The way to rainy mountain Momaday N. Scott

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The way to rainy mountainMomaday N. Scott
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About the author- --- Momaday N. Scott who is
wholly absorbed in his Native Indian culture
throughout his life.

• He was born with an Indian origin
• He spent his childhood in several Indian
  reservations and developed intense interest and
  passion in the Indian culture and tradition
• His career centers around the Indian culture and
  tradition
• His works are informed of the Native Indian
  traditions

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Prof. Momaday lifelong journey

• 1934 born in Lawton, Oklahoma.
• 1935 moved to Arizona
• 1958 graduated from the University of New Mexico
  and taught on the Apache reservation at Jicarilla
• 1963 earned a doctorate and taught at the
  University of California at Santa Barbara
• 1969 moved to the University of California at
  Berkeley
• 1973 left Berkeley for Stanford
• since 1982 taught at the University of Arizona

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Primary works

• House Made of Dawn,1968
• The way to Rainy Mountain,1969
• Angle of Geese and other poems ,1974
• The Gourd Dancer,1976
• The Names a memoir,1976
• The Ancient Child,1989
• In the Presence of the Sun,1992

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• The Indian world is full of aesthetic values,
  art. My father was an artist, a painter, and he
  taught painting to the children at Jemez Pueblo.
  They exhibited all over the world. They became
  famous for their art. He once said to me, You
  know, Scott, I have never known an Indian child
  who couldnt draw. I believe that. I havent
  either. That seems intrinsic somehow. Thats a
  real part of the Indian world, this love of
  symmetry and composition. Its a great thing.
  That has been important to me as well. Indian
  people have a strong sense of humor. Its not
  easily understood by other people, but its there
  and I love that. Thats been a part of my life
  too.
• 
  ------Momaday N. Scott

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General History of North American Indian
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Before the Discovery of the New Land

• The origin of the American Indians
• The general situation of north American Indians
• The nine culture areas of north American Indians

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The origin of American Indians

• Ancestors nomadic hunters of Asian Mongoloid
  over Bering Straight land ice bridge during last
  glacial period(???????144????)

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The general situation of north American Indians

• The approximate population 1millon
• 240 tribal entities
• Over 500 languages

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Contact with European whites

• Spanish policy
• French policy
• English policy

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Nine culture areas of north American Indians

• Subarctic
• Northwest coast
• California
• Western plateau

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US Indian policies

• Removal period(1820-70)
• Assimilation Era(1870-1934)
• The Dawes Act(1887)
• The Indian New Deal of 1930s
• 1950s termination of some reservations
• 1970s self-determination

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Kiowa People

• Briefing
• History
• Current Tribal Issues

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Introduction

• Plains-dwelling Tribe
• Language Family Tanoan-Kiowan
• Name The term Kiowa, meaning the principal
  people is derived from Kaigwa, by which the
  Kiowa were commonly known
• LocationSouthwest Oklahoma
• PopulationApproximately 1,800 in early 1700s
  
• 10,000 today

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History

• Emergence (?1700)
• Evolution (1700-1850s)
• Decline (1850s-1950s)

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Emergence (?1700)

• Western Montana
• Hard Life

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Evolution (17001850s)

• Black Hills
• Horse

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Evolution

• Buffalo
• Vast Territory

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Decline (18501950s)

• Gradual loss of land
• 1835 The Kiowa sign the Treaty of Fort
  Gibson, promising peace with fellow Indian tribes
  and the U.S. government
• 1853 The Kiowa sign the Treaty of Fort
  Atkinson, Promising peace with the U.S
• 1865 The Kiowa agree, under violent protest,
  to settle on a reservation south of the Arkansas
  River.
• 1868 The Kiowa are assigned to a reservation
  in Oklahoma.
• 1901-1906 Kiowa reservation is severed into
  individual allotments

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Decline

• Deprivation of Sun Dance
• Near Extinction of buffalo

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Current Issues

• 1968 Kiowa Tribal Council is formed
• Living standard
• Education
• Culture

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Sun Dance
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Kiowa Sun Dance
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Decision Making

• Tai-me keeper was inspired by a dream
• Messengers were sent out to instruct tribal
  members of the time and place

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Six Days of Preparation

• Tai-me keeper rode throughout the camp to give
  instructions two men were selected to find the
  Y-shaped fork
• Killing of the buffalo
• A mock battle dances performed by the Calf Old
  Woman Society
• Building of the Sun Dance lodge
• Buffalo hunting ceremony

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Four Days of Dancing

• Dancing began at sunset on the sixth day
• Dancers, drummers singers all decorated
• Making offerings to Tai-me Sun Dance ended
• A large social dance ending with the buffalo
  dance

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The Logic of Sun Dance

• The Plains Indians perception of the world
• The dilemma
• Sun Dance as a solution of the conflict between
  viewing the buffalo as wise and powerful, even
  closer to God than humans having to kill and
  eat them to survive
• The sacrifice of dancers is also a way of
  returning something to nature

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The end of Sun Dance

• The government outlawed Sun Dance in 1904
• Reasons
• Sun Dances of certain tribes were too cruel
• Sun Dances reflected a worldview different from
  the whites, so the whites curbed it as a way of
  converting the Plains Indians

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Devils Tower

• Located in the Black Hills near Hulett and
  Sundance in Crook County, northeastern Wyoming,
  above the Belle Fourche River.
• It rises dramatically 1,267 feet (386 m) above
  the surrounding terrain and the summit is
  5,112 feet (1,558 m) above sea level.
• First declared United States National Monument,
  established on Sep 24, 1906, by President
  Theodore Roosevelt.
• The Monument's boundary encloses an area of
  1,347 acres (5.45 km2).
• In recent years about 1 of the Monument's
  400,000 annual visitors climb Devils Tower,
  mostly through traditional techniques.

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Pre-class questions

• 1 How do you understand the title of the lesson?
• 2 Which rhetorical speech is repeatedly used in
  this lesson to achieve the fixed effects?
• 3 How many sections can you divide the lesson
  into?
• 4 Tell the students what difficulties they will
  face in understanding the lesson.
• 5 How does Momday begin his essay? Why does he
  begin this way?
• 6 How is the essay organized? How does the author
  combine the telling of his grandmothers story
  with his exploration of the history of his Kiowa
  ancestors?
• 7 What is the mode of writing of this piece? Is
  it descriptive or narrative? How do the
  descriptions serve the purpose of the writing?
• 8 In several places the author describes the
  landscape in detail. Why is the land so important
  for him in the exploration of his racial and
  tribal heritage?
• 9 How does Momaday end his essay? Why does he end
  it this way/

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Detailed study of the text

• Para. 1
• 1. What is the role of the first paragraph?
• The opening paragraph of the essay is a
  lyrical description of the authors ancestral
  land, which plays a key role in his exploration
  of his Kiowa identity. The land is crucial for
  Momaday because the migration of his people took
  place here. The land is the visible embodiment
  of the tribal history. The old days are gone
  forever. The Kiowa warriors are dead. The culture
  has almost disappeared. What remains is the land
  which is the visible embodiment of their people's
  past. By directly involving himself with the
  landscape of his ancestors, the author is able to
  identify more closely with them and relive their
  experiences in his imagination more vividly.

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• ... and in summer the prairie is an anvil's
  edge.
• (1) In summer the earth of the prairie is
  extremely hot and hard.
• (2) An anvil is an iron or steel block on
  which metal objects are hammered into shape.
• Here the word anvil is used metaphorically.

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• Loneliness is an aspect of the land.
• Loneliness is a major quality of this
  landscape. As we can see, the depiction of the
  land is injected with the author's own emotions
  and imagination, bringing out the spirit of the
  place.
• The author emphasizes loneliness perhaps
  because this quality enables one to concentrate
  one's mind on the earth.

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• All things in the plain.., in the eye...
• "in the eye
• The word eye is used in the singular to mean
  man's power of seeing or observing.
• eg. --to have your eye on something to have
  noticed something
• --- not to see eye to eye to disagree with
  someone
• ---to have a good eye for something to be good
  at noticing and recognizing what is
  attractive, valuable
• ---to my eye in my opinion
• --more than meets the eye more complicated than
  it seems to be at first

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• Para. 2
• Function of Paragraph 2
• The author explains his purpose of his visit
  to Rainy Mountain to be at his grandmother's
  grave.
• This paragraph serves as a transitional
• infirm weak or ill especially because one is
  old

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• Para. 3
• Main idea of Paragraph 3
• This paragraph sums up the history of the
  Kiowas as a Plains Native culture--the golden
  time and the decline in their history.

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• But warfare for the Kiowas... rather than of
  survival...
• (1 Warfare was important for the Kiowas
  more because of their militant tendency than
  because of their need for survival. The Kiowas
  often fought just because they were good
  warriors, because they fought out of habit,
  character, nature, not because they needed extra
  lands or material gains for the sake of surviving
  and thriving.
• (2) preeminently much more important

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Word study disposition

• A particular type of character which makes
  someone more likely to behave or react in a
  certain way temperament an inclination,
  tendency. The word disposition is used to refer
  to the normal or prevailing aspect of one's
  nature.
• eg.
• He had a cheerful disposition.
• He had a disposition to quarrel.

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Word study matter

• a matter a decision, a situation, etc.
• eg.
• a matter of disposition ????,????
• a matter of opinion a question of different
  views
• a matter of life and death an extremely serious
  or dangerous situation that could end in death
• a matter of timeused to say that something will
  definitely happen sooner or later
• a matter of taste depending on your taste, your
  judgment
• a matter of seconds only a few seconds

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Paragraph 4

• main idea
• This paragraph is about how the Kiowas
  migrated from western Montana and how the
  migration transformed the Kiowas. Like Paragraph
  3, this part uses the author's grandmother's
  story as a focal point, but quickly moves on to
  the story of the Kiowa people.
• The use of words like "she belonged to the last
  culture" and "her forebears" smoothes the
  transition.

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• it was a long journey toward dawn.., golden age.
• They moved toward the east, where the sun rises,
  and also toward the beginning of a new culture,
  which led to the greatest moment in their
  history.

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• Not least, they acquired the sense of destiny,
  therefore courage and pride.
• (1) not least last but not least, equally
  important
• (2) destiny fate an inevitable succession of
  events as determined supernaturally or by
  necessity, implying a favorable outcome

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• No longer were they slaves to... priests of the
  sun.
• (1) inversion for emphasis.
• (2) slave a person who is completely dominated
  by some influence, habit, person, etc.
• Note the preposition used with it is "to",
  not "of".
• eg. She doesn't want to be a slave to fashion.
• (3) lordly, (adj.) haughty, like a lord.
• The word "lordly" echoes the word "pride". And it
  is contrasted with the word "slave".
• (4) priests of the sun pious believers of the
  Sun Dance religion

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• From one point of view.., from a sunless world.
• Discussion
• (1) What does the old prophecy refer to?
• (2) What does the sunless world refer to?
• (3) Explain the meaning of the sentence in your
  own words.

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• Para 5
• What is the role of Paragraph 5?
• In this paragraph, the author returns to his
  grandmother again. Since she is the immediate
  reason for him to come to Rainy Mountain, she is
  the link between the author and his ancestors.

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• I wanted to see in reality.., my pilgrimage.
• (1) Note the contrast between "in reality"
  and "in the mind's eye".
• (2) the mind's eye in imagination. Aho had
  never been to places like the Black Hills, but
  she had seen them quite well in imagination,
  for she had heard so much about them from the
  older generations. It is through the oral
  tradition that the Kiowa cultural heritage has
  been handed down from generation to
  generation.

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• (3) pilgrimage a journey made by a pilgrim,
  especially to a shrine or holy place any long
  journey to a place of historical interest. For
  Momaday, the journey is indeed to a holy place, a
  place where his ancestors lived and thrived in
  their golden age.

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Summary Assignments

• 1. Summary of each section
• to make the students aware of the thoughts and
  ideas offered by the author and make the students
  know what we should learn from the lesson.
• 2.Assignments