The Way to Rainy Mountain

by N. Scott Momaday

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How did the Kiowas change after meeting the Crows?

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The Kiowas underwent significant cultural transformation after meeting the Crows. The Crows introduced them to the Plains culture and religion, emphasizing the importance of the sun and the Sun Dance ceremony. They also taught the Kiowas about using horses for transportation and warfare. Symbolically, the Crow represented change, power, and wisdom, influencing Kiowa beliefs and rituals. The Tai-me talisman, linked to the Crow, became central to their sacred Sun Dance ceremony.

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Momaday mentions briefly the relationship between the Kiowas and the Crows in his Introduction. He offers not only a quick lesson in Native American history, but also one of U.S. geography. The Kiowas originated in the area of the Yellowstone River, in western Montana and northern Wyoming, close to the Rocky Mountains. At the end of the 1600s, they began to migrate away from the mountains: first to the east, to the smaller Black Hills of western North Dakota. Here they met and became friendly with the Crows, “who gave them the culture and religion of the Plains,” according to the author. Once you leave the Black Hills, this central part of the continent becomes the Plains, with long stretches of open grassland and few hills.  The Crows were familiar with this land, and they could show the others how to best live on it. The Kiowa-Crow friendship fostered a...

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focus on the importance of the sun and the Sun Dance, as well as on the use of horses for transportation and battle. Later the Kiowas moved south and settled in southwestern Oklahoma in the 1800s, away from the mountains and the hills; and moving always toward the sun.

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How did meeting the Crow change the Kiowas' way of life?

The Crow, both literally and metaphorically, is an instrumental and profound symbol to many Native American nations, including the Kiowa tribe. Crow and its natural color of black are representative of attributes of change, power, and wisdom.

Crows and ravens have distinctive qualities that lend themselves to folklore from around the world, and they are often symbolized as creatures that bring death. To understand how this may relate to the Kiowa people, you must understand how death is interpreted—as change and transcendence—as old thoughts and perspectives can “die,” they give way to new life and new beliefs.

Such as other cultural beliefs, traditional Native American people believe that death is not permanence, and change is embraced. Crows will often be represented as the animal which can fly between two worlds: the present one and the one beyond.

Crow has special significance when it makes an appearance in the creation myth of the Kiowa people. Crow as spirit messenger informs the people about the powers of the sun. A sacred bundle, which can be comprised of objects, herbs, and earth elements, was created to honor the importance of Crow’s teachings of the sun.

The teachings and the bundle evolved into a sacred ceremony, known as the “Sun Dance.” The Sun Dance is the most powerful ritual of the tribes from the plains, including Kiowa. This ritual, though thought to have been outlawed and banned more than one hundred years ago, is still practiced among tribes today on an annual basis and can last several days. The Sun Dance is performed for a variety of reasons: to honor the ancestors, to ask the Creator for guidance, to restore community, to be of service, and to create needed change.

In addition, the Crow nation people are closely tied to the Kiowa nation, which might explain an added significance or the symbolism of Crow and “crow medicine.” As the story goes, in the 1700s, an Arapaho man married into the Kiowa tribe and had been previously been given a talisman from the Crow called “Tai-me.” The Arapaho man subsequently made two other effigies, though through feuding and wars with neighboring Utes and Osages, two were stolen. The last remaining Tai-me was recorded to be kept by a Kiowa woman in the late 1800s. The keeper of Tai-me would officiate the ritual at the beginning of the Sun Dance.

Crow nation and Crow "medicine" are important to the Kiowa, both literally and symbolically.

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