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Tai-me
Aho is N. Scott Momaday’s grandmother, and, outside of Momady himself, she is the central figure of the memoir. Aho passed down her memories of the Kiowas to Momaday, and, as such, much of Momaday’s knowledge of the tribe comes from her. Aho was born at the end of the Kiowa golden age, and she was present at the last Sun Dance. She lived her whole life in Oklahoma within sight of Rainy Mountain, but her knowledge of the Kiowa oral tradition made her able to tell stories of the Kiowas that date back to their time in the northern plains. Aho signifies the human side of memory and history; the once-vibrant Kiowa culture was able to survive and be passed on because it lived on within her.
Aho Quotes in The Way to Rainy Mountain
The The Way to Rainy Mountain quotes below are all either spoken by Aho or refer to Aho. 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:
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Introduction Quotes
Although my grandmother lived out her long life in the shadow of Rainy Mountain, the immense landscape of the continental interior lay like memory in her blood.
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This quote gestures towards an important premise of the book: that history and memory are stored within people, particularly elders. Momaday’s grandmother Aho serves throughout the book as a proxy for the history of the Kiowas, since she witnessed the last Kiowa Sun Dance (the last moment of the Kiowa golden age, when the Kiowas were able to be most themselves). The Kiowa spirit, then, lived within her, even though Kiowa culture had been in decline for decades. Momaday takes this premise further through a chain of metaphors: “landscape of the continental interior” is a stand-in for the Kiowa migration, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur
My grandmother was there. Without bitterness, and for as long as she lived, she bore a vision of deicide.
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In this passage, Momaday is referring to the last attempt to hold a Kiowa Sun Dance, a ceremony that was central to Kiowa religion. Aho was present when the Kiowas gathered for the Sun Dance for the final time, but the ceremony did not occur because the U.S. government sent soldiers to prevent the Kiowas from practicing their religion. This was an act explicitly meant to undermine Kiowa power and destroy Kiowa culture and religion, which were seen as threats to the white, Christian colonization of the American West. This quote explains the effect that witnessing this act had on Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et
Their wives and daughters served them well. The women might indulge themselves; gossip was at once the mark and compensation of their servitude. They made loud and elaborate talk among themselves, full of jest and gesture, fright and false alarm.
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In several moments in the book Momaday writes directly about the hardships that Kiowa women faced, acknowledging that they were given lower status than Kiowa men. Momaday’s observation, then, that the women talked and gossiped constantly, and that this talk was “at once the mark and compensation of their servitude,” is a complex one. First, it shows the importance of language to Kiowa life—that language and storytelling could be a reward for servitude indicates the great importance and joy that language brought the Kiowas. Second, the notion of language as the “mark” of servitude seems to suggest that, since women Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut.
The Setting Out Quotes
It was not an exclamation so much, I think, as it was a warding off, an exertion of language upon ignorance and disorder.
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Directly following the tribal story of the twins using magic words to escape the giants’ cave, and the subsequent meditation on the creative powers of language, Momaday here tells a personal story about the word Aho used when she was frightened. This seems to provide a concrete example of the more abstract powers that the voice of history has just attributed to language. Momaday emphasizes that Aho’s use of the word was not a passive reaction to a frightening situation, but rather a way of taking control and asserting her influence on the world. The word was not exactly a Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore
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Aho Character Timeline in The Way to Rainy Mountain
The timeline below shows where the character Aho appears in The Way to Rainy Mountain. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Introduction
...that he had first returned to Rainy Mountain last July after the death of his grandmother, Aho, whom he notes was said to have looked like a child—despite her old age—in...
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Aho is Momaday’s entry-point into the tribe’s history; she was born at the last great moment...
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Momaday returns to Aho, writing that though she lived her whole life by Rainy Mountain in Oklahoma, she could...
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...Tower, a striking stone landform with striated edges that look like clawmarks. He recalls his grandmother’s recounting of a Kiowa legend about Devil’s Tower, in which a child turned into a...
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Momaday notes, also, that his grandmother became a Christian later in life, though she never forgot her history. She had attended...
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With his grandmother now only existing in memory, Momaday attempts to describe what was characteristic of her. Prayer...
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When his grandmother was younger, Momaday remembers that her house was always full of chatter—Momaday suggests that this...
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The Setting Out
...ground in battle regardless of the cost. Momaday then remembers the dogs that frequented his grandmother’s house. They were “nameless and lived a life of their own,” but people appreciated their...
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...tribe returns, saying that each twin had a ring now, and they again disobeyed their grandmother by throwing the rings and running after them into the mouth of a cave. In...
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...according to the voice of tribal lore, killed a big snake in their tipi. The grandmother spider cried when they told her, because the snake was their grandfather, and then the...
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The Going On
...and wracked by violent weather at others. Momaday then remembers the storm cellar by his grandmother’s house. He says he has seen it storm so hard that a grown man couldn’t...
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...Mountain, and how during the summer he would live in an open arbor at his grandmother’s house. When winter would come and he would return to the house, he would feel...
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The Closing In
Aho once went to see the wife of the keeper of the Tai-me bundle, the tribal...
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East of Aho’s house is the unmarked grave of a woman who was buried in a beautiful dress,...
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