Who is tai me in the way to rainy mountain

According to the Kiowas, the storm spirit understands their language. The Kiowas tell how they try to make a horse out of clay. Now the Kiowas know that a storm is a strange wild animal, called Man-ka-ih, that roams the sky.

Momaday notes that winds are constant on the plains. Part XIV ends with a painting of a dark cloud, in front of which is a creature that is half horse and half fish with lightning coming from its mouth and a long tail curving down.

Many Bears shoots Quoetotai, but he survives. She and Quoetotai roam with the Comanches for fifteen years. Then Many Bears welcomes them back with a gift of horses. Momaday cites the opinion of the artist George Catlin, who commented on the attractive appearance of the Kiowas. Momaday wishes he could have seen the man. The man climbs a tree to escape, but the buffalo knocks down the tree. The same thing happens with a second tree. Up in the third tree, the man shoots all but one of his arrows to no avail.

Then he remembers that a buffalo has a vulnerable spot in the cleft of each hoof. The man aims at that spot and kills the buffalo. Momaday records an event in Carnegie, Oklahoma, in which two old Kiowa men, riding work horses, chase down and kill a tame buffalo. He then recalls walking with his father in Medicine Park, observing a small buffalo herd. They come across a newborn calf and run away from its fearful-looking mother. Part XVI ends with a painting of a buffalo, with zigzag lines on its body and short branching poles above its horns.

In this Kiowa story, a reckless young man goes out hunting, and a whirlwind strikes him blind. The Kiowas leave him behind with his wife and child.

The wife grows tired of caring for him. The man shoots a buffalo, but his wife tells him he missed. Then she takes the meat and runs away with her child. The man survives and gets back to the Kiowa camp. There he finds his wife telling people that an enemy had killed him.

Upon learning the truth, the people send the woman away. Momaday comments on the hard lives of Kiowa women and gives examples of women who were stabbed, stolen, and mistreated.

He says that she raised eyebrows for not playing the part of a typical Kiowa woman. Another Kiowa story tells of a group of young men who decide to follow the sun to its home. They ride south for many days. One night they camp in a great thicket. One of them sees small men with tails, darting from tree to tree. The other men laugh at the story, but then they, too, see the strange creatures.

The Kiowas then decide to return to their homeland. Momaday cites a scholar, Mooney, on how the horse transformed the Indian into a daring buffalo hunter. The Kiowas tell the story of two brothers. The Utes first capture one of the brothers and then seize the other brother during his rescue mission.

The Ute chief offers the second brother freedom if he can carry the first brother over a path of greased buffalo heads. The brother, a Kiowa hero, accomplishes the task, and the two brothers return to their own people. Mooney tells how, in summer , the Kiowas had to eat their ponies because the buffalo were gone. A painting shows a row of four buffalo skulls. Another Kiowa story tells of a man whose fine black horse always runs fast and in a straight line. But during one charge, the man knows fear and turns his horse aside, and soon after, the horse dies of shame.

Momaday tells how, in , a horse was left as an offering to Tai-me and how an old man, Gaapiatan, sacrificed a horse, hoping to spare his family from smallpox. Momaday reveals that he identifies with Gaapiatan and the choice he made. The Kiowa tell how Mammedaty, grandson of Guipahgo, was driving a team and wagon on the way to Rainy Mountain.

Mammedaty hears a whistle and sees a little boy in the grass. He gets down from the wagon and looks around but finds nothing. Momaday describes an actual photograph of Mammedaty, who has long braids, wears traditional clothing, and holds a peyote fan.

He then adds more information about four remarkable things seen by Mammedaty—proof that Mammedaty had powerful medicine. Part XXI ends with a painting of a birdlike creature. Another story about Mammedaty tells how he loses his temper. He gets angry at some horses that refuse to leave their fenced-in area and walk out the gate. In his anger, he shoots at the horse that is causing trouble.

He misses and hits the second horse in the neck. Momaday notes an event from the winter of —53, when a Pawnee boy held captive by the Kiowas stole one of their finest horses.

He then recalls how Mammedaty kept the bones of Little Red, one of his favorite horses, but then later, someone stole the bones.

Exam Copy. Rights Info. Scott Momaday. It is also a volume that those interested in western American literature, Native American oral tradition, and poetically charges prose can linger over with pleasure. Also of Interest. In the Presence of the Sun Stories and Poems, The Kiowas also tell of two brothers who are captured by the Utes.

The Ute chief offers freedom if one brother can carry the other over a path of greased buffalo heads. The Kiowa hero accomplishes the task. The elders also tell how a great horse dies of shame after its hunter shows fear. The Kiowas recite stories about Mammedaty, the grandson of Guipahgo. Mammedaty has visions, such as his vision of a child in the grass. He also has a bad temper—he shoots a horse in anger. She tells of the time the Tai-me bundle fell to the floor with a great noise.

Momaday, the author, adds the tale of a beautifully dressed woman buried somewhere near the house of Mammedaty, his grandfather. He explains that the name Kiowa contains the meaning of two different halves.

He also records key events in the decline and destruction of the Kiowas and their culture. Momaday also adds comments in his own voice after each Kiowa story and historical comment. He describes the land and its living things—wildflowers, insects, and spiders—in intimate detail and records how places make him feel. He shares a final oral memory from Ko-sahn, a one-hundred-year-old woman. Ko-sahn remembers how, in her childhood, she helped get the lodge ready for the Sun Dance, how an old woman sprinkled special earth on the lodge floor, and how beautiful it was to watch the Sun Dance, which was all for Tai-me.

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