The Way to Rainy Mountain

1) geographical details about the landscape

"A single knoll rises out of the plain in Oklahoma, north and west of the Wichita Range. For my people, the Kiowas, it is an old landmark, and they gave it the name Rainy Mountain."

-N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain. pg. 56

"All things in the plain are isolate; there is no confusion of objects in the eye, but on hill or one tree or one man. To look upon that landscape in the early morning, with the sun at your back, is to lose the sense of proportion. Your imagination comes to life, and this, you think, is where Creation was begun."

-N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain. pg. 56-57

2) historical details about the rise and fall of the Kiowa

"In alliance with the Comanches, they had ruled the whole of the southern Plains. War was their sacred business, and they were among the finest horsemen the world has ever known."

-N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain. pg. 57

"But Warfare for the Kiowas was preeminently a matter of disposition rather than of survival, and they never understood the grim, unrelenting advance of the U.S. Cavalry. When at last, divided and illprovisioned, they were driven onto the Staked Plains in the cold rains of autumn, they fell into panic. In Palo Duro Canyon they abandoned their crucial stores to pillage and had nothing then but their lives. In order to save themselves, they surrendered to the soldiers at Fort Sill and were imprisoned in the old stone corral that now stands as a military museum."

-N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain. pg. 57

3) personal details about his grandmother Aho

"My grandmother had a reverence for the sun, a holy regard that now is all but gone out of mankind. There was a wariness in her, and an ancient awe. She was a Christian in her later years, but she had come a long way about, and she never forgot her birthright. As a child she had been to the Sun Dances; she had taken part in those annual rites, and by them she had learned the restoration of her people in the presence of Tai-me."

-N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain. pg. 59

"Now that I can have her only in memory, I see my grandmother in the several postures that were peculiar to her: standing at the wood stove on a winter morning and turning meat in a great iron skillet; sitting at the south window, bent above her beadwork, and afterwards, when her vision failed, looking down for a long time into the fold of her hands; going out upon a cane, very slowly as she did when the wiehgt of age came upon her; praying. I remember her most often at prayer."

-N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain. pg. 60

Laguna Pueblo holds dancing ceremonies to ask the spirits for rain. The Indians wear masks, chant, and beat drums during this ritual.
The 4th of July for the Indians is on August 10th when the Pueblo Indians got the Spanish out of New Mexico. This is a picture displaying a ceremonial dance done to celebrate this important date.
This is an example of what a Pueblo Indian might wear for a ceremony or a ritual. They paint their bodies and wear a headdress with a lot of color and usually feathers as well.
Laguna Pueblo is the largest Keresan speaking pueblo. A pueblo is a traditional community of the Native Americans in the southwest, and Keresan is a language spoken by only certain Native Americans. Most Pueblo Indians live in villages made primarily of stone and make a living by growing and selling crops. They also sell handmade artifacts such as pottery, dream catchers, quilts...etc. The Pueblos eat mostly corn, but occasionally they eat meat such as rabbit or squirrel.


Leslie Marmon Silko has written many novels, poems, and short works, much of it about her Pueblo heritage. This is a picture of her wearing the typical Indian dress.

Haha.

My spoon is too big. My spoon is too BIG. MY SPOON IS TOO BIG!



I'M A BANANA!


:)