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The Kiowas
Tai-me is the central figure of the Kiowa Sun Dance, which is the ritual that was the centerpiece of Kiowa spiritual life until its discontinuation in the late nineteenth century. Tai-me is a small doll, about two feet tall. It is a human-like figure with feathers and the feet of a deer. Kiowas make offerings to Tai-me for good luck, and the Tai-me bundle is safeguarded by a Kiowa who makes sure it never sees the sun outside of the Sun Dance. Tai-me was given to the Kiowas by the Crows and the tribe has memories of the time before Tai-me; despite this, Tai-me is considered foundational to Kiowa culture and life.
Tai-me Quotes in The Way to Rainy Mountain
The The Way to Rainy Mountain quotes below are all either spoken by Tai-me or refer to Tai-me. 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:
).
The Setting Out Quotes
There was a great holiness all about in the room, as if an old person had died there or a child had been born.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
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Explanation and Analysis:
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Tai-me Character Timeline in The Way to Rainy Mountain
The timeline below shows where the character Tai-me appears in The Way to Rainy Mountain. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Prologue
Momaday introduces Tai-me without explaining what Tai-me is—he writes simply that Tai-me came to the Kiowas in a...
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Introduction
...the Crows, who introduced them to Plains culture and religion (including the Sun Dance, and Tai-me, the Sun Dance doll at the center of their worship). The Kiowas acquired horses on...
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The Setting Out
The voice of the tribe says that before the Kiowas had Tai-me, they lived in the mountains and told a story of a child who was stolen...
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...to “take me with you and I will give you whatever you want.” This was Tai-me, and that is how he came to be with the Kiowas. The voice of history...
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The Closing In
...voice then describes a Sun Dance in which the Kiowas offered a spotted horse to Tai-me by leaving it to starve outside the medicine lodge. Later in the year, smallpox broke...
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Aho once went to see the wife of the keeper of the Tai-me bundle, the tribal voice recalls. While they were speaking they heard a terrible noise like...
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Epilogue
...as it is considered a marker of the beginning of a new historical period. The Tai-me bundle had recently been stolen by Osages, which was a tragedy, and the Kiowas had...
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...Sun Dance. She told of tying a cloth to a tree as an offering to Tai-me, about the men having brought the sacrificial buffalo in from the plains, and about the...
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