Having recently moved to Mohave County in Arizona (not far from the Colorado River), I was interested in reading "Crazy Weather" to get a little of the "flavor" of the area, and to learn something about the Mojave Indian culture as well. The book lived up to my hopes in both of those respects, but what surprised me was how absorbed I became in the story itself. On one level, it's a simple adventure story involving South Boy (who's actually white but was partially raised by Mojaves and was given that name by them) and his best friend Havec (a Mojave) as they travel up the Colorado River into Piute territory --- and in some places it almost reminded me of Huck Finn travelling along the Mississippi with the runaway slave, Jim, and meeting an assortment of characters along the way. On another level, though, it's really about the challenges of truly understanding another culture and way of thinking --- and in the end the pull of their respective societies is too strong and the two friends inevitably have to part and follow their separate destinies.

The author seems quite knowledgable about Mojave culture and history, as I've confirmed from subsequent readings on the subject. If you're interested in the American Southwest, the Colorado River, native American cultures, or just a good story, I think you'll enjoy this book.

McNichols crisp writing, detailed knowledge of Mojave Indian and Colorado Desert ranching, and realistic plot make this a genuinely timeless work., My tattered copy was given to me 45 years ago by the writer Madge Harrah. Every half decade or so I dig it out and read it again. It taught me to write and, in a way, was a model for my North Of Nowhere. Bravo Charles!

South Boy goes with his friend Havek on a Mojave name-quest. It sounds simple -- but under the surface is a breath-taking wealth of experience, mythology and understanding of the many personalities in one person, or one horse, or one culture. Every sentence of this book is laden with knowledge of its time and place. Even the mention of the "little yellow catfish," about which no more is said than that they "make good eating," reflects the fact that in this period the US Government seeded the Colorado river with the Yellow Catfish, a transplant from Texas. This is the key to the book -- that everything is in flux, as two cultures melt together, and new ways try to live with old ways. The ending seems to be a conclusion -- until you realize that it's only one more step to escape from final decisions. The book begins a long way before the first sentence -- and would finish a long way after the last. Dreams and visions reverberate through the telling, and Great Things are done.

This book presents Momaday's work--new and old--concerned with Bear and the idea of wilderness. It offers poetry, drama, and painting all centered on Bear as a representation of the wilderness. Momaday's idea of the wilderness reflects neither the central strand in American life that comes down from the Puritans, nor the preservationist ideology of urban-bound environmentalists, but his writing critically reflects upon both these traditions. Momaday finds Bear, and hence the wilderness, in a conversation between God and the original bear while eating huckleberries, on a train in Moscow, in the drawing for a bronze statue, and many other such places. Throughout this book, the author's life-long concern for the life of the imagination as our best existence (as he has often said) shows forth. This book is an excellent introduction to the work of a great American writer, as well as a beautiful addition to any collection already well-stocked with Momaday's work.

I taught this book as the first in a sequence of five books in a course on Native American poetry. The students loved it. Some of our discussions of the paintings were among the best my classes have had.

Brilliant, moving, insightful, memorable. Momaday is a treasure, and this is his best yet.

This book features superb photography of the historic Catholic missions built in the southwest states and California. The beautiful photographs, many of them full-page, are of exterior and interior views of the missions, as well as closeups of architectural and artistic details. A short written history accompanies each featured mission, and although there are some mentions of the historical personages and events connected with the missions, most of the histories refer to the physical aspects of the missions such as their construction, remodeling, etc. This is a great coffee-table or armchair traveler book, but one will need to look elsewhere for a serious study about mission history.

I purchased this book after a recent visit to the Santuario de Chimayo near Taos, New Mexico, which is one of the churches it features. The photos are absolutely gorgeous and provide an excellent feel for the incredible beauty of these wonderful, historical buildings. The book covers everything from each church's unique architecture to the fascinating folk art that can be found within.

N. Scott Momaday is the most intelligent, thought-provoking, and beautiful writer of this century. I went to a reading at Emory University in Atlanta, GA a few weeks before this book was published throughout the country. The book mixes the beauty of language with the complexity of the human experience with the spirit of the Bear-- breathing heavily, seductively down the neck of the reader. This book, novel, essay collection: is essential for anyone who understands or who longs to understand the living, breathing entity that is language-- and that language which constitutes our own nature and being.

The works of Edward S. Curtis are monumental and beautiful. This book reproduces them with stunning clarity capturing the luminescence of his orotones remarkably well. The text serves to convey the rich meaning behind the photographs. For anyone interested in photography, art, or the story of the Native Americans, this is a treasure not to be missed.

the book was great in detail and very touching.

N. Scott Momaday's beautifully written memoir of childhood in Jemez Pueblo, NM is geographically as well as chronologically defined, incorporating "the empty spaces of time in the morning and afternoon," the wide blue New Mexico sky, and the undeveloped high desert into the narrative as Momaday searches the landscape of his memory for the key word or image, _the name_ for things, that will retrieve the entirety of his history. Retrieval of this complex history, of emotion and memory, "the vibrant ecstasy of so much being," is almost possible. "Again and again, I have come to that awful edge, that one word, perhaps, that I cannot bring from my mouth."

_The Names_ is moving in its description of the ceremonies of Jemez Pueblo and the stories of Momaday's family. The author writes sometimes in a child's voice and sometimes in his grandfather's or the voices of others around him. It is clearly a child's story, saturated with a child's sense of wonder. But Momaday also provides an account of the process of attempted recovery, the descent into storytelling: "The first word gives origin to the second, the first and second to the third, . . . and so on. You cannot begin with the second word and tell the story, for the telling of the story is a cumulative process, a chain of becoming, at last of being."

Momaday's exploration of language's structure and limitations makes much of the book beautiful to me, but gets weighted down in intellectualization from time to time. Scott Momaday is a scholar -- he went to Stanford -- and the analytical aspect of _The Names_ can be a bit dry at times. It is, on the whole though, a sensitive and moving exploration of a Native American childhood and one of my favorite male autobiographies.

That's how I think of this book - a photo album of old family photos with one long letter (or, perhaps it would be better described as a series of short notes written by someone trying to remember what they'd seen, heard, imagines, or discovered). It's a fun book to read straight through, or to flip around in, going back and forth through the photos and reading about the person whose face or photo catches your eye . For info on articles & stuff written about this book visit: http://users.mwci.net/~lapoz/Momaday.html

I enjoyed the book. I especially like the way Momaday wrote the book as if it had been written by three people. Not only did I learn about Momaday's journey to Rainy Mountain, but I also learned about Kiowa myths and legends. It showed the last years of the Kiowas as a people. The book was simple to read, although when thought about, I realized it was more complex. I would reccommend this book to people who like to learn about cultures and their myths.

THE WAY TO RAINY MOUNTAIN is a fscinating account of the Kiowa spirit's core through the poet N Scott Momaday's three voices: the collective tribal story-telling voice, the historic voice (based on historical documentation), and the poet's own experiential voice (Momaday retraced the migratory route of his ancestors from Montana to Oklahoma). These three voices work on the reader's imagination to produce a fourth voice on the stage of the reader's mind. THE WAY TO RAINY MOUNTAIN depicts an epic journey of the Kiowa people through space (Montana southward) and time (mythological to modern). The ancient Kiowa's psyche fuses with primal nature be it with dog persons, antelope beings, or the mythological (but very real) creature called Taime.Once in Oklahoma the Kiowa mastered the horse and became among the best of hunters on the Great Plains. Brave in spirit, sharing in heart, they became a proud people. But European civilization closed in and all but crushed them by killing off the buffalo, killing herds of horses and turning hunters into farmers. Yet the Kiowa people held their vital contact with the land in today's hectic world: "Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth, I believe," writes Momaday. "He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it. He ought to imagine that he touches it with his hands at every season and listens to the sounds that are made upon it." Momaday helps the reader do just that--gain an appreciation for the multi-dimensional land of North America

The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday; illustrated by Al Momaday. Highly recommended.

Rainy Mountain, a "single knoll [that] rises out of the plain in Oklahoma," is an old landmark for the Kiowa people. It is a land of bitter cold, searing heat, summer drought, and "great green and yellow grasshoppers." It is a land of loneliness, where the Kiowa were drawn after a long journey from the northwest through many types of lands.

The Way to Rainy Mountain is about the journey-in myth, in drawings by Momaday's father Al, in reminiscences, and in historical snippets. All reveal aspects of Kiowa culture, life, philosophy, outlook, spirituality, and sense of self-the beauty and the desolation, how the introduction of the horse revolutionized Kiowa life, the story of Tai-me, and the richness of the word and the past. It is a literal journey as well; Momaday, in Yellowstone, writes, "The Kiowas reckoned their stature by the distance they could see, and they were bent and blind in the wilderness."

This is a small gem of a book, beautifully written, illustrated, and designed. It has moments of insight, beauty, and sadness, as the ending of the Sun Dance, telling as the sun is at the heart of the Kiowa's soul-a soul that survives in every word and drawing of The Way to Rainy Mountain.

Diane L. Schirf, 3 March 2002.

This book is a fascinating way to help children connect with the natural world while teaching important environmental concepts. It comes with a guide to use the book effectively, and is divided into sections of special topics. Each section contains a Native American story, discussion ideas, interesting questions, and related indoor and outdoor activities. These activities can be accomplished without expensive materials, often in or near the home or school. Oh, by the way, adults will learn from this book also!

I am a homeschooling mom and I bought this book to use with my kindergartener. This is an amazing book that combines social studies and science wonderfully. It contains alot about american indian beliefs and practices, distinguishing between the many tribal groups and traditions instead of lumping them all into one large culture. It uses indian legends as a jumping off point to study the environment, how it affects us and how we affect it.

While it is somewhat interesting to read a novel in which dreams and reality meld together, I found *this* novel to be vastly uninteresting. The main characters don't hold my attention at all. The storytelling is poor since the issues and themes are buried under a haphazard narration. My suggestion: don't invest time or money in this book.

Momaday, as you probably know, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for his first novel, "House Made of Dawn." In that book, the hero, torn between the Native American world and modern America, and deeply affected by his Vietnam war experiences, finally disintegrates, unable to continue fighting the forces trying to destroy him.

Twenty years later, Momaday published his second book, "The Ancient Child," and it's just as powerful, just as beautifully written, as his first.

The premise is similar to the first book. A man is torn between two worlds, tormented by nightmares, and finds himself drawn to the desert. He finds his destiny, and it too is disintegration. But whereas the disintegration in "House Made of Dawn" is a violent, tragic event, in "The Ancient Child" it comes across as a process of spiritual resolution and healing, rather than destruction.

That's why I regard this book as superior to its Prize-winning predecessor. Momaday's vision seems more holistic, more encompassing in this book. His first novel's tragic vision leaves you haunted and a little horrified. This book will leave you equally haunted, not in horror, but in quiet awe of the inevitable metaphysical reckoning we all must undergo when we leave this world, and the paths we take to get there.

Read it.

His mind is the atelier. The depicted soul of the young woman, Grey, Koi-ehm-toya, was hauntingly perfect. Entwined with notoriety, she grew to an assured love, preserving the heart of a Kiowa man, Loki. Man or mythological God? Distant, the sublime power draws into the solar plexis of humanity, and remains. As if two souls, autoecious azygos, encompassed all characters; Kope'mah, the grandmother earth, 'anomalous cohesion and disintegration of form...motion...color at once.' 'A timeless rejoicing entered into their veins...', (pg35), Grey the elements within, water and root, '"You are Set-angya, the chief of dog soldiers...best of warriors, of battles...enemies."', (pg258), 'Here are weeds about his mouth...', (pg234), the elements above earth, air and fire, introspection and preparation create a watercolor backdrop. Grey, '...a question of control, coordination, mastery: how to bring her body and the body of the horse into concert...', (pg185), eradicated, effectively, Billy the Kid, from the vines of youth, and those who harmed her bodily nature; with hoyden grace. J. Jaederland (shack@concentric.net)

Gorgeous writing about the mystical Indian culture and the personal tragedies that concurred with that culture's demise at the hands of the White Man -- authentic, serene, spiritual and heartbreaking. It's the story of Abel, raised in the old Indian culture by his grandfather and swallowed up by the "white man's" culture as an adult.

While it's beautifully written, this is a very hard book to follow. Momaday moves through time freely and the reader is constantly lost as to where he is and who his characters are and what any of them have to do with each other. He's constantly switching, with nothing more than a paragraph break, from myths and dreams and the present and the past and previously unknown characters that he picks up on mid-stream. There is very little background to the story until the very last chapter, and so if you've stuck it out til then you're rewarded. It all makes much more sense in the end. This is a book that merits two readings -- the first for the experience of its spirituality, the second to fill in the blanks of the story. It's only 200 pages but it took me four days to get through it - it slows you down when you're constantly back tracking trying to figure out what you've missed only to find that you haven't really missed anything - at least not anything that you know of yet. It's written very surreally and it gets a bit frustrating to tell the truth. There is alot to give Momaday credit for here though. It was an interesting experience but not one that would make me go and seek out everything else he's written.

The House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday is a well written novel that takes you on a journey through the eyes of a young Native American named Abel who is struggling with drug and alcohol problems, and issues with relationships.
The fashion in which the novel is written is very unique and powerful. The narration switches back and forth between several characters throughout the novel. This is very effective in catching the reader's attention and holding onto it tightly the duration of the novel. Although this is a successful way of writing, it can also put a limit on the number of readers that can understand and enjoy the true value of the novel. With the constant narration changes, the can be difficult to comprehend and the follow. The average reader may have trouble with this book.
The plot is interesting and also fairly diverse. As the novel goes on the plot thickens and the main character is involved in several relationships and altercations. Each individual happening that the main character experiences has purpose and ties in to a complex meaning to the characters struggles and life. This too can also be a weakness in the writing, because once again it may be hard for the average reader to keep up with the plot. The author does not paint the whole picture for the reader; he describes the facts and leaves the reader to interpret the rest. The reader has to think the put together the whole plot and ideas behind the story.
The setting has a huge impact on the novel and really almost becomes its' own character in the story. Throughout the book it becomes more and more descriptive and plays a large role in the plot; it really is crucial. The author paints such a vivid picture starting off on the first page, in the first paragraph; it almost feels like you are there in Walatowa with Abel seeing the sights, hearing the sounds, and smelling the smells.
The House Made of Dawn is strongly written and although it limits what kind of reader can read the book and really understand and enjoy it, the words are very powerful and have a lot of meaning. The novel effectively illustrates problems that Native Americans struggle with, and issues that they deal with to this day.

Momaday's first of two novels (so far!) shows any aspiring writer what to aim for. From his opening page to the last, we are treated with an amalgamation of myth, landscape, character and plot, clearly showing how 'author as mythmaker' can be accomplished without being ovedone. I have read this book several times and cannot get over how the land becomes more than setting; it becomes character. The intimate relationship that Momaday has with the southwest is obvious here, and should be a lesson to others who dare write about such sacred places in more superficial ways. Momaday is one of the countries leading writers, the first American Indian to win the Pulitzer prize, and a brilliant scholar. Anyone who has difficulty reading this book, as stated in other reviews here, clearly needs to reassess what one wants from literary fiction. This is not beach literature; he wants you to think and learn, besides understand. His novel structure is fantastic and asks the reader to go back, reread and comprehend. His descriptions of landscapes alone are worthy of many readings of this terrific novel.