The Way to Rainy Mountain continued

What appear to be Momaday's purposes for writing Rainy Mountain?

I think Momaday's purpose for writing Rainy Mountain is to show that sometimes myths and legends have more depth to them than what people give them credit for. The way Momaday tells a myth and then backs the myth with a little bit of history along with some personal experience lets me know that, hey, myths come from somewhere and have a purpose. They teach lessons and have a little bit of historical truth to them.

How would you describe Momaday's concepts of history and mythand their interrelationship?

Like I stated above, I believe that myths and history go hand in hand. Myths give a little look into the background of the past and they try to explain events that couldn't be reasonably explained at the time. You can learn from history and you can learn from myths.

A Man Made of Words

In the video A Man Made of Words, N. Scott Momaday talks about Devils Tower in Wyoming, which is sacred to the Kiowa people. I have recently been there for the first time and it truly is an amazing sight.

It is said that the Kiowas became plains people after living around Yellowstone and the Rockies. They migrated across the plains through Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and ended their migration in Oklahoma near Rainy Mountain, which was the hub of their civilization, where they fought and later allied with the Comanche's.

Momaday goes on to talk about being brought to Devils Tower as an infant for a week by his parents and how when they returned from to Rainy Mountain an man named Old Wolf came to visit. Old Wolf sat and told Momaday the stories of their people, both the good and the bad, and gave Momaday the name of Tsoai-talee which means Rock Tree Boy to commemorate his trip to Devils Tower.

The poem Momaday wrote about his name is called The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee and can be read here. He starts every line with "I am..." and it gives a sense of how his name, given to him by Old Wolf, helps him relate to the earth and everything that goes on around him. I can feel the pride he has for his people and his name coming from the words he wrote down. Momaday obviously loves his people and the history that follows them.

The Way to Rainy Mountain

N. Scott Momaday starts the book out by talking about his grandma and what she had lived through. I had to look up how old Momaday was in order to get a better understanding of about how old his grandmother was and teh years she might have lived through. Looking at the history of the United States in the 1880's through 1900 there was a lot of adversity against the races living here. Native American resistance to the changes were being quelled by the United States Army and men like Geronimo and Sitting Bull were still alive. To be alive and to witness the ending of a way of life that had been going on for centuries must have been terrible.

The end of ceremony

How does Tayo’s status as a half-breed influence his choices, his thinking, and the way he is perceived by other characters in the novel? 

Being a half breed certainly brings hardships on Tayo In his childhood. He was seen as an outsider on the reservation by his family and his peers. His aunt sees him as an unwanted burden and a shame to the family. She treats him different than Rocky and kept things like toys and extra food away from him. 

What tensions and conflicts does his mixed ancestry contribute to Silko’s story?

Tayos mixed ancestry makes it so he is not really connected with the Indians or the white people. He became an outsider looking in and because of that he had a different perspective on what was going on around him. 

Ceremony

Tayo went on a journey to go find the cattle that have "run away". He goes by himself and on his way he thinks about the past, the war, his family and the white man. Tayo comes to the realization that he didn't believe that white men would be thieves and his first thought when he was trying to find his cattle was that some Mexican or Indian had stolen them and traded them to white people. Deep down he knows that white people are just as thieving and deceitful as everyone else, maybe even more so. White people came and took the land from the Indians and devoured their land and took the minerals from the earth.

I think it's interesting to have a differing perspective on Western education and practices. Tayo was raised going to a white school where science and math was taught and believing that white people where kind of superior in intellect and practices and then he realizes that white people were no different than everyone else. White people cheated and took advantage of things when they could just like everyone else and Tayo was just now realizing it.

Ceremony follows the same style of writing as Love Medicine as in the chapters kind of jump around. I don't know if it's a Native American style of story telling or coincidence. The jumping to the past and then again to the present took me a couple chapters to get used to but I caught on quite quick and the story flows pretty well in my head.

Leslie did a really good job of letting us get to know Tayo. The war has made a mess of Tayo's head and he keeps reflecting back on the past and sorting through what has happened to him and that has given him a lot of depth as a character. Tayo was an outsider to his peers because his dad was white and that caused distance between, not only the other Natives on the reservation but to his guardian aunt. Tayo's cousin, Rocky, had been his only support for the majority of his life was killed in Japan during World War II and it happened right next to Tayo. Needless to say in addition to Tayo's PTSD he feels responsible for his "brother"s death but is isolated from those around him.

Ceremony

Reading Ceremony, the first couple of pages didn't really interest me. Had I not had to read it for class I would have put it down and I would have missed out on a really interesting book. The story follows Tayo, a veteran of World War II and his dealing with PTSD. He's made reference a couple times so far about being "White Smoke" or being invisible. Things are kind of passing him by as he deals with what happened in the pacific and his dead comrade Rocky. Tayo feels like he is the cause of Rockys death and also the drought where he lives. PTSD has messed with his head and fragmented the realities of what happened and then mixed in some hallucinations on top of that. I know people who have suffered from PTSD from being in the Iraq/Afghanistan war and due to their experiences in combat or from IED's the events can really mess with their heads and it takes some time and therapy to get their minds "unstuck" from it.

The End of Love Medicine

I just finished Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, It was an interesting book to say the least. The whole way through the book I wanted there to be some sort of happy ending or closure and what I got was disappointing. Leading up to the last chapter a number of characters died and not in pretty ways. Gordie died from poisoning, Henry drowns and Nector chokes on a heart. I wasn't looking for abrupt terrible deaths at the end of the book. The last chapters ended with positive notes, bonds were made and the book settles down. I wouldn't call the positive notes very high, Love Medicine has kind of a mellow ending, like nothing happened but everything happened, people died bur life goes on kind of thing, all of that was in the past. Overall, I don't think I will read Love Medicine again, it was just okay. Between being confusing at times and no real progress with the characters, not saying there wasn't development just it seemed no one amounted to anything or overcame a great obstacle, Love Medicine will stay on my bookshelf for a long time after this.