The Way to Rainy Mountain

Story I. The ancestral voice tells how the Kiowas came into the world through a hollow log and took the name Kwuda, meaning “coming out” (16). The tribe is small in number because not all of them escaped the log. A pregnant woman got stuck inside, trapping those behind her. The historical voice traces how the name evolved from Kwuda and Tepda to Gaigwu, for the uneven appearance of Kiowa warriors’ hair, cut short in line with the ear lobe on the right side of the head, and then to Kiowa from a Comanche form of Gaigwu. Momaday closes with a personal reflection of “coming out” on the plains and experiencing a sense of revelation (17).

Story II. The ancestral voice shares one of the “oldest memories of the tribe” (19) of how a quarrel over the udders of an antelope caused a schism in the tribe, with one discontented group traveling off never to be seen again. The historical voice corroborates the memory with reports of a similar language to Kiowa spoken in the Northwest. It also recalls an antelope drive in the winter of 1848-1849 when Kiowas used an ancient method to respond to hunger—encircling and killing game on the plain.