of  “The Natives can find no buffalo so they had to hang an old hide from the sacred tree”, of “slaughtered herds of buffalo left to rot upon the great Plain” (Oates 316). The imageries Momaday afforded are mixed. Some are beautiful; some are abhorrent. Nevertheless, the richness and decline of the Native cultures are presented explicitly.

       Assisting the vivid imageries is the nostalgic tone Momaday used throughout. Momaday is wistful about the memories of his grandmother, reflecting how “her long black hair lay upon her shoulders and something inherently sad is present in the hesitation of syllables”(Oates 317). As he stepped up the Rainy Mountain, seeing his ancestors, he “looked back once and came away” (Oates 318). The wistful longing is reflected through him recalling the sadness of his grandmother, through his inability to look back another time. Momaday is telling his readers of his sentiments not only over his grandmother’s death, but also over the fading beauty of Native culture.

       May the names on the Rainy Mountain rest in peace.