Kiowa Identity, Personal Identity: Form and Creation in N. Scott Momaday's The Way to Rainy Mountain Anonymous College

N. Scott Momaday’s The Way to Rainy Mountain narrates the creation and history of the Kiowa tribe through three distinct voices, each separated by a different font and position on the page. The fragmented nature of this structure reveals Momaday’s struggle to reconcile the ancestral, historical, and personal facets of his cultural identity. And though this form presents his identity as a tug-of-war between three voices, he unifies them with common themes and images, displaying the transcendental power of language and oral tradition. Thus, The Way to Rainy Mountain not only discusses the creation of the Kiowa tribe in general, but the creation of Momaday’s own identity.

The form in The Way to Rainy Mountain alludes to Momaday’s internal struggle with his cultural identity. Momaday’s life has no overlap with the prime years of the Kiowa tribe, so he relies on two other voices—his father and the voice of history, to get information on the history and legends of his people. Not only does each voice have its own distinctive visual aesthetic, each has its own narrative, even within the same numbered section. In section IV for example, the ancestral voice tells the story of a child kidnapped by the sun and “borne into the sky” (22)....