The Way to Rainy Mountain

by

N. Scott Momaday

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The Kiowas Character Analysis

The Kiowas are a nomadic tribe of plains Indians that migrated to the southern plains (parts of present-day Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico) from western Montana in the seventeenth century. From the mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century, the Kiowas ruled the southern plains in alliance with the Comanches. They were nomadic warriors who preferred hunting to agriculture, they were masterful horsemen, and their religion—borrowed from the Crows—was centered on the sun. After their defeat by U.S. forces in the late 1800s, the Kiowas were confined to an Oklahoma reservation, and their traditional culture irrevocably changed.

The Kiowas Quotes in The Way to Rainy Mountain

The The Way to Rainy Mountain quotes below are all either spoken by The Kiowas or refer to The Kiowas. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Language and Storytelling Theme Icon
).
Prologue Quotes

In one sense, then, the way to Rainy Mountain is preeminently the history of an idea, man’s idea of himself, and it has old and essential being in language. The verbal tradition by which it has been preserved has suffered a deterioration in time. What remains is fragmentary: mythology, legend, lore, and hearsay—and of course the idea itself, as crucial and complete as it ever was. That is the miracle.

Related Characters: N. Scott Momaday (speaker), The Kiowas
Related Symbols: Rainy Mountain
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

The buffalo was the animal representation of the sun, the essential and sacrificial victim of the Sun Dance. When the wild herds were destroyed, so too was the will of the Kiowa people; there was nothing to sustain them in spirit. But these are idle recollections, the mean and ordinary agonies of human history. The interim was a time of great adventure and nobility and fulfillment.

Related Characters: N. Scott Momaday (speaker), The Kiowas
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:
Introduction Quotes

There is a perfect freedom in the mountains, but it belongs to the eagle and the elk, the badger and the bear. The Kiowas reckoned their stature by the distance they could see, and they were bent and blind in the wilderness.

Related Characters: N. Scott Momaday (speaker), The Kiowas
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:
The Setting Out Quotes

A hundred years ago the Comanche Ten Bears remarked upon the great number of horses which the Kiowas owned. “When we first knew you,” he said, “you had nothing but dogs and sleds.” It was so; the dog is primordial. Perhaps it was dreamed into being.

Related Characters: The Kiowas, Comanches
Related Symbols: Horses
Page Number: 21
Explanation and Analysis:
The Going On Quotes

The Kiowa language is hard to understand, but, you know, the storm spirit understands it. This is how it was: Long ago the Kiowas decided to make a horse; they decided to make it out of clay, and so they began to shape the clay with their hands. Well, the horse began to be. But it was a terrible, terrible thing.

Related Characters: The Kiowas
Related Symbols: Horses
Page Number: 48
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue Quotes

The falling stars seemed to imagine the sudden and violent disintegration of an old order.

Related Characters: N. Scott Momaday (speaker), The Kiowas
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Rainy Mountain LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Way to Rainy Mountain PDF

The Kiowas Quotes in The Way to Rainy Mountain

The The Way to Rainy Mountain quotes below are all either spoken by The Kiowas or refer to The Kiowas. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Language and Storytelling Theme Icon
).
Prologue Quotes

In one sense, then, the way to Rainy Mountain is preeminently the history of an idea, man’s idea of himself, and it has old and essential being in language. The verbal tradition by which it has been preserved has suffered a deterioration in time. What remains is fragmentary: mythology, legend, lore, and hearsay—and of course the idea itself, as crucial and complete as it ever was. That is the miracle.

Related Characters: N. Scott Momaday (speaker), The Kiowas
Related Symbols: Rainy Mountain
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

The buffalo was the animal representation of the sun, the essential and sacrificial victim of the Sun Dance. When the wild herds were destroyed, so too was the will of the Kiowa people; there was nothing to sustain them in spirit. But these are idle recollections, the mean and ordinary agonies of human history. The interim was a time of great adventure and nobility and fulfillment.

Related Characters: N. Scott Momaday (speaker), The Kiowas
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:
Introduction Quotes

There is a perfect freedom in the mountains, but it belongs to the eagle and the elk, the badger and the bear. The Kiowas reckoned their stature by the distance they could see, and they were bent and blind in the wilderness.

Related Characters: N. Scott Momaday (speaker), The Kiowas
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:
The Setting Out Quotes

A hundred years ago the Comanche Ten Bears remarked upon the great number of horses which the Kiowas owned. “When we first knew you,” he said, “you had nothing but dogs and sleds.” It was so; the dog is primordial. Perhaps it was dreamed into being.

Related Characters: The Kiowas, Comanches
Related Symbols: Horses
Page Number: 21
Explanation and Analysis:
The Going On Quotes

The Kiowa language is hard to understand, but, you know, the storm spirit understands it. This is how it was: Long ago the Kiowas decided to make a horse; they decided to make it out of clay, and so they began to shape the clay with their hands. Well, the horse began to be. But it was a terrible, terrible thing.

Related Characters: The Kiowas
Related Symbols: Horses
Page Number: 48
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue Quotes

The falling stars seemed to imagine the sudden and violent disintegration of an old order.

Related Characters: N. Scott Momaday (speaker), The Kiowas
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis: